A Bed-Crapping for the Ages

I spent Sunday and Monday in various stages of agony over my performance in Week 4. Not just my picks, but my fantasy team. The wings have come off my fantasy jumbo-jet and it's in full-blown nose-dive. I stink. I laughed out loud when reviewing my two posts about my picks for week 4. This stuff is genuinely guffaw-worthy:

-I had Miami over Oakland 16-13. I made quite a case for Oakland, citing their superior special-teams play and the fact that they've been tough in several games and ought to have a better record, then I bitched out and picked Miami. I was afraid of home-field advantage, and I had something to prove by sticking with my early prediction. What a friggin' asshole. Miami is a terrible team, and I think there's a chance that Cam Cameron's persistent recruiting of Trent Green could very well cost him his job. That and the fact that he's a shit coach.

-"There's almost no reason to pick the Bills over the Jets"; "I expect Thomas Jones to have another big game"; "I picked the Jets by 18 points, and I still think it’d take a great effort from the Bills to make it any closer." Those are classic lines! The Jets in a blowout! Holy friggin' shit.

-I picked Houston by a touchdown, but I had the sense to note that I thought it was one of the harder games to call this weekend. Atlanta got it done, and frankly, Joey Harrington is the reason. They still aren't running the ball real well, and their defense wasn't spectacular, but Joey was. He had another great game. I, on the other hand, was careful to say "He'll probably shit blood in this one. It's too much to ask for him to have two good games in a row." Don't go shoving him on your fantasy roster just yet.

-I picked the Bears, and I was unsure about it from the beginning. Why did I pick the Bears? Damn it. I'm living in the past here. And by "the past", I mean "last season" of course. The NFC sucks so bad, there's no knowing why a team will succeed or fail, if you're a fucking moron like me.

-I picked the Ravens by how many points? 25 points! Holy shit! "How the hell will the Browns have 3 scoring drives?" Maybe by being a lot more talented than the Ravens. The time has come to retire the bullshit-ass playoff teams from last year, which is turning out to be the fluke season of all NFL seasons. The Ravens are old, slow, busted-down predictable crap. The Bears are young, slow, busted-down predictable crap. The Rams are full-blown shit, and they're older than people realize. The Chargers don't have a head coach or a defensive coordinator. Yeah, I know about Norv and Ted, but those guys don't count. The Bengals have no defense and Marvin Lewis is a moron (more on that later). The Jets have no talent on offense except Leon Washington, and he's some kind of mighty-dwarf or something. The Saints have an over-hyped turd at quarterback and no defense. How did so many horrid teams make the playoffs last year?

-I had homefield advantage pushing the Panthers over the Bucs. Man does David Carr stink. I knew he was a burger back when he was drafted, but I think it's official now. In other news, Dan Dierdorf is quickly climbing the ranks of worst color commentator in sports broadcasting.

-Oh man, I picked the Chargers. My friggin' brother "ha[d] a feeling" that the Chiefs would pull it off. I think I was so upset at the prospect of Herm Edwards and the bullshit Chiefs being at .500, of the possibility that Tom Coughlin would also get to .500, of the possibility that fans in both cities would actually praise these guys, that someone out there would dare to utter the word playoffs when discussing these teams that I rejected the idea outright. Once again, I'm ashamed and embarrassed that I dared to pick a Norv Turner team. That's it, I'm not picking them again until they are at .500. Also, did anybody see Norv Turner's press conference after the game? He looks like he's right on the edge right now. For another head coach, being right on the edge might mean bludgeoning someone to death; for Norv it means he might shit his pants, or dive off a building, or some other wussy thing. A. J. Smith is the real turd in San Diego, it's time for him to go.

-I picked the Steelers. I guess I'm not too embarrassed by that one, except that it's another road team that I expected to win and there were plenty of signs pointing to a competitive game. I'm sick of the rotating quarterbacks in Arizona. I actually had a second, while watching that game, where I considered that rotating quarterbacks might just be a revolutionary way of thinking, maybe Ken Wisenhunt is an innovative genius, maybe this is the future of the NFL. I still think quarterback is too much of a rhythm position, too much of it depends on confidence and consistency, so I don't think a rotating quarterback set-up is sustainable. We'll see.

-The Eagles really let me down. They had absolutely no answer for the blitz packages the Giants threw at them, which pretty much consisted of an all-out kitchen sink on every play. That was before Coughlin realized that Osi Umenyiora was eating Winston Justice for dinner and leftover breakfast Monday morning, and decided he could back off. Andy Reid never adjusted. He abandoned the run (which was working) and continued to try to push the ball down the field (which was not). I don't know, maybe it's too obvious, but it seems to me that when Antonio Pierce has come straight up the gut 4 or 5 times in the first quarter and disrupted McNabb in the pocket, maybe you try a swing pass to the back or even a quick pitch out. I think the idea was to try to get in McNabb's face and force him to run, and by shooting right up the middle, they took away the screen. That's good defense, but the Eagles never adjusted! That's what I'm talking about with the NFC East. No adjustments are ever made. Momentum seems to swing so quickly and so entirely in the NFC East that the team that catches it never has to look back. The very least Reid should have done was shift a little extra help to Justice's side, but instead he let his young reserve lineman eat shit in historic fashion. I said the Eagles were in trouble without Westbrook, but that was the least of their troubles.

I have a few other observations from a very ugly weekend for the NFL.

What the hell is wrong with coaching in the NFL? I'm more convinced than ever that the only difference between a good NFL team and a great NFL team, or a piece of shit NFL team, is coaching. Here are a few supporting cases:
-Why did the Vikings abandon the run? They were in the game and Adrian Peterson was going wild! Too bad he only carried the ball 14 times. Why was Chester Taylor on the field for 40 plays, to only 24 for Adrian Peterson? Why does Brad Childress insist that his Vikings team is a passing team? It's one thing to neglect to play to your strengths, it's another thing entirely to play to your specific weakness!
-Why did the Chargers abandon the run? Ladainian Tomlinson went OFF in the first half against the Chiefs, so San Diego made the logical decision to only hand him the ball 6 times in the second half. They were leading by 10 points at halftime and lost by 14 to a TERRIBLE Chiefs team. Once again, LT only had 20 carries in this game, and he has YET to carry the ball 25 times in any game this year. My God, Norv really is this bad.
-Why didn't the Jets ever try to run the ball against the lowly Bills? The Bills had the worst defense in the NFL coming into the game, but the Jets only ran the ball 19 times! They were in the game most of the way! The coaches and players issued a line of bullshit that they had to go away from the run because they had a lot of 3rd and long plays because of penalties, but how many 3rd and longs would it take to account for Pennington throwing the ball 39 times? I demand that Eric Mangini hand over the "Man-Genius" nickname immediately.
-Why in the hell did the Bengals get flagged for too many men on the field on the first play of the 4th quarter? I can't believe that actually happened! Seriously, your team is not smart, not disciplined, not sharp, and not going to win many games if NO ONE bothered to make sure the right personnel were on the field during the 5 minutes you had to set your defense between quarters. The Bengals were penalized 8 times for 65 yards, all in the second half. Way to get your guys prepared at halftime. Three of those penalties were inexcusably stupid, including a chop-block by Kenny Watson, a 15 yard personal foul, and the dreadful 12 men on the field. I've always been a Marvin Lewis fan, but his Bengals team is in big trouble.
-Where was Andy Reid on Sunday? As I mentioned above, he completely bailed on the running game. That's vintage Andy Reid. But he also never adjusted to the up-the-shoot blitz he was getting from the Giants throughout the whole game, and he never EVER sent any help to Winston Justice, who was making his first start and getting destroyed. Even a chip block from a back or a good-old-fashioned double-team. Way to hang your young guy out to dry.

On the other hand, there were a couple of teams that were just plain let down by the poor play of the guys in helmets. Houston had a few chances to stay in that game, but Ron Dayne fumbling at the 3 yard line and Kris Brown shanking what was essentially an extra point did them in. They played tough, and Kubiak had them in position to compete. What can you say about Carolina? They had to put the ball in the hands of David Carr, and he just stinks. The 49ers were forced to go to Trent Dilfer, and he couldn't get it done. Nolan definitely could have found a way to get the ball to Frank Gore a few more times, if he gives a shit AT ALL about my fantasy squad, but it's hard to make that point when Gore fumbled twice in the game. Chris McAlister crapped the bed early for the Ravens, trying and failing as a psychic when he jumped an in route on what was never anything but a go by Braylon Edwards, and the Ravens are just not very good. St. Louis . . .well, let's just not discuss them. Chicago played tough all game, but Griese threw three picks and Cedric Benson never got it going, so the Bears' defense was against the wall all game long.

On the other hand, I'd like to congratulate Lane Kiffin for another fantastic coaching job on Sunday. Knowing his team was starting a different QB, knowing it was likely to be a low-scoring effort from the Dolphins, and knowing what the strength of his team is, Kiffin elected to run the ball 49 times for 299 yards and only throw 12 passes. After Lamont Jordan went down with a back injury, what did Kiffin do? He handed it to Justin Fargas, his 3rd string running back, 22 times for 179 yards. His QB ran the ball five times. Even the fullback carried the ball 7 times. That's good coaching. I can't believe I'm rooting for Oakland, but damn it, I am. That's how you win games. Coach to the strengths of your personnel.

On the opposite end of the run/pass spectrum, the Packers have no running game at all, and I think it takes huge balls to say "screw it" and not pretend. They can't run it so they won't try. I like the running game, but more than anything I love a coach who schemes for the players he has. Another reason why Mike McCarthy is a great head coach. The Packers threw the ball 45 times to only 20 rushes, and they did it because they have good receivers, a great quarterback, and no running game. McCarthy is using a quick-hit passing attack and a lot of spread formations because he's smart enough to know that he has to protect his quarterback even without running the ball.

I feel like I'd like to hybernate through the next 6 weeks of the NFL season, and wake up when things have started to sort themselves out and the league is taking shape. Right now, it seems like only the Colts, Patriots, and Cowboys are playing as expected, and everyone else is a crapshoot. I'm now rooting for the Packers, and not because I'm one of these Brett Favre fellators, but because I just want a couple of teams to consistently play well and win games that they should win. Weekends like this just depress me. I like parity, but I also like quality football with good teams who consistently perform and have identities, and I think the league is pretty short on that right now.

J. P. Losman might be cooked in Buffalo. I really like the kid, but Trent Edwards played really well, and if Losman gets the job back, he'll hear "Trent! Trent!" every time he screws up for the rest of his time there.

As much as I crapped on Cincy, I still think they could be a force in the AFC. Looking at their schedule, I see 8 games they should win, and not a single one they can't win. They have home games against the Jets, St. Louis, Arizona, and a rematch with Cleveland, and road games against Kansas City, Buffalo, San Francisco, and Miami. They have a series with the Steelers, which could go any way, and a rematch with the Ravens in Baltimore. They ought to win their next two (at Kansas City after the bye and vs. the Jets) and their final four (vs. the Rams, at San Francisco, vs. the Browns, and at Miami). I'm basing all of this on the fact that, though they got pounded and have no defense, they still look so dangerous on offense. Carson Palmer is so good in the pocket and makes beautiful, tough throws look easy, Hoash-Mazode and Ocho Cinco are outstanding and they get Chris Henry back after the bye, and Rudi should be healthy starting week 6. Kenny Watson didn't even look that bad against the Pats. They just have too many super-competitive types and are too explosive to lay down. Palmer even looked really good last night, in spite of his two picks. As Kornheiser put it, even on a bad night, he's only two passes away from a touchdown at pretty much any point in a game.

I'm thrilled the Skynards are back in week 5. Watching this weekend of bad coaching and underdog dominance without the home team to make it all better was quite difficult.