NFL Musings – Week 9

And what a week it was in the NFL this past week; a week where we saw the ghosts of creamsicles past shock the Packers, the Broncos and Steelers be who the Flow thought they were, the Tribal Leaders launch one of the most excruciatingly irrelevant covers in recent memory, the Bears petition for Tennessee’s spot in the WTE division, and the Bengals…well the Bengals were just great.  While this week’s picks weren’t dominant record wise, the comments behind the picks certainly bode well for a second half kick for the Flow as really only the 4th quarter massacre in the Bay of Pigs Bowl and Dallas’ continued resurgence truly surprised us.  With that in mind, let’s take a walk through some weekly musings on the games that were:

To Consider:

1) Enough with the pregame circle jerks starring Ray “When does this start getting embarrassing for me after we give up 400 yards of offense weekly” Lewis and Brian “I’ve been on this team for half a season and I’m already yelling about protecting this house” Dawkins.  I mean, seriously, have you seen these yahoos?  Here’s Ray Lewis doing one from some recent game vs. the Giants, and here’s Dawkins doing his version plus a cheesy postgame speech.  Of course, you don’t need to see those videos because you were probably watching either CBS’ or ESPN’s NFL coverage at some point this weekend, and there is nothing those two networks love more than to show a bunch of players hopping up and down in a circle 30 minutes before kickoff around some maniac yelling about disrespect (a maniac who is disrespected to the tune of being paid millions of dollars to play football, btw), protecting “his house,” declaring – completely contradictory to the fact that the other gentlemen are, in fact, in uniform ready to play – that the other team “doesn’t want to play us,” or some sort of “bring the pain” mantra.  I saw two such displays this weekend: first, Ray Lewis right before his defense got rolled right over in the first half by a far more physical Bengals offense, and secondly Dawkins about 30 minutes and one half before the more physical Steelers completely wore down the Broncos undersized defense.  Moral of the story: these little plays are ridiculous publicity stunts that may even deteriorate athletic performance through over-exertion and dehydration more than they actually perform any type of “pumping up.”  Perhaps the Ravens should be less concerned about being pumped up, and more concerned with overrunning their gaps and playing disciplined defense so that this doesn’t happen anymore.  I mean, really, a) these things happen 30 minutes before the game kicks off, so any potential adrenaline created has more than dissipated over that time, b) the other teams could care less what sort of dances you’re doing, especially when they aren’t even on the field and have already beaten you once this season, and finally c) ever heard of Murtaugh?  You guys are too old for this sh*t.

2) Getting back to football for a second, we’ve also confirmed once and for all the blueprint to beat the Broncos.  We linked to Pete Prisco’s take on this after the Baltimore game last week, and we also mentioned our suspicion that the Broncos were especially vulnerable to big, physical football teams at the point of attack.  While the Broncos showed pretty well in the first half Monday night, they borderline collapsed in the second as Rashard Mendenhall gashed them for over 150 yards on the ground and Kyle Orton self-destructed on the other side of the ball.  As we’ve mentioned all along, Denver must be perfect to win against good, physical teams and they were not on Monday.  The problem, of course, is that to wear Denver down you’ve got to be in the lead early – no easy feat considering the Broncos outstanding first half defense – and be able to prevent the Broncos from leading their trademarked 9 play 51 yard drives for punts to win field position that also milk like 6 minutes off the clock.  What the Steelers and Ravens are both excellent at, and what other teams will try to do, is to mix up a lot of blitzes with fire zones behind them to clog passing lanes on the short hot routes.  Orton has struggled to read these zones, and the Denver O-Line is on the smaller side, making it vulnerable to big, bull rushing linebackers and strong nosetackle play.  The result has not been pretty, as it does seem as if defenses are figuring out the fact that Orton cannot throw accurately beyond 15 yards at this point, so the ball is in Josh McDaniels’ court as far as adjusting back to the league’s initial adjustments to him.  Denver’s remaining schedule – like many of the AFC contenders – contains 4 very winnable games (@WAS, @KC, OAK, KC) and 4 tougher games (SD, NYG, @IND, @PHI).  I’m not convinced this Denver team is collapsing like last year’s, but I feel pretty good about the Broncos only going 1-3 in those toughies, leaving them potentially 11-5 if they sweep the easy ones.  In this year’s AFC they will need to do that, but given that two of their tough ones would be out of conference losses, their playoff chances are still pretty good.

3) Peter King would like to announce that “Arizona’s dangerous.”  Mmk, check, glad to hear Peter hasn’t written off the division leading, NFC defending champions.

4) Peter King would also like to announce Michael Oher – yes, that Michael Oher – as his ALL PRO RIGHT TACKLE for midseason.  Before I get on a rant here, and believe me one is coming, let me first say I think Michael Oher is probably a really nice kid, certainly a promising prospect, and I wish him nothing but the best for him going forward.  Now, here’s the only other person who probably voted for Oher as a midseason All-Pro:

Here’s what TMQ had to say about Oher in his weekly article:

The Nevermores’ offensive line is a mess — it allowed four sacks against Cincinnati, while clearing few rushing lanes — and the offensive line is always the best window into a team’s psychology. Right now, rookie left tackle Michael Oher looks terrible. Oher has, at a tender age, already had a lifetime of complex emotional experiences, plus been the subject of a book that’s been made into a big-studio movie that opens next week. When Oher was drafted, TMQ noted, “The true story of an impoverished African-American boy adopted by an affluent white family has obvious Hollywood appeal, but can any 22-year-old handle such media pressure?” Maybe Baltimore needs to take him out of the lineup for a while.

So one guy wants him to be benched, and the other calls him All-Pro?  Of course I am more inclined to side with Easterbrook here, but let’s be fair and go to the stats.  Football Outsiders uses something called Adjusted Line Yards to evaluate rushing success – and let’s start with rushing since run blocking is Oher’s strength – and we generally feel this is the best approximation of lineman success outside of detailed tape review.  I know Peter King has not done the latter, so let’s start with the stats.  On runs off right tackle, Oher’s position, the Ravens are averaging 4 ALY per carry, a respectable 16th in the league.  Oher has also played some left tackle, so let’s use those as well, and we see a slightly worse 3.66 ALY figure, good for 19th best.  These numbers aren’t too shabby, except when we look at the fact that overall Baltimore ranks 3rd in the league at ALY and they excel specifically at runs between the guards and all the way around right end.  Now, maybe Oher is awesome at sealing the corner, but the fact that the Ravens aren’t so great when running right behind him suggests to me that he isnt quite “uber dominant” yet as a run blocker, especially considering how inferior they have been behind him as compared to everywhere else.  Also, according to at least one count, Oher had given up 2.5 sacks as of October 22, and while sacks are often as much a result of the QB as the O-Line (paging Rodgers, Aaron) the fact of the matter is Flacco has been going down.  To put that in perspective elite RT’s have been known to go SEASONS without giving up a single sack.  I have also personally watched, and read others who have watched Oher get beat up the field by speed rushers and then abused by double moves.  Look, I don’t know if Michael Oher is going to be great or not.  I’m pretty sure he could be, and I’m pretty sure he’s doing fine for a rookie.  That said, the idea, even the idea of having the idea, that he is remotely close to being the very best right tackle in the National Football League is somewhere between asinine and embarrassing.  Either Peter King opted to have a little fun with his RT pick on his midseason All-Pro team, or…  well you get the idea.

5) Moving on from Peter King, let’s leave you with some quick hits Peter King style just so he isn’t too angry at me (obvious sarcasm since he has more people following him for his “coffeenerdness,” ugh I can’t even say it without cringing, than I will ever have in my entire lifetime):

a) Houston is a good football team.  They also have 4-5 easily winnable games left and just went toe to toe with the    Colts.  This team is  a legitimate playoff contender.  Note: It’s almost strange how just about every relevant team left in the AFC has 4 easy games and 4 tough games left as opposed to anyone being especially skewed.

b) The whole Qwest Field advantage thing for the Seahawks is dead to me.  The Seahawks are dead to me.  That was the softest cover ever at home against the Lions and it took 5 Matt Stafford INT’s including a pick 6 with 22 ticks remaining to do it.  That pick 6, however, is why we gamble – what a worthless game, meaningless pick, even more meaningless return, but because the moron decides to take it to the house someone wins and someone loses.  Awesome.

c) The 49ers justified our concern with that putrid home performance, though to be fair Tennessee is looking quite a bit feistier lately thanks largely to the fact that excellent rushing qb’s like Vince Young almost always result in an uptick in performance from the team’s RB’s thanks to the added delay and attention opposing LB’s give the QB scramble option.  I’m tired and it’s late so I don’t have a link for that but remind me and I will, I promise it’s a real thing – FO writes about it all the time and I believe ESPN even had a piece on it this week.  Back to the 9ers, though, the fact of the matter is they don’t have an NFL QB, and when Alex Smith/Shaun Hill/Hannah Montana is behind center creating 4 turnovers a game, you put yourself in a tough spot.

d) An ESPN.com poll of about 32,000 people today displayed the fact that 53% of “SportsNation” considers the Bengals-Steelers showdown this week to be a bigger game than Pats-Colts.  As someone who has begun to tire of the whole Manning-Brady “rivalry,” this struck me as progress.  In honor of that, we leave this week’s musings with a nice shot of one of the lovely Ben-Gals.  Enjoy.