National Football League

[on3m@n@rmy]

I too agree with all that by Amsterhammer, and Alpe not ready to dub him MVP yet. But like I said before ROD or POW works (rookie of the day, or player of the week).

Go Chargers!!

Unfortunately for the Raiders, they seem to be saying "Go Chargers" too (with all those gifts they gave the Chargers in the form of mistakes). OAK losing their long snapper didn't help, but that's different from mental mistakes like fumbles and encroachment. I'd sit NT #93 Kelly for a while and let him think about it... 2 encroachment penalties on the same drive !

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

That game was hard to watch. And I thought Carson Palmer would be the problem. The Raiders look like they need another pre-season!

I remember the days of Al Davis and either John Madden or Tom Flores and how the Raiders were tolerant, even accepting of aggressive penalties - personal fouls, face masks, even holding. But intolerant of bone headed mistakes - off sides, delay of game, 12 men on the field, etc. And that's exactly how they played.

My how times have changed.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Bleacher Report's Power Rankings are up. Here's the top 10:

1. SF
2. NE
3. Balt
4. Hou
5. GB
6. ATL
7. Chi
8. Den
9. Dal
10. NYG

I would have put GB and NYG lower on the list, as both lost. BR did however have high praise for RGIII.

"It took awhile Washington, but your quarterback has finally arrived. The Redskins will make some noise in the NFC East this season."

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the rankings are Indy, Cleveland, and Miami, with ample criticism for their rookie QBs. (I'm waiting for Foxxy to chime in again about Luck busting. )


Everyone talking about how Alex Smith outplayed Aaron Rogers. Well, the GB defense is still poor. Let's see Smith do this well against a higher ranked D.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Bleacher Report's Power Rankings are up. Here's the top 10:

1. SF
2. NE
3. Balt
4. Hou
5. GB
6. ATL
7. Chi
8. Den
9. Dal
10. NYG

I would have put GB and NYG lower on the list, as both lost. BR did however have high praise for RGIII.

"It took awhile Washington, but your quarterback has finally arrived. The Redskins will make some noise in the NFC East this season."

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the rankings are Indy, Cleveland, and Miami, with ample criticism for their rookie QBs. (I'm waiting for Foxxy to chime in again about Luck busting. )


Everyone talking about how Alex Smith outplayed Aaron Rogers. Well, the GB defense is still poor. Let's see Smith do this well against a higher ranked D.

Strange things, these rankings...when losing teams can rank higher than shock winning ones, y'all know who I'm talking about. I suppose it'll be a cold day in hell before the Skins make a top 10.

Guys, I didn't (yet) bombard RG3 to MVP, but on the basis of what my eyes told me even after only one game, and the hope and (realistically limited) optimism instilled by the boy's potential, I think ROY could be serious possibility. Long way to go, we'll see.

Who knew that a "long snapper" could be so important, eh?

Where's Foxxy?

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

on the power rankings... SF is too high.

In week 2, the 2 games that will be hard to watch (with my predictions):
Minnesota at Indianapolis
Oakland at Miami

The other week 2 games:
Chicago at Green Bay
Kansas City at Buffalo
Cleveland at Cincinnati
New Orleans at Carolina
Houston at Jacksonville
Arizona at New England
Tampa Bay at NY Giants
Baltimore at Philadelphia
Washington at St. Louis
Dallas at Seattle
NY Jets at Pittsburgh
Tennessee at San Diego
Detroit at San Francisco
Denver at Atlanta

...but I'm just hip-shooting again.

Replacement refs are getting better, to the point I don't think the league will back away from using them now. However, they still make a fair number of wrong calls, and take too long making decisions.

 

[gregod]

i know that this is the NFL thread, but since college football is a business just as big as the NFL, i thought some of you might be interested in this. college football is a communist plot to destroy 'merica.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

i know that this is the NFL thread, but since college football is a business just as big as the NFL, i thought some of you might be interested in this. college football is a communist plot to destroy 'merica.

Well, we do discuss college football here too, so why not?

I did not see anywhere in George's article where he equates progressivism or college football with a commie plot. But for fun, let's just say college FB is a commie plot, then in Russia football would be seen as a capitalistic plot. But to be practical, progressivism = advocating social, political, and/or economic reform, which is pretty much a part of our political campaigning for govt offices. Not a commie plot. Since this has more to do with politics than football and belongs in another thread I won't say anymore. I guess that's why not.

 

[gregod]

Well, we do discuss college football here too, so why not?

I did not see anywhere in George's article where he equates progressivism or college football with a commie plot. But for fun, let's just say college FB is a commie plot, then in Russia football would be seen as a capitalistic plot. But to be practical, progressivism = advocating social, political, and/or economic reform, which is pretty much a part of our political campaigning for govt offices. Not a commie plot. Since this has more to do with politics than football and belongs in another thread I won't say anymore. I guess that's why not.

it was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it is pretty well known that george will thinks progressivism is the kinder gentler face of communist world domination.
i'm not trying to be political. i just thought it was funny and related to football. just related differently than scores and games. it seems to me american football is more american than baseball.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

I remember the days of Al Davis and either John Madden or Tom Flores and how the Raiders were tolerant, even accepting of aggressive penalties - personal fouls, face masks, even holding. But intolerant of bone headed mistakes - off sides, delay of game, 12 men on the field, etc. And that's exactly how they played.

My how times have changed.

I'm with ya there (). It would be nice, no, great to have the Raiders return to their former domination of the Bay Area.

it was a bit of hyperbole on my part, but it is pretty well known that george will thinks progressivism is the kinder gentler face of communist world domination.
i'm not trying to be political. i just thought it was funny and related to football. just related differently than scores and games. it seems to me american football is more american than baseball.

Ok. I'll give you that.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

on the power rankings... SF is too high.

True. I believe NE is better, and GB was as flat as SF was good.

I think the real ref's are going to somewhat cave to the owners' demands in the next week or two. We'll see.

Bleacher Report has a good article on which rookie QB had a worse day, Tannehill or Weeden. It's a bit amusing, but also painful.

BR also reminds us that Alex Smith isn't the MVP just yet, and don't quite stencil the Ravens into the AFC championship, though their offense looked quite good. I also noticed that after being awesome in the first 3Q, Ray Lewis sat once the game was out of hand. Same with Ed Reed once his hamstring bothered him (though he said he wasn't hurt at all after the game) Smart coaching if you ask me.

Brent Grimes, Atlanta's ProBowl cornerback and franchise player is out for the season with a blown Achilles. Not good for Falcon fans, but the team picked up Asante Samuel in the off season for safety reasons, which may pay off.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Just WOW! I don't recall ever seeing a QB rating as low as Weeden's 1.2 (that's right, the decimal is in the correct spot, one-point-two). I may have seen Ryan's 39 before.

The real refs better not wait too long. As I said, the replacement refs are getting better, and they will continue to get better each week. That will not help the regular refs cause. And I think there's growing sentiment at the head of the league that the replacements are doing fine enough.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

What QB was it a year or three ago that had a 0.0 rating for a game? Sanchez? Pennington? Leinart? Can't recall. Weeden should give them a call.

My picks for this week:
Minnesota at Indianapolis - Luck should be better this week though.
Oakland at Miami - Ugh.
Chicago at Green Bay - Should be close, but GB lose 2 in a row at home?
Kansas City at Buffalo - No defense, but KC better overall
Cleveland at Cincinnati - Cincy needs this game
New Orleans at Carolina - Should be close, NO more tools
Houston at Jacksonville - Lock of the week?
Arizona at New England - Lock of the week!
Tampa Bay at NY Giants - Giants bounce back. TB overplayed last week
Baltimore at Philadelphia - Ravens stellar, Eagles not
Washington at St. Louis - Can RGIII stay on high?
Dallas at Seattle - Could be a let down for Cowboys.
NY Jets at Pittsburgh - Jets back to earth against real defense
Tennessee at San Diego - Tough call.
Detroit at San Francisco - Last year this was a fun one
Denver at Atlanta - Atlanta is good, at home, but PM will roll

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Almost the same as my predix except I took BUF, CAR, and SEA.

Yes, Luck should be better, but it is hard to be worse than 4 INTs like he had last week.

I agree on your Locks. I'd almost say WASH at STL is a lock, so I'll classify that game as "Lock?". RGIII will be fine, their game plan will be better, and the noise will not be as severe. But even if it is, they showed how to deal with that last week. edit: found the only photo I could of how Skins dealt with Saints crowd noise. The RG would look back at RG3, who would give the RG the signal to snap, then the RG would return to his normal stance and tap the center to hike the ball. All other O-linemen just focused on the ball.

Vick a bit rusty last week, but should be better this week. We'll see if he can shake the rust off.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Or maybe he's just not that good. Merely an athletic guy who had a few impressive games and amazing plays. To be revisited in a couple months.

Luck should be better, but it is hard to be worse than 4 INTs like he had last week.

Only 3 INT's (a fourth was called back. But hey, who's counting.)

Lots of teams do silent snap counts, and every team preps for them. Even in college. Some teams do them almost exclusively.

 

[Amsterhammer]

A couple of quotes from John Madden (be prepared for more RG3 worship from this quarter as the season progresses) -

"It’s darn near an impossible task to open up and play the Saints in their place,” Madden said during his weekly appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “I mean, no one wins down there, so I didn’t expect him to do anything like he did. But I did want to see him, and I wanted to see what he had.

“And at some point, I have to admit that I said this, it just came out, I said RGIII’s the best player in the NFL today. That’s what I really thought. Those words did come out. Now, I don’t know that I’m gonna live with that or back that up the rest of the season."

"You know, the thing that he did that was so amazing was he reminded me — and I don’t mean to throw names around — but he reminded me of a Tim Tebow that can pass."


Ok, it's that time again (it was last week too, but I forgot then) - who's gonna play? Remember that Bears-GB is tonight.

Minnesota at Indianapolis - 'All day' is back and running...
Oakland at Miami - An ugly tragi-comedy in the making?
Chicago at Green Bay - Hard to imagine GB losing two at home.
Kansas City at Buffalo - KC on a hunch
Cleveland at Cincinnati - Toss up, I'll go for the home team.
New Orleans at Carolina - Can't imagine Saints losing their first two either.
Houston at Jacksonville - No idea, on a coin toss.
Arizona at New England - Lock of the week! No brainer.
Tampa Bay at NY Giants - Giants to restore order.
Baltimore at Philadelphia - Go Ravens!
Washington at St. Louis - RGIII to continue to shine!
Dallas at Seattle - Could be very close.
NY Jets at Pittsburgh - Jets meet a real defense.
Tennessee at San Diego - Tough call, home team on a coin toss.
Detroit at San Francisco - Last year this was a fun one, I'll go with Niners.
Denver at Atlanta - I'll go with PM till he loses

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

I can't wait for the first meeting between 'Skins and 'Boys. I'm going to bleed burgundy.

Uuuugly game for the Bears tonight. I thought Pack would win but did not think Bears would tank that badly. Cutler had a rough night, first by getting sacked and hit so much. 3.5 times by this guy:

And then going 11/27 for 126 yards (average 4.7 ypp), 1 TD, 4 INTs, sacked 7 times for minus 52 yards, and rating of 28.2. Brandon Marshall was not much help either.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Was that Andrew Luck in a Bears jersey? (Since Foxxy isn't around.)

Let's give the Packers some credit. They came out very aggressive on defense, like their pride was hurt, and really put it to the Bears. Interestingly enough, the Packers offense didn't do a whole lot, but enough to win.

As to RGIII, he's definitely going to have some tough games, but I agree on that team, with those coaches, it's a perfect fit. I wouldn't call him the best player in the NFL today, nor a Tebow who can pass. I dislike such comparisons, but he has showed great poise and leadership. It's easy to see why Shanahan said they didn't blink about giving up those draft picks for him and think they got the better end of the deal. Again, we'll see how he does late in the season, but their schedule starts somewhat favorably. @StL, Cincy, @TB, Atl, Min, @NYG, @Pitt, Carolina.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Poor Bears Lose to the Packers. Ummmm they need a new QB. Someone who is good.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

I think Foxxy will like that comment about Luck in a Bears uniform.

Some Packer players I'm guessing did not like this pre-game comment from Cutler:

When asked about possible physical coverage from Green Bay cornerbacks, he had this to say: "Good luck," he said. "We invite press coverage." (Link)

After the game Charles Woodson had this to say about that:

"It's the same old Jay. We just need to be in position. Jay will throw us the ball." (Link)

 

[Amsterhammer]

There are whole load of very strange scorelines in the third quarter. If this keeps up most people's predictions will be heading south.

NE, NO, NYG, KC, MINN, OAK all losing......

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

And they all lost, except NYG who should have. The ending of that NE Arizona game was something.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

What a crazy weekend of NFL football. Since there were so many upsets, let's see how each of us did predicting. And I'm not tooting my horn b/c 9-6 is really nothing to toot about. Then MNF game is still hanging in the balance.

GAME..............OUR PREDICTIONS________
(WINNER).…..ALPE…….AMSTER…….3MAN
MIN at (IND)….MIN…....….MIN…………..MIN
OAK at (MIA)…OAK……..MIA…………..OAK
CHI at (GB)…..GB…....…GB……..…….GB
KC at (BUF)…..KC………KC…………...BUF
CLE at (CIN)….CIN……...CIN…………..CIN
NO at (CAR)…..NO.…….NO..................CAR
(HOU) at JAX….HOU……HOU…………HOU
(ARI) at NE.…..NE……...NE……………NE
TB at (NYG)…..NYG……..NYG...............NYG
BAL at (PHI)…..BAL……..BAL................BAL
WAS at (STL)..WAS.........WAS..............WAS
DAL at (SEA)…DAL..........DAL...............SEA
NYJ at (PIT)…..PIT............PIT…………..PIT
TEN at (SD)…TEN……….SD...............TEN
DET at (SF)….SF………..SF…………..SF

Record………6-9…….….8-7…………..9-6

DEN? at ATL?.…DEN......DEN……………DEN

The real shockers to me were the Cards over the Pats, and the Rams over the Redskins. The Pats loss should not have been. They maybe wish the had Cundiff as their kicker as Gostkowski missed a 42 yard game winning field goal at the end of the game. Still the Pats did not get it done earlier, so I won't pin this loss completely on Gostkowski. Another thing I came away with from this game is the Cards are not such a bad team.

Of the other two games I highlighted blue: the Vikes are just bad enough a team like the Colts beating them should be no big surprise; and the Eagles are good enough we really should not be too surprised on their win either. In fact, this weekend is just proof than in the NFL, anybody can beat anybody on any given day, even teams that travel to the East Coast to play.

One of the big hits of the day (and I'm sure there are others) was Seattle's Golden Tate on Dallas LB #50 Sean Lee.
My oh my:

On the play above a flag was thrown and the announcers, which included Darrell Johnston, had them thinking it was an illegal hit. But the flag was not for Tate's hit. It was called for a late hit out of bounds on Hawk QB Wilson. The late hit call was a terrible call... it was more like a little shove that did not take Wilson off his feet. See the whole play here: LINK
... Refs, (sigh).

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Pretty impresive picks Alpe.
Ok, here we go: Saints are done, said by me when the Bounty-Scandal broke lose and Payton was banned and Brees was thrown all the millions up his ar§e. For the 1 millionth time: A QB is 1/11 of an offense. His worth is a little higher since he is the field "general". But if you have no money left for the players around you, you are rightfully doomed. Shame on you pfvcking greedy Brees.
When will an NFL team sign me? I would play moneyball like the guy with the A´s did...
Little Siz surprises me every year. In the 1st half he plays like i expect a little siz to play (throwing Int´s), then he throws for 500+.
RG3: I fell in love with his arm. I watched a little half drunk (just before i went lights out) the NO-WAS game last week. Wow, even 5-yard passes come out of his hand with ease. High speed killer darts on the numbers. Last seen by Davey in the NFL europe. Not even Vick has this arm strength. Amazing...
I am not yet NFL ready, but i think SF is a hot pick for the SB. Didn´t know until last week they signed Manningham & Moss. Now they have it all (passing O, and a killer D)...
What §hi..tty game is the NFL playing, again? Replacement refs b/c they don´t wanna pay the real refs? As always said: NFL is rotten to the core, but the game is beautiful...

So i´ll be back.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Yeah, 6-9, rub it in. What were YOUR picks smart guy?

Agree NO may be done. Payton was their heart and he's gone. And with Brees missing all of camp and much of the pre-season, it shows.

The 49ers, if last week made you think they were lucky, today they did not. Very impressive, look like a complete team. Alex Smith playing very solid. But it wasn't Manningham and Moss. Crabtree and Davis caught most of the passes.

Rookies came alive. Brandon Weeden had a very good game, as did Richardson for Cle in a loss. Luck played very well. And Tannehill did the same against the inept Raiders. Wilson played a solid game start to finish against the Cowboys. The Skins lost, but not because of RGIII. They should have won actually. But a stupid penalty (and one not called) killed them. Shanahan mentioned it in his post press conference, how they need to get the real referees back.

KC's defense is terrible. I was wrong (so far) about them being talented. Matt Cassell is just average as well.

Jets came back to earth against a solid Pittsburgh game. If the Steelers can get and stay healthy late, they could be quite good.

The replacement referees were pretty bad. Worse than last week. Way too many times they could not figure out where to place the ball. They repeatedly blew pass interference calls on both sides that should not have been called, and swallowed their whistles on others. They seemed influenced by flopping and complaining, often throwing late flags, and time and again there was confusion about calls. Very frustrating. If it's a game of chicken between the NFL and real refs, this week the real refs won a round.

Those that missed some of the games may not have caught this, as it wasn't really reported, and you may need NFL Ticket or RedZone to see the games:

Arizona's defense looked for real. No joke. And Kolb, who could not pull the trigger all pre-season looks like a completely different QB. Sharp throws, few mistakes, and a leader. Don't be fooled by the Pats missed FG. The Cards were going to win the game late after being ahead the entire time, but a terrible fumble almost cost them the game before the Pats missed the gift FG. Pats OL failed most of the game, with Brady often on the run, even without blitzes. Arizona was definitely the better team.

Despite some highlight reel plays, Vick did not play well. He was sloppy, threw some picks and made poor decisions. He put together one drive at the end to seal it. But announcers love him because he's wild. Some bad calls and non-calls in that game. The Ravens were ****ed. Even the mild mannered Flacco was vocal about it. Did it change the game? We'll never know. But by hook or by crook, the Eagles are 2-0.

The Buccaneers had the Giants number all game, but got cocky, and Freeman threw some terrible 4Q passes. They did have a chance though until a huge catch that put them at the 15 yard line with :12 to go was overruled on instant replay because...well, I'm still not sure why? Because it was in NY? Did it change the outcome of the game? We'll never know.

Very tough week overall.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Alpe's normally a good picker and there were some pretty good football minds who got caught this weekend... ESPN's Steve Jackson, Keyshaun Johnson, and Chris Carter. We all got caught by surprise one way or another last week.

Cards defense is pretty good. They caused a number of probs for Seattle in week one. And if you watched the Seattle Dallas game yesterday, Seatlle did not have nearly as many of the OL probs they had the previous week vs the Cards.

I was not going to say too much about the refs since I did not watch many games. But in the games I saw the refs were not good. I had the same thought as Alpe... that the real refs may have won one this week.

9ers are a very physical team, and I can't wait for a certain matchup against another physical team. To beat the 9ers though, you can't play them the same way you did the last time you met if you lost that game also. Like Detroit did. And I'm talking about the play of the front 7. In their previous meeting, SF killed Detroit with the run block scheme, and yesterday Detroit did nothing different to change that. I did not stick that game out long enough to see if the two head coaches actually shook hands this time.

This year it is Atlanta's division to lose.