November 17th, 2006

Week 11 Preview

By Brett | Add a Comment »

In no particular order, here are a few of the storylines that we’ll be following this weekend:

• Looks like reigning league MVP Shaun Alexander is coming back. We’re going to go on record, and say this: His ridiculous TD totals notwithstanding, Alexander is an above-average but not great running back. He’s never been able to run with authority between the tackles, and he’s benefited tremendously from playing behind a fantastic offensive line and on a team that has had a potent passing game for the last 5 years. Even before he got hurt, he wasn’t running the ball that well this year. It will be interesting to see how well he performs against a bad-but-rapidly-improving San Francisco defense.
• Trent Green is coming back for the Chiefs, which is good news for them. Damon Huard played well while Green was out, and has the team in position to make a playoff run. No question about it, though, this team is better with Green under center. Too bad he’ll be without his top target, Tony Gonzalez. Just been one of those years in KC. We think it’s the Herm Edwards effect. He’s an inspiring leader, whose teams never seem to quite live up to expectations for some reason.
• Houston is suddenly starting to play some defense. A win against Buffalo would put them within 1 game of being .500 — that’s a big step for this franchise.
• Cincinnati vs. New Orleans. Anyone know what the over-under is on this one? We’re taking the over, whatever it is. We’re looking for Reggie Bush to hit paydirt for the second week in a row, making us feel like a complete dumbass for trading him off the fantasy squad. That was for you, Kornheiser.
• Too bad Daunte Culpepper won’t be able to go against his former team. We’re pretty sure the Vikings would have loved to have been on the receiving end of some of his interceptions and fumbles. This is going to be a defensive struggle, and if Miami wins it, they just might be able to salvage their season by making a long-odds playoff run.
• Finally, our take on the Bears game. If we were Eric Mangini (which, thankfully, we’re not), we’d throw the kitchen sink at Rex Grossman. Mangini knows how to use multiple looks, unique blitzes, and disguised coverages to confuse the hell out of a quarterback — just ask Tom Brady. If the Jets do that successfully, they’ll force the Bears into commiting bad turnovers and put themselves in good position to beat a team that they probably shouldn’t.

  On the other side of the ball, the Bears need to pound the rock. The Jets have been atrocious defending the run this year, and the Bears desperately need to get their ground game going if they’re going to be able to keep the pressure off Grossman down the stretch. Defensively, they shouldn’t have too much trouble with a Jets offense that has been struggling to move the ball for the last month, particularly in the air. The main thing the Bears need to do on defense is just stay in their gaps and not overpursue. They’ve lacked discipline the last three weeks, which has resulted in big plays. If the Bears can limit the New York’s big play opportunities, they should have no problems keeping the Jets offense under wraps.

  Category: NFL News
  Tags: NFL News, Tag Index

November 17th, 2006

Guess We Should Chime In On This

By Brett | Add a Comment »

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big college game tomorrow, as the Wolverines of Michigan will attempt to defeat the Buckeyes of Ohio State by kicking an oblong leather ball through a large upright H. We anticipate it will be most exhilirating.

OK, so this post isn’t actually about the NFL, but c’mon…the Game of the Century only happens once every, what, every 11, 12 months? We haven’t seen a Game of the Century since Matt, Reggie, and crew squeaked past the Irish on the last play of the game last year. With that in mind, we feel it’s our duty to share what we’re stoked about in tomorrow’s game:

• Michigan’s Fatties: We admit, we don’t catch much college ball, but from everything we’ve heard, Michigan’s defensive front 7 is flat out nasty. We love good defensive football, and these guys are supposed to be one of the best defensive in the college game in the last 50 years or so. We think it’s fair to say that they should provide the biggest test that OSU has seen all season.
• Ted Ginn Jr. and Troy Smith: Ginn and Smith are two of the most exciting players anywhere in the country. Smith is exceptionally athletic, poised, and an intelligent. Ginn is just wicked fast. Both players are fun to watch, and break off Sportscenter-type highlights like they’re going out of style.
• Wings: We’ve been pretty much sticking to a steady diet of pizza and beer so far this season, but since this is A) a college game, and B) the Game of the Century, we decided to break the monotony a little bit. So, Saturday at around 11 AM Pacific Time, we’ll be descending upon Fire on the Mountain to get about 6 dozen of the most hellafied, sauce-afied, spice-afied buffalo wings you could possibly imagine.
• The Chess Match: It’s pretty well documented that Jim Tressel has made making Lloyd Carr his bitch one of the cornerstones of his career at Ohio St. We’ll be interested to see if Carr has an answer this time around, and if he can find a way to keep Troy Smith from taking over the game, as he’s done the last two years. We’re thinking probably not. But we’ve been wrong before.

  While we’d love to see a 44-41 horserace, all evidence points to this one being rather low scoring. Because they’re playing at the Horseshoe, and because of Tressel’s aforementioned owership of Carr and the Wolverines, we’re taking OSU in this one, by a score of 23-17.

  We should note that today is a sad day for football fans around the country, as former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler has died of a heart attack. We’d love to make some jackass comment about irony of Schembechler dying on the eve of the big game, especially in light of the fact that the OSU band The Dead Schembechlers has been in the news lately, but we just can’t bring ourselves to go there. That said, be prepared for this one to beaten like a, um, dead horse tomorrow by ABC.

  Finally, we’ll end with a philosophical question, something we’ve been wondering about for years now. Obviously, before tomorrow’s kick-off there will be the perfunctory Moment of Silence in honor of Schembechler. If you’re in the stadium, everyone knows that you should stand, take off your hat, and show your respects….but what’s the protocol if you’re watching the game at home? Are we couch-potatoes compelled to lay of the nacho cheese dip for a minute, and stand in silence? Or is it cool to just go on, business as usual, feeding, belching and talking shit to our friends? Let us know if you have any thoughts on this, because this uncomfortable situation has been making us feel awkward for pretty much our entire sports-spectating career.

  Category: NFL News
  Tags: Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, Ted Ginn Jr., Troy Smith, Jim Tressel, Lloyd Carr, Bo Schembechler, NFL News, Tag Index

November 14th, 2006

Jason Campbell: A Day Late and A Buck Short

By Brett | 1 Comment »

Joe Gibbs has finally pulled the trigger on the move that many have been calling for for weeks now: he’s finally turning over the keys to the offense to QB Jason Campbell. Gibbs has claimed that he’s not mailing in the season, but just looking for some type of offensive spark. With Clinton Portis sideline for 3-4 weeks and 3-6 record, it’s pretty easy to see that Gibbs is just blowing smoke. There’s no way that this team can take over the Eagles, Cowboys and Giants to have a shot at the playoffs.

We don’t know much about Campbell, but we do know that this offense wasn’t going anywhere with Mark Brunell under center. This team has three legitimate deep threats in Santana Moss, Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle-El, and it makes absolutely no sense to have a guy with Brunell’s arm running the show.

This was a move that should have been made a few weeks ago, around the same time Bill Parcells benched Drew Bledsoe in favor of Tony Romo. The fact that Gibbs stuck with Brunell this long is just further evidence that the NFL has passed him by, and that Dan Snyder needs to go back to the drawing board again this off-season.

November 13th, 2006

Week 10 Wrap Up: Have We Mentioned That We Hate Ed Hochuli?

By Brett | Add a Comment »

We’re back from overseas, a bit earlier than expected. After we heard about the what happened at Soldier Field in Week 9, we changed our flight to get back early for the Bears-Giants game, knowing our boys would need all the help they could get. And, after seeing how poorly they played in the first half, we’re glad we came home. We’re pretty sure that was the difference maker in the second half.

Some things we’re marinating on in the wake of week 10:

• Ed Hochuli has a reputation as a great referee in the NFL, and while he clearly has a solid mastery of the rules (although someone may want to explain to him what a horsecollar tackle is), it’s flat-out awful to watch the games that he officiates. Why? The guy gets more screen time than the Wilson brothers. Hochuli and his crew call games tighter than just about any crew in the league, which makes for slow, boring games where the refs get more attention than the players.
• Eli Manning obviously still has a long way to go, and still struggles quite a bit with his accuracy. One thing that really impresses us, though, is his ability to evade the pass rush, particularly given the fact that he’s not exactly a fleet-footed guy. There were several times last night where we thought he was dead in the water, and he was able to get rid of the ball. Say what you want about the guy, he’s got great pocket presence.
• As expected, the Bears really miss Mike Brown. Replacements Todd Johnson and Chris Harris both look a little lost, and the Bears have given up 3 consecutive 100 yard rushers. That shouldn’t be placed all on Johnson and Harris, but the fact is the strong safety position is one of the key run defenders in the Cover 2 system (think John Lynch in Tampa Bay). Teams would be smart to look to exploit this weakness come December and January.
• Why it took the Bears eight games and two full quarters to really commit to running the ball is completely beyond us. Ron Turner obviously has a man-crush on Rex Grossman and his ability to throw the ball down the field, but he really hasn’t been doing the kid any favors this year. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: The Bears need to consistently run the ball between the tackles to be effective on offense. Last night, particularly in the second half, was the first time they’ve done that all season. Pounding the ball is the single best way to take the heat off of a young, inexperienced, streaky QB like Grossman. If the Bears want to win games in the playoffs, they need to revisit their second gameplan from last night. If Ron Turner puts it all on Grossman, they’re looking at another early playoff exit.
Category: NFL News, Weekly Wrap Ups
Tags: NFL News, Weekly Wrap Ups, Tag Index

November 2nd, 2006

Week 9 Preview: There’s Really Only One Game That Matters

By Brett | Add a Comment »

Tom Brady. Peyton Manning. Bill Belichick. Tony Dungy. 6-1 Pats. 7-0 Colts. Huge, insanely overhyped game between two great teams, that probably deserves all the attention it’s getting. But we don’t really care that much, for three reasons: First, we’ll be out of the country on Sunday. Second, we have very little invested in this game from a fantasy standpoint. Third, neither of these teams are the Bears.

That’s right, the only game that really matters this weekend is the Dolphins-Bears tilt in Chicago. For the second time in the last 21 years, the Fish have a change to spoil an undefeated season for the Bears. Given the fact that they’re just about the worst team in the league right now, it seems unlikely that they have a shot in this one, but we said the same thing about Arizona a few weeks back. But still…there are some historical implications here. Brady vs. Manning? Please. Gimme Grossman vs. Harrington any day.

On a related note, who makes the schedule in the NFL? How does it work out that in the Bears first 8 games, they get Green Bay, Detroit, Buffalo, Arizona, San Francisco, and Miami? That’s 6 of the worst 10 teams (Cleveland, Oakland, Tennessee and Houston being the others) in the league over the course of the first 8 weeks. I hear a lot of people talking about how the Bears are peaking too early. We’re not so sure about that. Frankly, we think they’re a pretty good team whose record is probably better than their talent level. They just happened to have been fortunate enough to play the NFL’s version of a JV schedule.

With road games in New York and New England on the horizon, we should find out what the Bears are made of soon enough. Meantime, we’re bummed that we’re going to miss what is sure to be an epic battle between the Dolphins and the Bears. For the 1st quarter, anyway.

Bob, you’re in charge for the next week or so. Go nuts.

PS…For the record, we think New England is going to hand it to the Colts by cramming the well rested Corey Dillon and Lawrence Maroney down Indy’s throat. We also like the Giants at home vs. the Bears next weekend.

November 1st, 2006

Breaking Our Sheepish Silence

By Brett | Add a Comment »

After we so boldly predicted that the Seahawks-Chiefs game would be a complete cluster last week, we decided to bury our head in the sand for a while. Actually, we’ve just been out of town on business and haven’t been able to give our little NFL blog it’s due respect over the last several days. We’re back now, and we’re willing to admit that we were wrong about the Seahawks-Chiefs match up, which turned out to be a really fun game to watch. The highlight of the game came in the 4th quarter when Chiefs DE Jared Allen intercepted a Seneca Wallace, only to have the ball ripped out of his hands by Deion Branch before falling out of bounds. This play reminded us of our first ever INT, which we promptly fumbled back to the other team after taking about three steps with the ball. They scored on the next play, we lost the game, and that play became the defining moment of my short, lackluster football career.

Anyway, here are some mid-week thoughts that are floating around in our head:

• Kansas City’s offense is starting to look more and more like it did when Dick Vermeil was there, minus the crying. This is a good thing for Chief’s fans and Larry Johnson’s fantasy owners. Damon Huard has been playing really well, and although Herm Edwards is publicly saying that Trent Green is his guy when he comes back, we’ve gotta believe that Green is going to be on a pretty short leash.
• Guess it’s time we should all admit that Reggie Bush is officially the 3rd best rookie RB this year, after Lawrence Maroney and Joseph Addai. Hell, we might even put Mike Bell in that group.
• We hear Brad Johnson is in danger of losing his starting job to Brooks Bollinger. The Vikings offense has been hideous this year, and Johnson had a terrible game against the Pats on Monday…but, Brooks Bollinger? Tough move to make for a team that has a great shot at a Wild Card berth.
• The Bears are 7-0. Assuming they beat Miami at home this weekend, four of their eight wins will have come against arguably the four worst teams in the league: Miami, San Francisco, Arizona, and Detroit.
• More Bears: Todd Johnson, filling in for injured SS Mike Brown, had an excellent outing in his first game as a starter, causing two fumbles and contributing five tackles. Brown is the Bears defensive leader, but if Johnson can continue to play like that, they may not miss him as much as they had thought they would.
• We’re stoked about the upcoming Pats-Colts tilt. How can you not be? Unfortunately, we’ll be out of town again for the next couple weeks, which is seriously going to skew our football viewing.

  We’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on Week 9….you know, because we’re getting really freaking good at picking the winners each. There’s a reason we don’t gamble.

  Category: NFL News
  Tags: NFL News, Tag Index

October 29th, 2006

Somewhere Bubby Brister is Licking his Chops

By Bob | Add a Comment »

Last week it was Bruce Gradkowski. This week it was David Gerrard. The Eagles haven’t exactly faced Joe Montana and Dan Marino, but they are doing a great job of making mediocre, unknown quarterbacks into superstars.

We hit the halfway mark of the season with an Eagles team that is now 4-4 after losing three straight games to the Saints, Bucs and Jaguars. Not exactly a murderer’s row schedule, but the Eagles don’t have the fight to kill anything but themselves at this point in the season.

Today’s game exposed all that is wrong with this year’s version of the Birds. They still have a hard time stopping the run up the middle, they are still struggle when Donovan McNabb struggles, they still have shite wide receivers who can’t catch a cold in a hospital let alone a ball over the middle, and they still throw on first down every single bloody time.

If ever there was a team that was in need of a bye week it is this Eagles team. Their season is far from lost because the NFC East is muddled mess. There is still time to turn things around and address the various problems. There is still time to grow a sack of balls and play like men. There is still time to tempt us all with the notion that they aren’t as bad of a team as the one that has lost to the Saints, Bucs and Jaguars. There is still time for them to stop making Bubby Brister quarterbacks into Bart Starr.

Indeed, there is still time for them to play just good enough to break my heart one more time.

October 27th, 2006

Why We Hate Fox’s NFL Coverage

By Brett | 1 Comment »

Obvious reasons aside, our hatred for the Fox network has reached new heights today. Why? We’ll tell you why. Seneca Wallace and Brodie Croyle, that’s why. Because we live in the Seahawks’ ‘market’, this week we’re being forced to watch the Seattle vs. KC abortion, when we could be seeing a more intriguing match up.

While we’ll admit that this weekend’s slate of games isn’t exactly chock full of great divisional rivalries, there’s gotta be something better than watching Wallace and Croyle piss down their respective legs for 60 minutes. Seriously, give us Cincy-Atlanta, or Baltimore-New Orleans. Hell, we’d even settle for Jacksonville-Philly. Has there been a worse QB match up than Wallace vs. Croyle since the Jon Quinn-led Bears played the Chad Hutchinson-led Cowboys on Thanksgiving in ‘04? We can’t believe we’re saying this, but damn do we wish that Damon Huard could go this weekend.

OK, so no one is holding a gun to our head and forcing us to watch the games on Sunday. But what else are we are supposed to do? Get our lazy ass off the couch and excercise? We would, but we did that once last month.

October 26th, 2006

Week 8 Preview: Just Glad Week 7 Is Over

By Brett | 1 Comment »

Last week was officially the worst week of the season thus far. On top of the fact that there was a slate of crap games on Sunday , the Bears were on bye, leaving us with the half-excited, half-depressed feeling we got after the Cards game for almost a full two weeks. That game was so confusing, on so many levels. We’re looking forward to leaving it behind.

Also adding to the high level of suckitude in Week 7 was the fact that there was no Sunday night game. Football Night in America –which we’re pretty sure is also Lynn Swann’s campaign slogan– has quickly become one of our Top Ten Reasons For Living. So, WTF NBC? Why are you taking away one of our reasons to live? There’s a World Series, you say? Pfft. Give us our goddam football!

Sorry about that. Had to get that off our chest. Now, on to our picks for Week 8.

Baltimore vs. New Orleans
Could this be the week that Reggie Bush finally starts to get loose? Not likely against the Ravens still-stingy defense. Saints are gonna take this anyway. Ravens just aren’t that good.

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October 24th, 2006

Bears Come Off Bye Week Banged Up

By Brett | Add a Comment »

Coming off their comeback victory over the Cardinals last week, the Bears went into their bye week at 6-0. In spite of Rex Grossman’s hideous performance in that game, their offense still ranks near the top of the heap, and their defense has looked dominant on all but a few series this year. With home games coming up against San Francisco and Miami, all signs point to the Bears going in to the second half of the season at 8-0.

However, there are some reasons for concern in Chicago, most notably the loss of SS Mike Brown, who is regarding by teammates as the heart and soul of the defens to a season-ending foot injury. In addition to Brown, the Bears have a few other defensive contributors injured right now — DE Adewale Ogunleye, SS Chris Harris, and nickel CB Ricky Manning Jr. (who could also be facing a league suspension).

Our thoughts on what the Bears need to do to continue their early season success, after the jump.

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