Despite the fact that the NFL season is only 2 weeks old, I’ve learned quite a bit by watching games and catching the highlights. This week I’d like to share my insights with you.
San Francisco is the real deal. The Niners are a complete team and are far and away the best team in the NFL right now. Their two wins have come over potential playoff teams. Alex Smith, left for dead a couple years ago, looks like a pro bowl quarterback thanks to his shiny new wide receivers. Looking at their schedule and barring a catastrophic injury to a key player, I could see them going 14-2 easily and having home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
I’m still not sold on these 2-0 teams. Philadelphia has a turnover problem. The Chargers and Texans need a quality win before I’ll buy into them. Arizona is lucky to be undefeated and the Falcons look good but they beat Denver with an assist from the refs.
Stick a fork in them, they are done. Cleveland, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Oakland, and the Chiefs. The Saints aren’t quite done yet, more like medium rare, but they are sorely lacking in leadership from the top and as a result Drew Brees’ numbers are way down. If the Saints go 0-3 they are cooked, finished, pack it in Saints fans. You have an interim-interim head coach right now. Bounty Gate is making this a lost season.
The kids are alright. This may be the best rookie QB class since 1983. Usually you are lucky to get one quality starter out of the draft, and this draft could turn out 4 of them easily. RGIII is clearly the most impressive so far and would be undefeated if it weren’t for the dumbest penalty we will see all year. I’d give Russell Wilson the number 2 ranking of the rookies. He just looks like a guy you want starting for your team. Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill and Brandon Weeden still need work, but all 3 proved they have what it takes to play at an NFL level. Weeden is the most concerning. The Browns are a bad team and it’s hard to develop on a bad team. He could get sacked because they aren’t winning games and it wouldn’t be his fault. The Browns are one of the worst organizations in football.
Playoff contenders with glaring flaws. The Patriots and the Bears have protection issues. I don’t know if Cutler is going to make it through the season intact. The Giants have a terrible secondary, in the past they were able to cover this up by getting pressure on the QB with the front seven. This year not so much. The Packers, despite drafting heavily to shore up the defense still have questions on that side of the ball. The Lions are still making dumb penalties and can’t win until they get them under control. The Cowboys are entirely too inconsistent, great one week and crappy the next. This should surprise no one, as the Cowboys have been this way for a decade or more.
No Huddle offense is all the rage. Several teams are running the no huddle with great success in the early season and putting up some pretty impressive offensive numbers (Ravens and Falcons). I love the no huddle, it speeds up the pace of the game and makes the action more exciting but, it’s much easier to play offense than defense. Sometimes you need long-sustained drives to give your defense a breather. It might not be a problem now but late in the season these guys are going to get worn down. This especially is a concern regarding the Ravens and their “older” defense.
The replacement refs are terrible. After a quiet week one, the replacements came out in week two and looked like a bunch of monkeys wearing pinstripes. Some refs mistakenly made rulings on the field based on college rules. Many crews had trouble spotting the ball properly. Several games had their outcomes altered by terrible calls (Ravens/Eagles). The players have no respect for the scabs and have quickly learned what they can and cannot get away with. The replacements also have little or no idea on how to officiate pass interference. I even saw a couple pretty vicious helmet hits that were not flagged, expect fines to be handed down from the league this week. One referee was sidelined because he was about to officiate a game where he was a fan of one of the teams. The quality of product is starting to be affected and the sports talking heads spend more time ripping the replacements and the league over the replacements than talking about the games themselves. This is NOT what you want. The fans are noticing, too. Hopefully they’ll start speaking with their wallets. Bring back the real refs.
Peyton will be fine. After a great week one at home against the Steelers, the Broncos offense looked a little rough on the road against the Falcons. The problem of course is that Manning runs one of the most complex systems in the NFL. He has code words for code words. They are going to struggle on the road early in the season simply because of crowd noise and players not knowing what to do. A good example of this would be a play I saw early in the Falcons/Broncos game where Peyton audibled to a run and the running back had no idea he was supposed to get the ball. When Manning turned around to hand it to him he saw nobody and had to take a sack. They will get it right eventually but Manning needs to break these guys in like they are a new pair of shoes.
Greg Schiano is a jackass. At some point, the game is over. Sometimes you are on the losing side and you heave the ball on a hail mary and hope for the best or try a last second field goal. Sometimes you are on the winning side, the other team has no time outs and you come out in a victory formation for a couple of kneel downs to run the clock out. By bum rushing a Giants offensive line that clearly was not expecting it, Schiano sent a message to his team that they will play hard to the final whistle. He also sent a message to the rest of the league that he doesn’t give a damn about the health of opposing players and unwritten rules of the NFL. Schiano had better help out an orphanage or something to make up for this, because karma is a right bitch sometimes.
Weekly Picks (Home Team in Caps)
Mr. Ross
PANTHERS over Giants, BEARS over Rams, COWBOYS over Buccaneers, Jets over DOLPHINS, Niners over VIKINGS, SAINTS over Chiefs, Bengals over REDSKINS, Lions over TITANS, COLTS over Jaguars, CARDINALS over Eagles, Falcons over CHARGERS, BRONCOS over Texans, Steelers over RAIDERS, RAVENS over Patriots, Packers over SEAHAWKS.
Last week 10-6
Season 19-13
Mrs Ross
Panthers, Bears, Bucs, Dolphins, 49ers, Saints, Redskins, Lions, Colts, Cardinals, Falcons, Texans, Steelers, Ravens, Seahawks
Last Week 7-9
Season 18-14
