Right. Here we go . . .
Kansas City @ Atlanta
The Line: Atlanta by 5
The Chiefs have no offense, and though they have a lot of very young talent on defense, those guys aren't yet able to go out and reliably win individual match-ups yet. Combined with the relative simplicity and lack of ingenuity of Herm Edwards' defensive schemes, you've got a defense that won't change the look of a game.
Hard to know what that means in Atlanta. You take that combo and put it on the road in almost any other NFL city, and they get handled. I expect Atlanta to give a good effort and have a good game plan, but you just can't tell. The stadium will likely not fill, or even come especially close, and the Falcons are so young it's hard to predict what kind of execution you'll see on the field. If both of these teams can be expected to max out in the neighborhood of maybe two good, long drives against competent NFL defenses, you've got to swing maybe another turnover or field goal to the home team owing to the whole home field advantage thing, right? So maybe the Falcons pull it out. No matter what happens, this is the rare week 3 game that will be extremely difficult for even home fans to give a damn about.
Falcons over Chiefs, 17-10
Oakland @ Buffalo
The Line: Buffalo by 9
I'm trying to bite my tongue (for the most part) about the Al Davis/Lane Kiffin deal. I'm worried that as soon as I open my mouth in a substantial way about it, I won't be able to stop for a few days. One note: there was a piece on ESPN.com that seemed to be defending Al Davis and criticizing Lane Kiffin. After reading it, I was rendered speechless for a good 15 minutes.
Buffalo has a little mojo going right now. They won a road game against a good, tough opponent even without a major contribution from Marshawn Lynch, which is a huge, huge boost. Back at home, they have a very good opportunity to get to 3-0 before what ought to be a week 4 bloodbath versus St. Louis. In fact, looking at their schedule, they're in great, great shape to go into their week 6 bye week with a perfect record, provided they take care of business against one-dimensional teams like Oakland. In that sense, I suppose we'll learn quite a bit about the Buffalo Bills in this game.
As for the Raiders, pretty clearly their only hope of winning this game rests on their ability to dominate on the ground. They could do it, it's not like Buffalo's defense is especially great, and Oakland pretty clearly has the deepest backfield in football. I guess I should be more jazzed up for this game, but I'm just not. I will say I think the 9-point spread is pretty ambitious. I like the Bills, but that kind of spread is a bit harder to cover against a team that runs the ball as well and as often as the Raiders.
Bills over Raiders, 20-16
Tampa Bay @ Chicago
The Line: Chicago by 3
Wow, it's pretty amazing how predicting these really ugly, boring games right at the start of the post can really sap my enthusiasm for the whole exercize. Ummm . . . I don't know. Either of these teams could be good enough to get absolutely demolished by a legitimate contender one week, then go out and muscle past another also-ran. Neither of them is probably bad enough to win fewer than, say, 7 games. It's tragic, really. And just like many of the great works of tragedy, I don't really give a damn. I'm giving Chicago a home bump, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Tampa pull it out. Tampa needs the victory much more than Chicago, but Lovie Smith needs the victory more than Jon Gruden. I'm talking in circles here. Chicago wins!
Bears over Bucs, 14-13
Carolina @ Minnesota
The Line: Minnesota by 3.5
So Brad Childress finally pulled the plug on Tarvaris Jackson, electing to go with Gus Frerotte as his quarterback for the rest of the season. He'd better hope Frerotte doesn't go down with an injury, he's pretty much permanently wrecked Jackson's confidence. First, you stick the guy in an offense that absolutely doesn't play to his strengths, then you send him out there with what seems to be a mandate to make no mistakes whatsoever, with a Minnesota fanbase out for blood and virtually no margin for error, then you pull him and bench him in the third game of the season, hammering home the "no margin for error" message. Forget about Tarvaris Jackson in Minnesota. This guy will never make another mistake without being booed lustily by Vikings fans. What I can't understand and never will is what makes "fans" turn on and cannibalize a guy who was drafted by your franchise to play the most difficult position in sports. Today I had a chance to talk with a chronically grumpy former co-worker who is what you might consider a typical home-town Redskins fan, in that he spends half his time in some delusional state where he thinks everyone on his home team is the best in the world at what they do, and the other half booing them, shitting on them, hating their guts, and decrying the end of the world for a team he supposedly supports. He spent the entire conversation angrily shouting that Jason Campbell "isn't our quarterback!", that Colt Brennan (of all people) is the right guy, that Campbell has already proven himself to be not just a bum, but an evil asshole bum, worthy of contempt and harsh treatment. See, it's these same morons in Minnesota, booing a guy in his home stadium with his team up 15-0 in the second game of the year, shouting profanities at him and actively hoping for his demise. And you call yourselves fans. Well here's your dessert, you embarrassments to fandom: a full season of 35-year old Gus Frerotte. Super Bowl, here we come!
As for Carolina, yardage on the ground will be very, very difficult to come by in this game. The passing game has seemed to have enough mojo through two games to go to work against a not-very-good Minnesota secondary, especially with Steve Smith back. Hard to know which way to go here: I had a hunch Carolina would be decent this year, and I feel like I could, with confidence, pick them to win a handful of tough road games, but I'm not sure how I feel about them going into Minnesota to face an already desperate Vikings team that has probably figured out they need to commit even further to the ground game to just get a win and a little momentum. Vegas like Minny by more than a field-goal . . . how much of that is just leftover optimism from the Jared Allen pickup? You know what? I'm just crazy enough to pick the Panthers.
Panthers over Vikings, 21-17
Miami @ New England
The Line: New England by 12.5
Yep, that looks about right.
Patriots over Dolphins by a lot
Cincinnati @ New York Giants
The Line: New York Giants by 13.5
Man, you know you've fallen hard and fast when you go from being a trendy sleeper pick in your division to having longer odds in Vegas than a 1-15 team against a 16-0 team from last season. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
I wouldn't give them that kind of margin if I were laying the spread, but on the other hand, who in the hell would ever give the points if you made it any closer? The thing is, you just never know with Cincinnati, not until you know. I feel like we're almost at the point of truly knowing, you know? Like, at a certain point, they really are what they are. You know what? This is that game. Either Cincinnati comes out and plays like professionals in this game on Sunday, or they're officially tied with St. Louis as the worst team in football. We'll know for sure by Sunday night. I'm not saying they need to win the game, but dammit, they need to show up and do a thing or two. Right now, they're not better than any other team in the NFL, just maybe still a little dangerous. If it doesn't show up Sunday, they're no longer dangerous, they're a sure thing.
Giants over Bengals, 28-20
Houston @ Tennessee
The Line: Tennessee by 5
Man, what a shitty break for the Texans. On the one hand, they had an extra week to assemble for this game, but seriously, does anybody think they actually spent the week preparing? No way. These guys had family members and houses and pets and possessions to lock down with a hurricane bearing down, then they had family members and houses and pets and possessions to relocate and account for in the wake of major devastation to their city. Sure, they practiced, but now, instead of having an actual bye week near the middle of the season to get healthy, they had a last-minute bye in week 2 to basically make sure their whole lives hadn't blown or floated away. Now they get to travel to Tennessee to face maybe the NFL's toughest defense at the start of 15 weeks of uninterrupted football. And these guys don't even know who they really are yet, you know? They got pounded in week 1, and they barely even had time to have a good rah-rah speech before shit went nuts. I genuinely pity the fools.
That stuff aside, they need this win in a bad, bad way. A win here puts them back at zero and allows them to pull their heads above water and get their bearings. It buys them a week without people second-guessing everything, without people's jobs being questioned, without all the distracting talk that comes with being a trendy pick that opens the season 0-2.
The Titans maybe aren't desperate for the win like the Texans, but it sure would go a long way towards righting their focus in the direction of winning football games. This whole Vince Young mess is really shitty, and I'm going to have to give the benefit of the doubt to Jeff Fisher that he knows what he's doing in announcing that Kerry Collins will start as long as the Titans are winning. That's a pretty slim margin, isn't it? Does that mean if they lose a game after Vince gets healthy, he's back in? Or does it mean as long as Collins plays well, they can lose a game or two and he'll stay in there? Or is this indirectly saying they don't expect Collins to play especially well, so the only difference between him playing and him not playing is whether or not Fisher can justify taking him out because the team hasn't won? Jeff Fisher has long proven himself to be the man, a great NFL head coach. Hopefully he knows what he's doing. Certainly, it's a tough situation for anybody.
Sheesh, call this the Pity Party. I almost forgot it's a division game! Titans win!
Titans over Texans, 19-17
Arizona @ Washington
The Line: Washington by 3
It all comes down to one thing, really: the Redskins must get pressure on Kurt Warner. I don't know what to expect of Arizona's defense. I really don't even know what to expect of Washington's offense. I do know that if Washington can put a few hits on Warner, especially early in the game, and stay in his face, he'll put a few balls up for grabs and definitely start dropping the ball. So here it is, this is why you signed Jason Taylor, for this exact game. It's time for Taylor to go out and earn his pay. One nice, hard hit on Warner in the first series and this one is in the bag. Blitz, blitz, blitz. To hell with stuffing the run on that first series, above all else, Kurt Warner must be made aware of the pass rush early in this game.
One positive: Jim Zorn has spent the past however many seasons helping to game plan for the Arizona Cardinals defense, so he should be well aware of their tendencies and how to attack certain guys. I'm counting on this, because I have a feeling only Mike Sando and maybe one or two other die-hard NFC West observers have a clue what the Arizona defense is all about. If Arizona wins this game, on the road, to go 3-0 to start the season, it'll be time to start getting used to the idea of them winning the NFC West. They're the only team in the division that can claim to be both healthy and even marginally competent. For Washington, a win here puts them right back in the discussion of wild-card teams and will go a long way towards giving them confidence for the upcoming road-and-road divisional match-ups. Very important to take care of these winnable home contests. Like I said before, they need to find a way to be at least .500 at week 6.
Oh, right, who'll win? Well, Arizona has looked pretty damn lights out to this point, but they haven't really been tested yet, especially in the pass-protection department. Washington, on the other hand, got handled by the Super Bowl champs and then pretty soundly outplayed a team with legitimate playoff aspirations. I'm giving the home bump to the Skins and crossing my fingers they can limit Arizona's big plays.
Redskins over Cardinals, 24-21
New Orleans @ Denver
The Line: Denver by 5.5
To be honest, I feel like this game is the question, not the answer. In other words, I don't effing know. Denver has home field, and that's a strong home field advantage they've got there. Certainly, there's every reason to expect them to win this game. To be honest, I'm not sure we'll have figured them out if they win, but we'll know pretty much everything if they lose. As for New Orleans, they just don't seem like the kind of team that can go to a place like Denver and blow up. And it'll probably take a big blow-up to out-point the Broncos in Denver. If they do it, hey, great, they're a legitimate playoff contender. If not, they're just not the kind of team that has that kind of game in them. They barely got past Tampa, they were outplayed in Washington, and if they go to Denver and put up another decent offensive game without looking especially dangerous, that's who they are. Solid, professional, but not dangerous.
That's exactly what I'm predicting.
Denver over New Orleans, 34-27
Detroit @ San Francisco
The Line: San Francisco by 4
Honestly, who knows and who cares? Detroit probably doesn't have the pass rush, even against the Mike Martz offense, to do anything. Neither team will be able to avoid mistakes enough to pull away. It'll probably go back and forth, one team will do something retarded at a bad moment, and it'll cost 'em.
Well fuck it, I've been picking home teams like a true coward, and I hate the idea of the Niners going 2-1 and seeing Nolan and Martz with slimy smirks on their faces. Blech. Go Lions!
Lions over 49ers, 31-28
St. Louis @ Seattle
The Line: Seattle by 9.5
For God's sake, if Seattle can't win this game, they won't win more than 4 games all year. They got absolutely flattened in Buffalo and then lost, so help me, to the 49ers. They've given up over 60 points through 2 games. Their quarterback has been absolute garbage. It's a train wreck in Seattle, with giblets flying in all directions.
St. Louis is . . . well, simply the most depressing team I can remember. A dead man walking at head coach, the most overpaid quarterback in the NFL (and he's being quickly exposed as a mediocre quarterback at best), a greedy, overrated asshole of a runningback, no offensive line, no defense, and Torry Holt, who'll be forced to retire in oblivion, having long been rendered obsolete in all but fantasy circles. What a disaster. They've got enough talent to win a few games, but there's some nasty poison at work in St. Louis. Blech. Will they go on the road and take down the division bully? Or will Seattle have that crazy, back to the wall, white-of-the-eyes ferocity that a tougher, legit team might play with at 0-2? Or do they even need it?
No, they don't. St. Louis is just that bad. Seattle, even in their poor state, could probably sleepwalk through this game. Patrick Kerney and Julian Peterson are licking their chops right now. Marc Bulger will probably shit blood Sunday night.
Seahawks over Rams, 27-13
Cleveland @ Baltimore
The Line: Baltimore by 2
Please, please let Cleveland win this game. Please. Because if they don't, they're done. Romeo Crennel will be on the block. Derek Anderson will be out. Kellen Winslow will chew someone's eyeball out. Braylon Edwards will check out. It'll be over, all the excitement and optimism and everything. I can't handle that, not three games in. They haven't even gotten to the really juicy part of their schedule yet. C'mon guys, put some points up for Christ's sake!
Shit, man, Baltimore has had a whole bye week to get ready for this game. I can't take this crap. I need Cleveland to win this game.
Browns over Ravens, 21-12
Jacksonville @ Indianapolis
The Line: Indianapolis by 5.5
It will be very hard for Jacksonville to salvage this season if they lose this game. Very, very hard. Their schedule won't get any more forgiving, and they'll be in a very deep hole in their division. Still, with Bob Sanders down, how in the hell will Indy stop Jacksonville's ground game?
Alright, if I'm a Jaguars fan, here's how I'm talking myself into a Jacksonville victory: the Colts have looked like crap through two games; they can't run the ball; they can't stop the run; their best defensive player is out for 6 weeks; we've yet to hit our stride offensively; our defense was recently pretty great; we probably don't need to score more than 20 points to win the game.
And if I'm an Indy man, it goes like this: we've got the best quarterback in the NFL and a great receiving corps; our ground game is due to break out; Jacksonville is the only other team in the NFL as banged up on the offensive line as we are; we've traditionally owned these guys; we can pretty much outscore anybody when we're on; the Jags haven't been able to run the ball for shit yet; David Garrard has looked like crap and Jacksonville's offensive line has been terrible in pass-protection; if we put up 20 points, we probably win the game; we're at home.
Frankly, I like Jacksonville's argument better. They've convinced me.
Jaguars over Colts, 21-20
Pittsburgh @ Philadelphia
The Line: Philadelphia by 3
Tough game. If Philly wins, it doesn't mean much for Pittsburgh. They went on the road and lost to a really, really dangerous team, but they're still the class of the division, and still probably have a lead in their division. Heck, even if they don't have a lead in the division, it'll be because Baltimore has had a pair of surprising wins, but are the Ravens keeping pace? Fuck no.
If Philly loses, it probably doesn't mean much for them either, but it'll feel like something. Because a team that could legitimately be all the way back and ready to contend for the Conference will be 1-2 and in a hole in their division. Philly's (worst in the league) fans will almost certainly start calling for people's heads. In that regard, Philly definitely needs the game more. On the other hand, they've got home field and a more experienced coach, and I at least think they have that Eagles swagger back. I see them winning this game. In fact, I don't think it'll be especially close.
Eagles over Steelers, 27-17
Dallas @ Green Bay
The Line: Dallas by 3
Man do I want Green Bay to win this game. I'm already sick of the Cowboys. I think Green Bay's defense is better. I think the offenses are about even. I like the home field. In short, I'm perfectly able to convince myself that Green Bay will win the game. It's a thin argument, but it's all I need. I guess the variable will be how Aaron Rodgers responds to the really high pressure that will come with this game, or how he handles a very big, very fast defense swarming around and swaggering. Dammit, I trust the little fucker. I hope somebody flattens Tony Romo just so I can see that whimpering little bitch face he makes.
Packers over Cowboys, 75-5
New York Jets @ San Diego
The Line: San Diego by 9
Where the hell did that line come from? And isn't Brett Favre the perfect guy to go into San Diego and just rip the hearts out of the Chargers when their balls are still rolling around the turf in Denver? The 0-2 Chargers by 9 points over the 1-1 Jets? Sheeeeeeiiit.
Actually, that sounds about right.
Chargers over Jets, 30-21 (See how I did that? 9 points, y'all!)
Sorry the picks are a bit lame in Week 3. My enthusiasm for the picks was really tapped by the abundance of games I actually don't give a damn about.
Go Skynards!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Dizzam!
Just like that, Clinton Portis went from being a guy I'm mostly lukewarm about to suddenly being my favorite Redskins running back of all time.
In case you missed it, Clinton Portis just called up the John Thompson show on AM 980 for his weekly check-in and absolutely reamed Brian Mitchell for a good five minutes of high-decible fury. It was, perhaps, the greatest thing I've ever heard on the radio.
I little background: as I just finished breathlessly explaining to my wife, there are all kinds of ex-NFL players roaming the world, all kinds. Some are articulate, others not so much. Some are thoughtful, others macho. Some guys stopped caring about football, some guys went into coaching, some broadcasting, etc. In Washington, there seem to be three kinds of ex-Redskins: loud, macho, posturing windbags with too many opinions and too much ego (Brian Mitchell, Doc Walker, and John Riggins lead the charge); slightly confused, old school Redskins loyalists who, though endearing, offer very little to the discussion (Sonny Jergenson, God bless him); and then the quiet civilians, guys who slip quietly back into society and resume normal lives with dignity (Art Monk). Brian Mitchell isn't the worst of the first group, but he's one of them. He's probably the most articulate and analytical of them, but he still does the thing where he dismisses anybody on the team that hasn't had success in the most recent game as a useless piece of crap. This first group of ex-Redskins, for whatever reason, it's like they're threatened by current players on the current team, so they take every opportunity to compare (unfavorably) current Redskins teams with their Super Bowl winning teams of the past. It infuriates me, especially considering that most Redskins fans are so up these guys asses and are so beholden to the opinions of local radio shows and ESPN bloggers they've just become mouthpieces for idiot pundits. It really is ridiculous.
At any rate, apparently Brian Mitchell has said a negative thing or two about Clinton Portis over the years, questioning (at times) his commitment, his toughness, his attitude, his playing tempo, all kinds of things. See, Portis is a runningback, Mitchell was a runningback, obviously there's an ego thing there. Portis is generally a thick-skinned guy, but I guess he'd had enough. When I turned on my radio on my way home from work today, all I heard was an angry-as-hell Portis shouting through what sounded like a telephone connection. He was taking direct exception to some things Mitchell had said about him and was just letting the guy have it. It was awesome. At one point, he scolded Mitchell for being overly critical. A minute later, he was calling Mitchell out for walking right past him after the game in New York without saying a word, then showing up on a post-game show minutes later criticizing his effort and speculating on why his work ethic isn't strong and why he doesn't participate more in preseason games. When Mitchell tried to turn the tables, asking why Portis never came to him with all this anger, Portis fired back that he was mad enough that if he'd brought it to him face to face, he almost certainly would have punched him. No kidding, Clinton Portis got to the point of fighting words with Brian Mitchell on live radio this afternoon.
Here's the thing: John Thompson is a DC legend and his show is by far the best thing on local radio. It's his show. Brian Mitchell is a very, very popular former Redskins player who shows up in a number of local broadcast shows, including a game-day tv show and Thompson's daily radio show. He's not quite a DC legend, but he's definitely one of the 2 or 3 most popular ex-Redskins. On Thompson's show, Mitchell is the designated NFL insider. His function on the show is to bridge the gap between fan interest in the Redskins as the dominant sports topic in the area and Thompson's vast enthusiasm but limited knowledge of the sport. Brian Mitchell speaks with unchecked authority on NFL issues on John Thompson's radio show.
It occurs to me that maybe a trait of a great NFL team, versus just an OK NFL team, is a certain jealous pride over the quality of the team. Good teams work hard and play to win; great teams work hard, play to win, expect to win, and are insulted by the idea that another team might actually expect to beat them. The individuals on the team are expected to be monomaniacal about their responsibilities and individual match-ups, but the team as a group can get to the point of being actually angry, fired up and motivated by the very idea that the other team is even going to step on the field with them. I don't know, sometimes I've wondered if the Redskins have had that attitude, the killer instinct to not just compete hard but actually play to win the game.
I'm not saying Portis revealed that attitude in the Redskins by chewing out Brian Mitchell, but it's nice to know there's a guy on the Redskins (not just a guy, but a marquee player, a team leader) who won't sit back and take anybody questioning his ability, his work-ethic, his attitude, his commitment. He's proud enough of his work that he's willing to call a live radio broadcast hosted by a DC legend and a hugely popular ex-Redskin with a lot of clout among fans and openly call out the latter, challenging his manhood and threatening him with bodily harm. He believes in himself, his ability, and his commitment enough that it infuriates him to the point of beating someone up that another NFL person would dare challenge him. There are certainly other ways of looking at it: some might say Portis is too emotional, or too sensitive, or doesn't back up his talk with actual work, but it's all bull. In a sense, it was like Portis sticking up for the whole team: outsiders who dare belittle us or look past us do so at their own peril, in that they will have their ass kicked publicly. It's that edge I've been looking for in the Redskins for 3 years, that attitude, that swagger that says they won't go quietly or back down. Brian Mitchell can talk tough, and I generally have fond memories of the guy and warm feelings towards him, but I get giddy with excitement at the idea of Clinton Portis jacking him in the face for disrespecting him with macho baloney behind his back. Especially after a win: the characteristic that makes Portis the kind of guy that can get pissed to the point of violence after a great win is what will keep him from slipping or getting complacent. Portis didn't like the way he ran the ball in the first series on Sunday, he thought about it, huddled with his backfield mates, and decided he needed to take a step back from center and line up deeper, giving himself more time to approach the hole and find a seam. He articulated on the John Thompson show that he figures he's faster to the hole and has a more downhill style than the last successful back in Zorn's offense, Shaun Alexander. That means he needs more space to get to the line, both for timing in the offense and for his own natural tendency to look for a seam and hit it full speed. After the adjustment, he ripped off big carry after big carry and scored twice down the stretch. This tells me Portis is the kind of guy that doesn't get complacent, doesn't resign to a condition, doesn't slip or sulk. When something isn't working, he's thinking about it, evaluating it, suggesting things. When somebody says something negative about him, he doesn't sulk, he doesn't ignore it, he calls them up on their live radio show and gives them the business, to hell with their hometown pedigree.
I shouldn't make it sound like Clinton Portis called up to shout at Brian Mitchell. He started by mildly taking exception, then it escalated. In the end, after John Thompson scolded both guys and forbid them from holding any grudges, it ended peaceably, with Portis squashing it and saying he understands Mitchell has a job to do as an analyst, but asking that he not question Portis' commitment publicly when he's had an opportunity to at least get his perspective in the same room. The fact is, Brian Mitchell has limited access to the Redskins (as he admitted during the discussion), and he has this obnoxious habit of making grand statements about the motivation, work-ethic, comfort level, etc. of various coaches and players without ever citing a conversation he's had or a first-person observation he's made. He was due a reaming, and I'm just so glad it came from a guy as productive and credible as Portis, a guy who doesn't miss practice, doesn't miss games, puts up numbers, and does all the little things on the field.
And just like that, I love the guy. I hope his teammates cheer him wildly when he steps into the locker-room tomorrow.
In case you missed it, Clinton Portis just called up the John Thompson show on AM 980 for his weekly check-in and absolutely reamed Brian Mitchell for a good five minutes of high-decible fury. It was, perhaps, the greatest thing I've ever heard on the radio.
I little background: as I just finished breathlessly explaining to my wife, there are all kinds of ex-NFL players roaming the world, all kinds. Some are articulate, others not so much. Some are thoughtful, others macho. Some guys stopped caring about football, some guys went into coaching, some broadcasting, etc. In Washington, there seem to be three kinds of ex-Redskins: loud, macho, posturing windbags with too many opinions and too much ego (Brian Mitchell, Doc Walker, and John Riggins lead the charge); slightly confused, old school Redskins loyalists who, though endearing, offer very little to the discussion (Sonny Jergenson, God bless him); and then the quiet civilians, guys who slip quietly back into society and resume normal lives with dignity (Art Monk). Brian Mitchell isn't the worst of the first group, but he's one of them. He's probably the most articulate and analytical of them, but he still does the thing where he dismisses anybody on the team that hasn't had success in the most recent game as a useless piece of crap. This first group of ex-Redskins, for whatever reason, it's like they're threatened by current players on the current team, so they take every opportunity to compare (unfavorably) current Redskins teams with their Super Bowl winning teams of the past. It infuriates me, especially considering that most Redskins fans are so up these guys asses and are so beholden to the opinions of local radio shows and ESPN bloggers they've just become mouthpieces for idiot pundits. It really is ridiculous.
At any rate, apparently Brian Mitchell has said a negative thing or two about Clinton Portis over the years, questioning (at times) his commitment, his toughness, his attitude, his playing tempo, all kinds of things. See, Portis is a runningback, Mitchell was a runningback, obviously there's an ego thing there. Portis is generally a thick-skinned guy, but I guess he'd had enough. When I turned on my radio on my way home from work today, all I heard was an angry-as-hell Portis shouting through what sounded like a telephone connection. He was taking direct exception to some things Mitchell had said about him and was just letting the guy have it. It was awesome. At one point, he scolded Mitchell for being overly critical. A minute later, he was calling Mitchell out for walking right past him after the game in New York without saying a word, then showing up on a post-game show minutes later criticizing his effort and speculating on why his work ethic isn't strong and why he doesn't participate more in preseason games. When Mitchell tried to turn the tables, asking why Portis never came to him with all this anger, Portis fired back that he was mad enough that if he'd brought it to him face to face, he almost certainly would have punched him. No kidding, Clinton Portis got to the point of fighting words with Brian Mitchell on live radio this afternoon.
Here's the thing: John Thompson is a DC legend and his show is by far the best thing on local radio. It's his show. Brian Mitchell is a very, very popular former Redskins player who shows up in a number of local broadcast shows, including a game-day tv show and Thompson's daily radio show. He's not quite a DC legend, but he's definitely one of the 2 or 3 most popular ex-Redskins. On Thompson's show, Mitchell is the designated NFL insider. His function on the show is to bridge the gap between fan interest in the Redskins as the dominant sports topic in the area and Thompson's vast enthusiasm but limited knowledge of the sport. Brian Mitchell speaks with unchecked authority on NFL issues on John Thompson's radio show.
It occurs to me that maybe a trait of a great NFL team, versus just an OK NFL team, is a certain jealous pride over the quality of the team. Good teams work hard and play to win; great teams work hard, play to win, expect to win, and are insulted by the idea that another team might actually expect to beat them. The individuals on the team are expected to be monomaniacal about their responsibilities and individual match-ups, but the team as a group can get to the point of being actually angry, fired up and motivated by the very idea that the other team is even going to step on the field with them. I don't know, sometimes I've wondered if the Redskins have had that attitude, the killer instinct to not just compete hard but actually play to win the game.
I'm not saying Portis revealed that attitude in the Redskins by chewing out Brian Mitchell, but it's nice to know there's a guy on the Redskins (not just a guy, but a marquee player, a team leader) who won't sit back and take anybody questioning his ability, his work-ethic, his attitude, his commitment. He's proud enough of his work that he's willing to call a live radio broadcast hosted by a DC legend and a hugely popular ex-Redskin with a lot of clout among fans and openly call out the latter, challenging his manhood and threatening him with bodily harm. He believes in himself, his ability, and his commitment enough that it infuriates him to the point of beating someone up that another NFL person would dare challenge him. There are certainly other ways of looking at it: some might say Portis is too emotional, or too sensitive, or doesn't back up his talk with actual work, but it's all bull. In a sense, it was like Portis sticking up for the whole team: outsiders who dare belittle us or look past us do so at their own peril, in that they will have their ass kicked publicly. It's that edge I've been looking for in the Redskins for 3 years, that attitude, that swagger that says they won't go quietly or back down. Brian Mitchell can talk tough, and I generally have fond memories of the guy and warm feelings towards him, but I get giddy with excitement at the idea of Clinton Portis jacking him in the face for disrespecting him with macho baloney behind his back. Especially after a win: the characteristic that makes Portis the kind of guy that can get pissed to the point of violence after a great win is what will keep him from slipping or getting complacent. Portis didn't like the way he ran the ball in the first series on Sunday, he thought about it, huddled with his backfield mates, and decided he needed to take a step back from center and line up deeper, giving himself more time to approach the hole and find a seam. He articulated on the John Thompson show that he figures he's faster to the hole and has a more downhill style than the last successful back in Zorn's offense, Shaun Alexander. That means he needs more space to get to the line, both for timing in the offense and for his own natural tendency to look for a seam and hit it full speed. After the adjustment, he ripped off big carry after big carry and scored twice down the stretch. This tells me Portis is the kind of guy that doesn't get complacent, doesn't resign to a condition, doesn't slip or sulk. When something isn't working, he's thinking about it, evaluating it, suggesting things. When somebody says something negative about him, he doesn't sulk, he doesn't ignore it, he calls them up on their live radio show and gives them the business, to hell with their hometown pedigree.
I shouldn't make it sound like Clinton Portis called up to shout at Brian Mitchell. He started by mildly taking exception, then it escalated. In the end, after John Thompson scolded both guys and forbid them from holding any grudges, it ended peaceably, with Portis squashing it and saying he understands Mitchell has a job to do as an analyst, but asking that he not question Portis' commitment publicly when he's had an opportunity to at least get his perspective in the same room. The fact is, Brian Mitchell has limited access to the Redskins (as he admitted during the discussion), and he has this obnoxious habit of making grand statements about the motivation, work-ethic, comfort level, etc. of various coaches and players without ever citing a conversation he's had or a first-person observation he's made. He was due a reaming, and I'm just so glad it came from a guy as productive and credible as Portis, a guy who doesn't miss practice, doesn't miss games, puts up numbers, and does all the little things on the field.
And just like that, I love the guy. I hope his teammates cheer him wildly when he steps into the locker-room tomorrow.
A Look Back at Week 2
I did not do a set of picks for Week 2 of the NFL season. Why? Because I was in Maine, and there happened to be no internet where I stayed. So there. In fact, I didn't get to see the Monday night contest from Week 1 for the same reason. I'm not recapping it, it's old news. My final record from Week 1 was 11-5. That's week 1, and I made the picks a good week early. Only a moron would suggest I'm not the greatest.
I'll keep the recap short. I didn't have any picks, so I won't have any bragging to do.
Panthers over Bears, 20-17
Had I picked this game, I almost certainly would have picked the Panthers to win, and I would have said something like, "the Bears are some tough son-of-a-bitches, they'll keep it close". And you had to know it'd go down something like that. Neither team has enough juice to pull away from anybody, and both teams play the kind of defense that'll make it tough for another team to move the ball up and down the field, but won't create a lot of turnovers or big plays. That's what you had here. The Panthers actually are this good, though. The truth is, John Fox was never a bad coach, and injuries really have played a large part in derailing his teams in years past. The Panthers are surely good enough to win the NFC South, especially if they can continue to get decent production on the ground.
As for the Bears, there will not be a time this season when the Bears don't compete like professionals. That's what you get from Lovie Smith. You give this same roster to Herm Edwards or Norv Turner, and you've got a 3-win team. Lovie will do enough with this bunch to get them to somewhere between 6 and 9 wins, miss out on the top of the draft and all the game-breaking talent, and leave the city of Chicago bemoaning the lack of studly playmaking on the roster for another season. There's a certain cycle a good coach with no talent on the roster gets stuck in, and if the owners aren't patient (like they are in Tennessee, God bless 'em), they can be tricked into thinking they've got a mediocre coach on their hands. The shitty thing about being a good coach on a team that's done bad, bad things with cap space is they'll continue to coach guys up to the level of mediocrity and then miss out on all the top-tier talent in the following draft. That's why the Bears need to get back to replenishing their trenches in the draft: there's always plenty of depth to be found for those units in the middle rounds of the draft, and sooner or later you have what they have in Tennessee, which is a deep team with loads of talent up front on both sides of the ball, with a head coach that can squeeze everything out of the mediocre talent at skill positions and get you in the post-season.
Wow, that was a tangent. I thought I said I'd keep it short!
Tennessee over Cincinnati, 24-7
Speaking of Tennessee . . . but I digress. Was there ever any doubt about this one? Seriously, if the Titans had lost maybe another key offensive player or two during the week, this still wouldn't have been a contest. On these Titans, it doesn't matter who you have at skill positions against a butter-soft bunch of pansies like the Bengals. They'll just beat 'em up in the trenches until the Bengals self-destruct. With that defense, there's no way this fractured, dysfunctional, mercenary Cincinnati team would put up much of a fight. Just punch 'em in the mouth and wait for 'em to fold. That's what happened. There will be more games this season where I predict Carson Palmer will throw 2+ interceptions than games where I will not predict it, and I'll be right at least two-thirds of the time.
Green Bay over Detroit, 38-25
Aaron Rodgers played well, really well, well enough to distract people from the fact that the Packers haven't been able to get the ground game going and very nearly blew a huge lead to the horrendous Lions. Imagine if the Packers had lost this game. We'd all remember how well Aaron Rodgers played, and we'd all be scratching our heads like hungover rummies, trying to figure out how the Packers seemed to have won the game in every possible way except maybe the scoreboard. You can't really consider your secondary one of the best in the business when you get absolutely lit up by a Lions offense that can't run the ball, can't pass protect, and can't really get on the field to establish a rhythm. The Packers host the Cowboys next week, and if they need an ugly self-destruction by Jon Kitna to take a win against the lowly Lions after jumping out to a three-score lead, they're sure to have their hands full against the class of the NFC.
As for the Lions, blech. That defense is unbelievably bad. Rod Marinelli's head is in the right place, trying to establish the run to help keep the defense on the sidelines, but they need to start thinking about ways to get on the board very early in games, and maybe then go to the run game later as a way to salt things away. Clearly they have some big-strike ability, but they won't win many games when they spend the middle quarters trying desperately to get back into the contest.
Buffalo over Jacksonville, 20-16
Wow. Definitely gulp time in Jacksonville. David Garrard seems to have lost the magic, and they can't seem to get the ground game going with all the injuries up front. I still think they have the pieces to be a tough team, but I also feel like I've had a revelation about that team. See, so much of what we think we know about the Jaguars and Jack Del Rio is based on an assumption we've all made that David Garrard was not sort of a one-year wonder type of quarterback. I really like Garrard, I hope he's the real thing, but seriously: even if he's not a fluke, there can be no argument that 2007 was his first good season in the NFL. Hell, it was practically his only season in the NFL. Let's say he goes on to be a great NFL quarterback; surely we can expect the rest of the league to be better prepared for the guy in his second season as a starter than they were in his first. Yes, he's been in the league for a few years now, but people seem to forget that, for all intents and purposes, this is only his second full season actually playing on gameday. If he has a sophomore slump, there's no way there's enough talent on the field around him to make a contender. No way at all. And I'm someone who genuinely likes guys like Fred Taylor, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Reggie Williams. They need Garrard's steady hand to make it tick, and if he's off or the rest of the league has caught on, they're in trouble. They're already in a hole in their division, that's for sure.
The Bills played a nice game, getting decent production from all parts of their offense and another solid showing from their defense. It's funny, with Trent Edwards' numbers, you'd expect them to have put up a bigger number on the scoreboard, but I guess you chalk it up to the stoutness of Jacksonville's defense and move on, happy with the win on the road.
Oakland over Kansas City, 23-8
The less said about this situation, the better. I think you can guess how I feel about the Al Davis/Lane Kiffin/Rex Ryan fiasco. I've spent a lot of time praising Lane Kiffin, whereas virtually nobody with integrity or credibility has said a nice thing about Al Davis in years.
The Raiders ran and ran and ran. Good for them. Good strategy, executed well.
The Chiefs weren't so awful on defense, they just couldn't get off the field. But we already knew the Kansas City offense wouldn't be able to put any drives together, so what else could we expect?
Indianapolis over Minnesota, 18-15
Really an ugly game to watch, with the noted exception of several explosive, breathtaking bursts from Adrian Peterson. The Colts were out of sync all afternoon, until suddenly they were in sync, and suddenly it was like you'd known all along they'd be in sync and win the game. Hopefully that was just the start of them getting their act together for another big season. Somehow, an NFL season without a sharp, professional, dominating Indy team is like, well, an NFL season without a hungry, pissed-off, swaggering Philly team, in that I'll feel very disoriented and cagey about it.
Watching the game, a few things stood out to me about Minnesota's offense: 1. I'm extremely worried that Tarvaris Jackson is the Scruffy the Janitor (of Futurama fame and glory) of the Vikings offense. Stay with me here: Scruffy perhaps interpreted his rights and responsibilities too literally when performing his job. I'm sure you don't want a lengthy explanation of how this manifested itself on the show, but suffice to say, Scruffy did only what was expected of him within a very limited, literal interpretation of his position. I worry that perhaps Tarvaris Jackson is taking the whole, "drop back, execute playfake, take what defense gives you, throw to open man, go sit on bench" thing a little too literally. On third and seven, for instance, I'd watch him drop back, execute a crisp play fake, find an open man, and fire him the ball, nevermind that the open man was only two yards past the line of scrimmage, pinned against the sideline with no hope of getting the needed yardage to sustain the drive. Then I'd watch him trot off the field without any air of disappointment or frustration. That worries me, like maybe he knows the notes but not the music, you know? 2. The system is devouring the player, in the case of Tarvaris Jackson. Jackson runs like a runningback and has a big-time cannon for an arm. Virtually everything that made this guy interesting as an NFL prospect was his ability to make plays with his feet and throw the ball a long way. Minnesota went out and drafted Troy Williamson's blazing 40 time just to take advantage of Jackson's arm strength. Now he's stuck in the pocket throwing 6 yard outs, and I just don't see it. I'm not saying he can't be a West Coast quarterback. As a rule, I hate it when asshole scouts, coaches, writers, radio-hosts, fans, or anybody else says an NFL quarterback can't run one kind of system or another. Maybe Jackson can be a West Coast quarterback, but for whatever reason, he looks tentative in a million little ways on the field. Even his throwing motion looks uncertain. This guy needs a few times a game where they call a quarterback draw, or a naked bootleg, or a goddamn option play, something to let him just cut loose and make a play. He can be an asset, I swear. But right now, his play is hurting the Vikings and he probably feels like shit about it. That can't be good for his confidence on the field, and that can't be good for his play.
New York Giants over St. Louis, 41-13
Ok, even I'm not laughing anymore. This St. Louis situation is sickening to the point of actual nausea. I hate certain players and coaches on this team on behalf of other players and coaches on this team. What a disaster. Generally speaking, I'm strongly opposed to firing a coach during his first 3 years on the job, and I've been adamantly opposed to ever firing a guy mid-season, but Scott Linehan is forcing my hand. I'm sure he's a good guy, I'm not advocating for this guy to lose his job because he's breeding a dysfunctional culture, or undermining his players, or selling anybody out, or even being a jerk-ass like Bobby Petrino. He just can't be a head coach at this level, not at all. I can't remember it ever being so stark, such an easy call. Well, maybe in the case of Art Shell's second tenure in Oakland, but even then you could look back at his previous term and deduce that the guy could craft a respectable team. I'll applaud the brass in St. Louis if they have the patience and civility to wait out the season before shit-canning the guy, but I'll be booing loudly if they don't then do it, for God's sake fire him immediately after week 17. But in this rare circumstance, if they were to fire him right now, I might be able to muster a pitiful head-shake for Linehan, but that'd be it. The writing isn't just on the wall, it's tattooed on Linehand's colon. This guy is D-U-N.
Hey, Giants, great win! You did what your division rivals in Philly did last week, which is make mince-meat out of the corpse of the St. Louis Rams. That's what good teams do. Ever since the Super Bowl, I'm awash in warmth and loyalty to the New York Giants. Kick ass, G-Men.
Washington over New Orleans, 29-24
You caught the part where I said I was out of town during week 2, right? Did I mention I was unable to watch the Redskins game, because apparently some idiot in Maine thought the good folks of New England would rather watch the fascinating match-up of New York's forks and steak knives versus St. Louis' tenderized prime cuts of rotting corpse instead of a match-up between a 2007 playoff team and the team picked to win the NFC South?
So the Redskins won. Most importantly, the Redskins had 10 drives that were not ended by the end of the game, and of those 10, only 2 did not result in a scoring opportunity. That's right, the Redskins punted only twice in the game, did not turn the ball over (offensively), and had 8 drives result in scoring chances. 2 missed field goals, 3 touchdowns, 3 made field goals. That's great, great, great production from the offense and a huge step forward for a team that converted 3 of 13 first downs in week 1 and looked damn lucky on those 3. When Jim Zorn talked about improving Washington's offense, he talked about adding 3-4 points a game over the course of the season. The key to that statistic is sustaining drives and getting into the red-zone. There's admirable (albeit antiquated) sensibility and self-restraint to Joe Gibbs' first half field position battles, where he'd cram the ball into the line for a quarter and a half and try to keep the opposition pinned deep, giving him an opportunity to make adjustments at half time and come out scorching, but even the biggest Gibbs fan has to admit ol' Joe's recent offenses lacked punch in a big way. It will be a significant change for Redskins fans if Zorn can give us an offense that moves the ball into scoring position with determination drive after drive, and this was a good start. I almost broke into tears of joy when Fox cut from the end of Giants/Rams to Skins/Saints and a nice, bright graphic showing Jason Campbell's numbers, just in time to watch him sling an 8 yard dart to a slanting Santana Moss on 4th down to seal the deal. Beautiful.
San Francisco over Seattle, 33-30
How the hell do you lose a game when you sack the opposing quarterback . . . wait, no, when you sack J. T. O'Sullivan 8 times and put up 30 points? How do you lose when you out rush your opponent 165 yards to 93? When you complete passes to seven receivers and your opponent completes passes to only five? When you jump out to a 14-3 lead in the first quarter, stuff the run, sack the opponent 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 times, run the ball successfully, spread the completions around, and field a defense that sent 4 players to the Pro Bowl against an offense quarterbacked by J. T. O'Sullivan?
You effing choke, that's how. You reveal yourselves as totally phony, as predicted by every football-knowing son-of-a-bitch East of the Mississippi. Your quarterback implodes under the pressure of playing with a new set of receivers. Your soft, overrated defense falls prey to a glitzy, shiny offense that was invented in your division only a few years ago. The goddamn Seahawks suck ass, they don't have an ounce of mojo between the lot of them. Gimme Arizona any day.
Tampa Bay over Atlanta, 24-9
Meh. It happens. Forget about both of these teams. Neither one is worth a damn. Give the Falcons a few years and they'll be a fun team again. In a few years, not only will Gruden be gone from Tampa Bay, but the whole roster will have been turned over.
Arizona over Miami, 31-10
Miami is crap. Let's move on.
Arizona has a really deep set of talented players at skill positions. Kurt Warner is exactly exactly exactly the right guy for this offense, a gunslinger who barely even notices receivers who aren't 15 yards down field. Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin have the ability to beat pretty much any secondary and allow Warner to just fire it into traffic and see what happens. You can't slow this offense down without getting a lot of heat on the quarterback, but if you do manage to get some pressure in the pocket, Kurt Warner is a mortal lock to start dropping the ball. I like the guy, I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I like him. The truth is, the Cardinals have a very definite ceiling on their production, and it's probably something like 4 significant hits on Warner in one half. After that, he'll go scattershot. I'm not trying to shit on him, he'll almost certainly do enough to get them into the playoffs, especially if their defense continues to perform. For the second week in a row, the Cardinals were like the varsity version of the NFC West, while the rest of the division was like the local Pop Warner team, playing with t-shirts stretched over their shoulder pads and different color face-masks. The NFC West is a train-wreck, but emerging from the wreck like a pissed off T1000 is a pretty professional, very athletic Arizona team with the exact right quarterback. They could do a thing or two.
Denver over San Diego, 39-38
Look, enough with the bullshit. Any chance that happens to any other team in the NFL? Any chance a game like that goes down with Bill Belichick on the sidelines? Tony Dungy? How about with Jim Johnson running the Chargers defense? Or maybe Monte Kiffin? Any chance a team that had been coached for two seasons by Marty Schottenheimer or even Jim Fassell loses like that?
Right, so quit the bitching. The Chargers needed a fluke fumble, akin to Tony Romo dropping the snap in a playoff game against the Seahawks, to have any hope of keeping the Broncos out of the endzone. With that much talent, no way a better coach lets an opponent get up to such an absurd lead in a division contest, no way. No way a better defensive coordinator lets that much talent go out there and get reamed up and down by the goddamn Broncos. You watch - some far less talented teams are going to go out and put a hurting on Denver's one dimensional offense. That goddamn phantom fumble completely let San Diego's coaches and players off the hook, and instead of having the cojones to stand at the podium after the game and say "We're supposed to be the most talented team in the AFC, no way we lost that game because of a missed call with under a minute left on the clock", Norv Turner goes up there and cries like a bitch. Well boo friggin' hoo. The Patriots are 2-0 despite playing without Tom effing Brady for all but two series, whereas the fake-as-hell San Diego Chargers are 0-2 after a home loss to the Steve Smith-less Carolina Panthers and a road loss in which they found themselves down 31-10 in the first half. Neither of the teams they've lost to won more than 7 games last season and neither one did a damn thing other than get healthy to improve this off-season. They're lucky beyond belief that they were within a single blown call of winning that game, and the fact that they weren't even the engineers of their own luck (regarding the fumble) pisses me off beyond words.
I'm done with this shit-fest.
New England over New York Jets, 19-10
Neither team really did much to deserve the victory here, and it came down to limiting mistakes. If I said this game would be decided by which team limited mistakes, and you pointed out that one team had a quarterback who hadn't started a game since high-school and the other team had Brett Favre, well, I would have called it a coin flip. Eat it, Favre!
To be honest, I'm frankly appalled that anybody in Vegas thought it was a good idea to make the Jets the favorite. That's just unbelievable. The Patriots were undefeated in the regular season last year and had by far the greatest regular season in NFL history. The Jets were garbage. It's a testament to how overrated the quarterback position is and how overrated Tom Brady is that people would expect a team that did not lose a regular season game last season and came within one miracle play of winning the Super Bowl would lose to a garbage team just because Brady went down. Interestingly, I'm wondering if Brady had only had like a sprained toe or something and was only going to miss this game if people still would have picked the Jets to win. Like maybe the gravity of knowing Brady was done for the year made people think the Patriots were as devastated by the news as perhaps the gay gay media has been. I'm betting the Pats would have still been favorites.
Pittsburgh over Cleveland, 10-6
Not much to say about this game. It was ugly. There was one big, bright, hideous, really troubling red flag for the Browns, though.
The Steelers were up 10-3 late in the game and the Browns had just had a rare successful drive deep into Pittsburgh territory. Facing 4th and 7 with only 2:30 left on the clock, Romeo Crennel elected to kick a field goal. What the hell does a field goal do for the Browns in that scenario? They hadn't moved the ball well all day, their only sustained drives of the night had taken more than 6:30 off the clock, and they would still need a touchdown after kicking the field goal. Here they only needed 7 yards to sustain the drive and 20 yards for a touchdown to tie the game, but instead of going for it, Crennel kicked a meaningless field goal and gave the ball right back to the Steelers with essentially the same lead, counting on his porous defense to get a stop down the stretch. Well, that they did, giving the ball back to the offense with 26 seconds on the clock, no time-outs, and 74 yards to make up. So, without actually effecting the status of the game at all, Crennel cost his team more than 2 minutes and about 55 yards. Nicely done. That, my friends, is called giving that game away.
Dallas over Philadelphia, 41-37
Big spectacle! Lots of scoring!
This week I will be doing picks. I had to forfeit any chance of winning in the ESPN Eliminator because I wasn't around to make a week 2 pick, and the Pigskin Pick'em is now pretty much out of reach. Luckily, my fantasy team did well behind big games from Eddie Royal, Calvin Johnson, and Jason Campbell. Not sure whether I'll stick with Ben Roethlisberger into week 3; his shoulder was acting up and he's got Philly's defense to contend with. I'm taking a long look at Aaron Rodgers.
I'll keep the recap short. I didn't have any picks, so I won't have any bragging to do.
Panthers over Bears, 20-17
Had I picked this game, I almost certainly would have picked the Panthers to win, and I would have said something like, "the Bears are some tough son-of-a-bitches, they'll keep it close". And you had to know it'd go down something like that. Neither team has enough juice to pull away from anybody, and both teams play the kind of defense that'll make it tough for another team to move the ball up and down the field, but won't create a lot of turnovers or big plays. That's what you had here. The Panthers actually are this good, though. The truth is, John Fox was never a bad coach, and injuries really have played a large part in derailing his teams in years past. The Panthers are surely good enough to win the NFC South, especially if they can continue to get decent production on the ground.
As for the Bears, there will not be a time this season when the Bears don't compete like professionals. That's what you get from Lovie Smith. You give this same roster to Herm Edwards or Norv Turner, and you've got a 3-win team. Lovie will do enough with this bunch to get them to somewhere between 6 and 9 wins, miss out on the top of the draft and all the game-breaking talent, and leave the city of Chicago bemoaning the lack of studly playmaking on the roster for another season. There's a certain cycle a good coach with no talent on the roster gets stuck in, and if the owners aren't patient (like they are in Tennessee, God bless 'em), they can be tricked into thinking they've got a mediocre coach on their hands. The shitty thing about being a good coach on a team that's done bad, bad things with cap space is they'll continue to coach guys up to the level of mediocrity and then miss out on all the top-tier talent in the following draft. That's why the Bears need to get back to replenishing their trenches in the draft: there's always plenty of depth to be found for those units in the middle rounds of the draft, and sooner or later you have what they have in Tennessee, which is a deep team with loads of talent up front on both sides of the ball, with a head coach that can squeeze everything out of the mediocre talent at skill positions and get you in the post-season.
Wow, that was a tangent. I thought I said I'd keep it short!
Tennessee over Cincinnati, 24-7
Speaking of Tennessee . . . but I digress. Was there ever any doubt about this one? Seriously, if the Titans had lost maybe another key offensive player or two during the week, this still wouldn't have been a contest. On these Titans, it doesn't matter who you have at skill positions against a butter-soft bunch of pansies like the Bengals. They'll just beat 'em up in the trenches until the Bengals self-destruct. With that defense, there's no way this fractured, dysfunctional, mercenary Cincinnati team would put up much of a fight. Just punch 'em in the mouth and wait for 'em to fold. That's what happened. There will be more games this season where I predict Carson Palmer will throw 2+ interceptions than games where I will not predict it, and I'll be right at least two-thirds of the time.
Green Bay over Detroit, 38-25
Aaron Rodgers played well, really well, well enough to distract people from the fact that the Packers haven't been able to get the ground game going and very nearly blew a huge lead to the horrendous Lions. Imagine if the Packers had lost this game. We'd all remember how well Aaron Rodgers played, and we'd all be scratching our heads like hungover rummies, trying to figure out how the Packers seemed to have won the game in every possible way except maybe the scoreboard. You can't really consider your secondary one of the best in the business when you get absolutely lit up by a Lions offense that can't run the ball, can't pass protect, and can't really get on the field to establish a rhythm. The Packers host the Cowboys next week, and if they need an ugly self-destruction by Jon Kitna to take a win against the lowly Lions after jumping out to a three-score lead, they're sure to have their hands full against the class of the NFC.
As for the Lions, blech. That defense is unbelievably bad. Rod Marinelli's head is in the right place, trying to establish the run to help keep the defense on the sidelines, but they need to start thinking about ways to get on the board very early in games, and maybe then go to the run game later as a way to salt things away. Clearly they have some big-strike ability, but they won't win many games when they spend the middle quarters trying desperately to get back into the contest.
Buffalo over Jacksonville, 20-16
Wow. Definitely gulp time in Jacksonville. David Garrard seems to have lost the magic, and they can't seem to get the ground game going with all the injuries up front. I still think they have the pieces to be a tough team, but I also feel like I've had a revelation about that team. See, so much of what we think we know about the Jaguars and Jack Del Rio is based on an assumption we've all made that David Garrard was not sort of a one-year wonder type of quarterback. I really like Garrard, I hope he's the real thing, but seriously: even if he's not a fluke, there can be no argument that 2007 was his first good season in the NFL. Hell, it was practically his only season in the NFL. Let's say he goes on to be a great NFL quarterback; surely we can expect the rest of the league to be better prepared for the guy in his second season as a starter than they were in his first. Yes, he's been in the league for a few years now, but people seem to forget that, for all intents and purposes, this is only his second full season actually playing on gameday. If he has a sophomore slump, there's no way there's enough talent on the field around him to make a contender. No way at all. And I'm someone who genuinely likes guys like Fred Taylor, Maurice Jones-Drew, and Reggie Williams. They need Garrard's steady hand to make it tick, and if he's off or the rest of the league has caught on, they're in trouble. They're already in a hole in their division, that's for sure.
The Bills played a nice game, getting decent production from all parts of their offense and another solid showing from their defense. It's funny, with Trent Edwards' numbers, you'd expect them to have put up a bigger number on the scoreboard, but I guess you chalk it up to the stoutness of Jacksonville's defense and move on, happy with the win on the road.
Oakland over Kansas City, 23-8
The less said about this situation, the better. I think you can guess how I feel about the Al Davis/Lane Kiffin/Rex Ryan fiasco. I've spent a lot of time praising Lane Kiffin, whereas virtually nobody with integrity or credibility has said a nice thing about Al Davis in years.
The Raiders ran and ran and ran. Good for them. Good strategy, executed well.
The Chiefs weren't so awful on defense, they just couldn't get off the field. But we already knew the Kansas City offense wouldn't be able to put any drives together, so what else could we expect?
Indianapolis over Minnesota, 18-15
Really an ugly game to watch, with the noted exception of several explosive, breathtaking bursts from Adrian Peterson. The Colts were out of sync all afternoon, until suddenly they were in sync, and suddenly it was like you'd known all along they'd be in sync and win the game. Hopefully that was just the start of them getting their act together for another big season. Somehow, an NFL season without a sharp, professional, dominating Indy team is like, well, an NFL season without a hungry, pissed-off, swaggering Philly team, in that I'll feel very disoriented and cagey about it.
Watching the game, a few things stood out to me about Minnesota's offense: 1. I'm extremely worried that Tarvaris Jackson is the Scruffy the Janitor (of Futurama fame and glory) of the Vikings offense. Stay with me here: Scruffy perhaps interpreted his rights and responsibilities too literally when performing his job. I'm sure you don't want a lengthy explanation of how this manifested itself on the show, but suffice to say, Scruffy did only what was expected of him within a very limited, literal interpretation of his position. I worry that perhaps Tarvaris Jackson is taking the whole, "drop back, execute playfake, take what defense gives you, throw to open man, go sit on bench" thing a little too literally. On third and seven, for instance, I'd watch him drop back, execute a crisp play fake, find an open man, and fire him the ball, nevermind that the open man was only two yards past the line of scrimmage, pinned against the sideline with no hope of getting the needed yardage to sustain the drive. Then I'd watch him trot off the field without any air of disappointment or frustration. That worries me, like maybe he knows the notes but not the music, you know? 2. The system is devouring the player, in the case of Tarvaris Jackson. Jackson runs like a runningback and has a big-time cannon for an arm. Virtually everything that made this guy interesting as an NFL prospect was his ability to make plays with his feet and throw the ball a long way. Minnesota went out and drafted Troy Williamson's blazing 40 time just to take advantage of Jackson's arm strength. Now he's stuck in the pocket throwing 6 yard outs, and I just don't see it. I'm not saying he can't be a West Coast quarterback. As a rule, I hate it when asshole scouts, coaches, writers, radio-hosts, fans, or anybody else says an NFL quarterback can't run one kind of system or another. Maybe Jackson can be a West Coast quarterback, but for whatever reason, he looks tentative in a million little ways on the field. Even his throwing motion looks uncertain. This guy needs a few times a game where they call a quarterback draw, or a naked bootleg, or a goddamn option play, something to let him just cut loose and make a play. He can be an asset, I swear. But right now, his play is hurting the Vikings and he probably feels like shit about it. That can't be good for his confidence on the field, and that can't be good for his play.
New York Giants over St. Louis, 41-13
Ok, even I'm not laughing anymore. This St. Louis situation is sickening to the point of actual nausea. I hate certain players and coaches on this team on behalf of other players and coaches on this team. What a disaster. Generally speaking, I'm strongly opposed to firing a coach during his first 3 years on the job, and I've been adamantly opposed to ever firing a guy mid-season, but Scott Linehan is forcing my hand. I'm sure he's a good guy, I'm not advocating for this guy to lose his job because he's breeding a dysfunctional culture, or undermining his players, or selling anybody out, or even being a jerk-ass like Bobby Petrino. He just can't be a head coach at this level, not at all. I can't remember it ever being so stark, such an easy call. Well, maybe in the case of Art Shell's second tenure in Oakland, but even then you could look back at his previous term and deduce that the guy could craft a respectable team. I'll applaud the brass in St. Louis if they have the patience and civility to wait out the season before shit-canning the guy, but I'll be booing loudly if they don't then do it, for God's sake fire him immediately after week 17. But in this rare circumstance, if they were to fire him right now, I might be able to muster a pitiful head-shake for Linehan, but that'd be it. The writing isn't just on the wall, it's tattooed on Linehand's colon. This guy is D-U-N.
Hey, Giants, great win! You did what your division rivals in Philly did last week, which is make mince-meat out of the corpse of the St. Louis Rams. That's what good teams do. Ever since the Super Bowl, I'm awash in warmth and loyalty to the New York Giants. Kick ass, G-Men.
Washington over New Orleans, 29-24
You caught the part where I said I was out of town during week 2, right? Did I mention I was unable to watch the Redskins game, because apparently some idiot in Maine thought the good folks of New England would rather watch the fascinating match-up of New York's forks and steak knives versus St. Louis' tenderized prime cuts of rotting corpse instead of a match-up between a 2007 playoff team and the team picked to win the NFC South?
So the Redskins won. Most importantly, the Redskins had 10 drives that were not ended by the end of the game, and of those 10, only 2 did not result in a scoring opportunity. That's right, the Redskins punted only twice in the game, did not turn the ball over (offensively), and had 8 drives result in scoring chances. 2 missed field goals, 3 touchdowns, 3 made field goals. That's great, great, great production from the offense and a huge step forward for a team that converted 3 of 13 first downs in week 1 and looked damn lucky on those 3. When Jim Zorn talked about improving Washington's offense, he talked about adding 3-4 points a game over the course of the season. The key to that statistic is sustaining drives and getting into the red-zone. There's admirable (albeit antiquated) sensibility and self-restraint to Joe Gibbs' first half field position battles, where he'd cram the ball into the line for a quarter and a half and try to keep the opposition pinned deep, giving him an opportunity to make adjustments at half time and come out scorching, but even the biggest Gibbs fan has to admit ol' Joe's recent offenses lacked punch in a big way. It will be a significant change for Redskins fans if Zorn can give us an offense that moves the ball into scoring position with determination drive after drive, and this was a good start. I almost broke into tears of joy when Fox cut from the end of Giants/Rams to Skins/Saints and a nice, bright graphic showing Jason Campbell's numbers, just in time to watch him sling an 8 yard dart to a slanting Santana Moss on 4th down to seal the deal. Beautiful.
San Francisco over Seattle, 33-30
How the hell do you lose a game when you sack the opposing quarterback . . . wait, no, when you sack J. T. O'Sullivan 8 times and put up 30 points? How do you lose when you out rush your opponent 165 yards to 93? When you complete passes to seven receivers and your opponent completes passes to only five? When you jump out to a 14-3 lead in the first quarter, stuff the run, sack the opponent 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 times, run the ball successfully, spread the completions around, and field a defense that sent 4 players to the Pro Bowl against an offense quarterbacked by J. T. O'Sullivan?
You effing choke, that's how. You reveal yourselves as totally phony, as predicted by every football-knowing son-of-a-bitch East of the Mississippi. Your quarterback implodes under the pressure of playing with a new set of receivers. Your soft, overrated defense falls prey to a glitzy, shiny offense that was invented in your division only a few years ago. The goddamn Seahawks suck ass, they don't have an ounce of mojo between the lot of them. Gimme Arizona any day.
Tampa Bay over Atlanta, 24-9
Meh. It happens. Forget about both of these teams. Neither one is worth a damn. Give the Falcons a few years and they'll be a fun team again. In a few years, not only will Gruden be gone from Tampa Bay, but the whole roster will have been turned over.
Arizona over Miami, 31-10
Miami is crap. Let's move on.
Arizona has a really deep set of talented players at skill positions. Kurt Warner is exactly exactly exactly the right guy for this offense, a gunslinger who barely even notices receivers who aren't 15 yards down field. Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin have the ability to beat pretty much any secondary and allow Warner to just fire it into traffic and see what happens. You can't slow this offense down without getting a lot of heat on the quarterback, but if you do manage to get some pressure in the pocket, Kurt Warner is a mortal lock to start dropping the ball. I like the guy, I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I like him. The truth is, the Cardinals have a very definite ceiling on their production, and it's probably something like 4 significant hits on Warner in one half. After that, he'll go scattershot. I'm not trying to shit on him, he'll almost certainly do enough to get them into the playoffs, especially if their defense continues to perform. For the second week in a row, the Cardinals were like the varsity version of the NFC West, while the rest of the division was like the local Pop Warner team, playing with t-shirts stretched over their shoulder pads and different color face-masks. The NFC West is a train-wreck, but emerging from the wreck like a pissed off T1000 is a pretty professional, very athletic Arizona team with the exact right quarterback. They could do a thing or two.
Denver over San Diego, 39-38
Look, enough with the bullshit. Any chance that happens to any other team in the NFL? Any chance a game like that goes down with Bill Belichick on the sidelines? Tony Dungy? How about with Jim Johnson running the Chargers defense? Or maybe Monte Kiffin? Any chance a team that had been coached for two seasons by Marty Schottenheimer or even Jim Fassell loses like that?
Right, so quit the bitching. The Chargers needed a fluke fumble, akin to Tony Romo dropping the snap in a playoff game against the Seahawks, to have any hope of keeping the Broncos out of the endzone. With that much talent, no way a better coach lets an opponent get up to such an absurd lead in a division contest, no way. No way a better defensive coordinator lets that much talent go out there and get reamed up and down by the goddamn Broncos. You watch - some far less talented teams are going to go out and put a hurting on Denver's one dimensional offense. That goddamn phantom fumble completely let San Diego's coaches and players off the hook, and instead of having the cojones to stand at the podium after the game and say "We're supposed to be the most talented team in the AFC, no way we lost that game because of a missed call with under a minute left on the clock", Norv Turner goes up there and cries like a bitch. Well boo friggin' hoo. The Patriots are 2-0 despite playing without Tom effing Brady for all but two series, whereas the fake-as-hell San Diego Chargers are 0-2 after a home loss to the Steve Smith-less Carolina Panthers and a road loss in which they found themselves down 31-10 in the first half. Neither of the teams they've lost to won more than 7 games last season and neither one did a damn thing other than get healthy to improve this off-season. They're lucky beyond belief that they were within a single blown call of winning that game, and the fact that they weren't even the engineers of their own luck (regarding the fumble) pisses me off beyond words.
I'm done with this shit-fest.
New England over New York Jets, 19-10
Neither team really did much to deserve the victory here, and it came down to limiting mistakes. If I said this game would be decided by which team limited mistakes, and you pointed out that one team had a quarterback who hadn't started a game since high-school and the other team had Brett Favre, well, I would have called it a coin flip. Eat it, Favre!
To be honest, I'm frankly appalled that anybody in Vegas thought it was a good idea to make the Jets the favorite. That's just unbelievable. The Patriots were undefeated in the regular season last year and had by far the greatest regular season in NFL history. The Jets were garbage. It's a testament to how overrated the quarterback position is and how overrated Tom Brady is that people would expect a team that did not lose a regular season game last season and came within one miracle play of winning the Super Bowl would lose to a garbage team just because Brady went down. Interestingly, I'm wondering if Brady had only had like a sprained toe or something and was only going to miss this game if people still would have picked the Jets to win. Like maybe the gravity of knowing Brady was done for the year made people think the Patriots were as devastated by the news as perhaps the gay gay media has been. I'm betting the Pats would have still been favorites.
Pittsburgh over Cleveland, 10-6
Not much to say about this game. It was ugly. There was one big, bright, hideous, really troubling red flag for the Browns, though.
The Steelers were up 10-3 late in the game and the Browns had just had a rare successful drive deep into Pittsburgh territory. Facing 4th and 7 with only 2:30 left on the clock, Romeo Crennel elected to kick a field goal. What the hell does a field goal do for the Browns in that scenario? They hadn't moved the ball well all day, their only sustained drives of the night had taken more than 6:30 off the clock, and they would still need a touchdown after kicking the field goal. Here they only needed 7 yards to sustain the drive and 20 yards for a touchdown to tie the game, but instead of going for it, Crennel kicked a meaningless field goal and gave the ball right back to the Steelers with essentially the same lead, counting on his porous defense to get a stop down the stretch. Well, that they did, giving the ball back to the offense with 26 seconds on the clock, no time-outs, and 74 yards to make up. So, without actually effecting the status of the game at all, Crennel cost his team more than 2 minutes and about 55 yards. Nicely done. That, my friends, is called giving that game away.
Dallas over Philadelphia, 41-37
Big spectacle! Lots of scoring!
This week I will be doing picks. I had to forfeit any chance of winning in the ESPN Eliminator because I wasn't around to make a week 2 pick, and the Pigskin Pick'em is now pretty much out of reach. Luckily, my fantasy team did well behind big games from Eddie Royal, Calvin Johnson, and Jason Campbell. Not sure whether I'll stick with Ben Roethlisberger into week 3; his shoulder was acting up and he's got Philly's defense to contend with. I'm taking a long look at Aaron Rodgers.
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