| Observations on Thursday's Game |
| Has Sean Payton Lost His Mind? Payton just punted on 4th and inches from his own 30 down 17 to Indy with 13 minutes left. Why not just hand the headset to an assistant and beat the traffic? Of course, the Colts struck two seconds later for a game-sealing touchdown. What an idiot!
Also what's up with Andrea Kramer comparing Tony Dungy to Martin Luther King? Dungy's a successful NFL football coach, not someone putting his life on the line for social justice. Did she and Payton take a hit from the same pipe?
And how about John Madden's Bob Sanders analogy - "when the cat's away, the mice will play?" Is that the best he can come up with? I know he's a former Super Bowl winning coach, a broadcasting legend and has his name on a best-selling video game, but do we just give him a free pass for that kind of drivel?
Anybody else who owns Addai in half their leagues feel like vomiting after the first play? Speaking of which, he looks every bit the top-five pick. And so far it looks like we screwed up ranking Reggie Wayne No. 2 overall - should have been No. 1.
Can't be too happy if you own Brees right now. He'll bounce back, but you're up against it in Week 1.
Eric Johnson's sure getting a lot of looks. Worth an immediate pickup I'd think.
Posted by Chris Liss at 9/6/2007 8:08:00 PM |
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| Just Play the Game Already |
| It's bad enough that I have to sit through lame, annoying and poorly performed halftime shows during every big game and every bowl game, but now I have to endure the pathetic "glitz" of a pre-game halftime show before kickoff of the season opener? When did this start? I don't recall this last season. Seriously, who thinks anyone cares to watch this stuff? I just want to watch football. If you're going to have a pre-game show, make it about football, not about John Mellencamp's stupid small town. Go back there and leave us alone already, John. (Why is that old carcass drug out for every sporting event anyway?) And what's with the NBC opening video with the chick singing about how much she can't wait for the season to start? Isn't that pretty much a blatant ripoff of Monday Night Football's open?
(Oh, good grief, now they're playing that Mellencamp Chevy jingle. I don't know if I'm going to make it for kickoff.)
Posted by Jason Thornbury at 9/6/2007 5:36:00 PM |
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| over/under win totals |
| We did well on the MLB ones, let's see how the National Football Lottery goes.
Featured Play (four units):
- Chiefs under 7.5
Strong Plays (three units):
- Dolphins under 7.5
- Texans over 6.5
Solid Plays (two units):
- Packers under 7.5
- Saints over 9.5
- Seahawks over 9
Worth Playing (one unit):
- Cowboys over 9.5
- Bears over 10
Good luck and shop around.
Posted by David Ferris at 9/6/2007 3:16:00 PM |
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| 10 Things to Watch |
| Blogging from the iPhone ... 10 things to watch for in tonight's kickoff game between Colts and Saints.
1. Manning's backside -- Will Tony Ugoh be able to give Peyton Manning enough time to make his progressions or will they need to cover him with Ben Utecht or keep Joseph Addai in?
2. Sanders' bones -- Bob Sanders plays safety like a human heatseeking missle. Will he dial it back in hopes of staying healthy?
3. Young DBs vs Young WRs -- the Colts have two new starters at corner and slow safeties. Can they keep up with Devery Henderson and Marques Colston?
4. Addai's workload -- is Joseph Addai ready to take on the feature load of 30-35 touches a game? Most think yes, but there's no credible backup on the roster.
5. Freeney's knees -- Will Dwight Freeney be motivated after signing a big dollar deal after a season where his hurries were big, but his sacks were small?
6. The Banner Blues -- will the Colts have any letdown after getting their ring?
7. No Mo' Monkey -- now that Manning HAS won the big one, does he play any differently?
8. MacBush Split -- how will the Saints split the touches between Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush? Expect it to be similar to last year, which makes me wonder why Bush went in the first round so much.
9. Fast turf -- the FieldTurf at the RCA Dome was new last year and puffy. This year, it's tamped down and faster. Does that help the home team or speedy Saints?
10. Your brain -- count how many times you mistake the real John Madden for Frank Caliendo's version.
Enjoy!
Posted by Will Carroll at 9/6/2007 12:50:00 PM |
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| The Half-Empty Glass |
| Just some random thoughts on players I see dark clouds over...
Laurence Maroney: For a guy expected to carry a starter's load this season, Maroney seemed to be banged up a lot last year when he had Corey Dillon making most of the tough runs for him. Maroney only had one season as the starter in college, so he doesn't have a long track record of durability. I'm not disputing that he has the talent to be a first round pick (current ADP 1.11), but if your top pick only plays 12-13 healthy games you're toast.
Torry Holt: Holt's only 31, but comes into this season battling a knee injury and has seen his YPC drop for two straight seasons. Steven Jackson established himself as the focal point of the offense last year, and the team has two new red zone targets in Drew Bennett and Randy McMichael. I don't see Holt falling off the face of the earth, but a drop-off to 1000 yards and eight TDs puts him on a level with Javon Walker (4.5), not Reggie Wayne (2.11).
Vincent Jackson: Every year it seems like a player gets over-hyped based on a limited sample of games from the year before. The buzz around Jackson is that he had a great final month of 2006, and the Chargers don't have a real #1 wide receiver standing in his way. SD, however, does have an all-world tight end in Antonio Gates who's a more than capable top target, and there's also some guy named Tomlinson around. Jackson's IDP (6.2) isn't outrageous for a guy with his upside, but you can get a much safer WR such as Donald Driver (5.12), or an upside play with a bit more of a track record like Bernard Berrian (6.6), in the same range. Jackson looks overvalued to me right now.
Posted by Erik Siegrist at 9/4/2007 10:13:00 PM |
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| NFL Predictions |
Who doesn't love a good set of predictions just two days before what promises to be one of the most exciting Thursday night openers we've seen, in both real and fantasy terms? Without further ado (seeds in parentheses)...
AFC East: Patriots (1)
AFC West: Chargers (3)
AFC North: Bengals (4)
AFC South: Colts (2)
AFC Wild Cards: Broncos (5), Steelers (6)
NFC East: Eagles (3)
NFC West: Rams (4)
NFC North: Bears (1)
NFC South: Saints (2)
NFC Wild Cards: Cowboys (5), Panthers (6)
AFC Wild-Card Round: Chargers over Steelers, Bengals over Broncos
NFC Wild-Card Round: Panthers over Eagles, Cowboys over Rams
AFC Divisional Round: Patriots over Bengals, Chargers over Colts
NFC Divisional Round: Bears over Panthers, Saints over Cowboys
AFC Championship Game: Patriots over Chargers
NFC Championship Game: Bears over Saints
Super Bowl XLII: Bears over Patriots
Posted by Michael Beller at 9/4/2007 10:35:00 AM |
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| Leftwich Leftovers |
| We've seen the release of Byron Leftwich covered from nearly every angle, but is there an injury angle to this? Having drafted Leftwich as an end-game play in the SI Experts League, I wanted to take a long look at this.
Leftwich is known as an injury-prone player, but most of the injuries occur as the result of his noted immobility - the ankle, the broken leg in college - all could be rooted in his seeming rootedness. But I noticed something else interesting. They all seem to happen at the end of the season. Since Leftwich tends to play through things, it's tougher to tell, but it appears fatigue plays into this a bit.
So if it's possible that Leftwich is wearing down over the course of 16 games, it's also possible that missing the first couple weeks of the season -- even if he signs today, he's going to have to learn an offense and win a position -- will keep him healthier. Given that Leftwich's best case scenario is to stay in shape and wait on the inevitable QB injury, that wait might prevent him from wearing down and getting what we think is his inevitable injury.
He's still no more than an endgame pick in the deepest of leagues, but ... hey, you never know.
Posted by Will Carroll at 9/3/2007 8:21:00 AM
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| Double Standards |
| The NFL's been handing out suspensions like candy over the last little while. Michael Vick: suspended indefinitely due to his involvement with dog fighting and association with gamblers. Rodney Harrison: suspended four games for using a performance enhancer, rumored to be HGH. Wade Wllson: suspended five games for using a performance enhancer, rumored to be HGH.
Hang on a minute... Wade Wilson? The quarterback who's been retired for a decade, and is now a coach?
Someone please explain this one to me, because I really don't get it. If the NFL wants to suspend Wilson for breaking the law, fine. But they didn't. They suspended him for using performance enhancers, even though as a coach he has no performance to enhance. And what's even more baffling to me, they gave Wilson a *longer suspension* than they give first-time offenders who are actually active players, such as Harrison or Shawne Merriman last season.
All parties involved agree that Wilson was not passing the drugs on to active players, and that he bought the drugs to use himself (Wilson has diabetes and thought they might improve his quality of life).
What message is the NFL sending here? That severity of punishment is tied to how valuable an individual is to his organization? Assistant coaches are certainly easier to replace than Pro Bowl safeties, after all. Maybe it's that the league would like to be tougher on those caught using, but those molly-coddlers in the NFLPA won't let them crack down any harder on players, so the league's wrath falls more heavily (in the form of a single game) on anyone not part of the union?
Quite frankly I'm not even sure why the league should care if a coach used performance enhancers, other than for PR purposes. But if they are going to care, why hold non-players to a different standard than players?
Posted by Erik Siegrist at 9/2/2007 10:38:00 AM |
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