Thank goodness it was just a test week! If you had followed my throw away the key locks you might have come out OK, 2-1, but the rest of my selections this week were simply abysmal at 5-7. The combined 7-8 record was worse than either of my two pick’em league pools, so I must have been saving the wrong picks just for you! Anyway, let’s go through the games to see what we learned, and what we didn’t, in order to make some real $ here in week 2, the first official week of NFL gambling season… Must disclose: normally I try to watch at least snippets of all of the games, to get a real sense of how teams are doing; this week, however, I opted to go all Bengals for the 1pm – and paid the price – so I did not see as much action as I would have liked.
What we Learned Week 1:
1) Do not underestimate the abilities of the Bills and the Bengals to be…the Bills and the Bengals.
2) Adrian Peterson is ridiculous. So is Drew Brees. Brady Quinn and Jake Delhomme? Not so much.
3) It remains rude to the rest of the NFL that the NFC West is allowed to have an automatic playoff spot. The Seahawks won despite 3 turnovers – and won 28-0. The Rams were downright embarrassing. The 49ers won with 203 total yards and 30 yards on 22 carries (!) from their starting running back, and somehow Timmy Hightower led all Arizona receivers with 12 catches for 121 yards while Fitz and Boldin combined for only 8 and 90. The combined national rating for these games was 0.01 – approximately. I think I would rather have watched a marathon of that Kardashian reality show than those two crapfests. The good news? We get ANOTHER NFC West showdown next week!!!!!!!!!! SEA at SF for divisional “supremacy.” I just puked in my mouth.
4) For all of the hype and love the NFC East gets from the media, whenever the Redskins are involved in a divisional matchup it inevitably becomes every neutral fan in an NFC East media market’s worst nightmare. Along the lines of the dreaded Jets-Bills or Jets-Chiefs showdowns that have desecrated the NY market’s CBS screens in the 4pm prime window over the past few seasons, this past week’s Redskins-Giants affair was, as predicted before the week, an ugly, ugly, disgusting game. 4 turnovers, a favorite jumping out to an uninspiring 17-0 lead and then doing literally nothing the rest of the game, an underdog with such a complete lack of firepower that even at 3-0 after the first quarter you were just about 100% sure the game was out of their reach since the Giants defense always seemed more likely to score when the Redskins had the ball than the Redskins offense, Eli Manning – wizard of the escape the pass-rush and then find open receiver 5 yards down field (1 notable exception…), but sadly, also of the overthrow of wide open wide receiver when in the pocket – being Eli Manning, multiple Manning faces, I mean just yuck. Please remove me from any Redskins watching activities for the rest of the season and I will let them go 8-8 in peace. While we’re at it, I’m not sure I need any Giants games either. At least Strahan is gone. Oh wait, Fox put him on tv!!!
5) To reiterate: never, EVER, bet on Jake Delhomme vs. a mediocre or better defense.
6) Token Bengals comment: this Bengals defense is really good. Just wait until after they play GB next week… Carson Palmer is at a career crossroads. Time to step up, sir, it’s been a long time since 2005 now.
7) I guess Rex Ryan can coach defense. Either that or Eric Mangini is the best accumulator of defensive talent in the league, and just didn’t use it last year. Actually…
Brady Quinn is the Browns starting Quarterback!!!!! OMFG I don’t believe it! Mangenius!
9) Green Bay is pretty good – they didn’t play that well and still won the game, and you can see how explosive they can be. The new 3-4 looks good, too. Cutler is overrated – at least for now. I’m pretty confident that Mark Schlereth, Merril Hoge, and the rest of the ESPN studio clowns will be hammering this into our heads so much for the next week that come Sunday Cutler will be back to being underrated. In fact, this may be an underrated time to call Cutler underrated, since the influence of ESPN may be overrated. My head hurts.
10) Football is f’ing back, baby.
Things we Still Don’t Know:
1) It is unclear whether Jacksonville is actually pretty good or if Indianapolis is actually fairly mediocre. Sadly, the Jags host Arizona and the Colts travel to Miami next week so we may not learn the answer to this conundrum next week either.
2) What the h is up with Dallas’ defense? Has Byron Leftwich ever quarterbacked a game in which he was not sacked at any level? The Cowboys LED THE NFL with 59 sacks last season, that’s 8 more than the next best team, and they couldn’t get Leftwich once? The guy has the mobility of an amoeba, and the release time roughly equivalent to a trip to the moon. And he dropped back 41 times! Where was Ware? Or anybody? Fortunately Leftwich fumbled once on his own without being sacked, so he is still somewhat human, but, seriously, how could they not sack him? If they bring that sort of pass rush to the Wizard of Pocket Wiliness, the Master of Dumpoff to Avoid Disaster, well…that will result in a 23-17 defeat.
3) Is San Diego’s season in trouble? I know, I know they won – but LDT “rolled an ankle,” quickly resuming his position as most tidily dressed and least apparently injured “injured” player on the sidelines, and did just about nothing before then. The offensive line was under siege all game, and now lost 2 starters to potentially severe knee injuries. Their receivers apparently cannot beat 1-on-1 coverage, much to the chagrin of Steve Young, who, much to the chagrin of last night’s viewers, reiterated this point to us ad infinitum from approximately the 4:00 minute mark of the first quarter. Did you know the Raiders played a vanilla defensive scheme last night, one high safety? Did you? If you watched the game you sure did! Thanks, Steve! Now we’ll see you again next season for the crappier and non-East Coast reaching MNF double header game. Also, Shawn Merriman was still limping around and the Chargers front seven did their very best to make Oakland’s O-Line look like the Cowboys’ mid-90s group. In fact, if Jamarcus Russell – I’m sorry I can’t even say the name without laughing – if Jamarcus “Fatso” Russell had the accuracy of even a starting grade school quarterback the Raiders would have won that game easily.
4) Which is true, the Jets D is now nasty, or the Texans offense has regressed to ineptitude? Jets get NWE next week and Texans get TEN, so we should find out pretty quickly.
5) Is Urlacher as overrated as some of the “insider” analysts think he is? We will find out as the Bears try to cope with his defeat, and Bears fans continue to try to cope with the fact that Lovie Smith looks like a skinnier Romeo Crennel out there.
6) The Baltimore D, is it cracking??? Alas, despite giving up 24 points to the Brodie Croyle led Native American Tribal Leaders, this was a game “that was not as close as how close it might have looked before the score made it not close again.” If you are a rational being and have trouble following that statement here is the explanation: common wisdom says the game was actually really close because it was 24-24 with under 5 minutes to go, and if it weren’t for a late garbage TD by the Ravens they wouldn’t have covered and it would have been a 31-24 shootout! Sadly, the NATL’s were outgained on the day by 501-188, ran slightly more than HALF the plays that Baltimore ran, held the ball for 1/3 of the game, scored on a blocked punt in the end zone, lost the 1st down battle 32-11, and generally had no business being in the game in the 4th quarter. Now, does this mean that Baltimore can’t close? Or does it mean KC was fluky and lucky and Baltimore looked really good? The teams return to their respective weight classes next week when the Ravens visit San Diego and KC hosts Oakland, so we shall soon find out, but I’m betting the latter.
7) Is NWE’s offense really close, or just not the same? They moved the ball, but they struggled to score. They threw the ball, but struggled to run. In the past, however, even when they struggled to put up big yardage totals on the ground they were effective when they did run the ball – as per Football Outsiders – and this week they were anything but that. Brady is fine, Moss is fine, and Welker did what Welker does, so I think they will probably be fine, but they’re going to have to at least run a little more EFFICIENTLY if they’re going to be elite, because they have to keep that suspect defense off the field. Good test for them next week with the Jets.
Does Ron Pitts have to pay James Brown copyright infringement fees for acting the same, and generally doing the same things JB did before he existed every week at the same time that JB is doing them? This type of thing concerns me. Would Pitts have a job if JB weren’t so good? Is he an actual clone with a different face glued on? Also, which studio has the better pregame guffaw sessions? Does Boomer Esiason really hate Marino and Sharpe? Do they hate him? Where does JB fall? Does he miss Howie and Jimmy? Does he even miss Terry when compared to Sharpe?
9) Gus Johnson still has it.
10) Which coach will be first to go?
