NFL & Fantasy News
(Won-Loss Record and Last Week’s Ranking in parentheses)
1. Green Bay Packers (7-0) (1) - There are questions about their defense. One of the questions is, are there any teams in the NFL good enough to beat them in a shootout.
2. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-2) (3) - Old and slow? Not quite.
3. New England Patriots (5-2) (2) - Perspective: they’ve lost two road games to teams with a combined record of 11-4.
4. Baltimore Ravens (5-2) (5) - Not what you wanted to see right before a revenge game with the Steelers.
5. San Francisco 49ers (6-1) (6) - Forget the schedule and personnel, at some point, the fact that you’re winning all your games and other teams aren’t becomes important.
Hit the title/read more to see the rest of the rankings. . .
If you ask me, real excitement is two great teams going toe to toe, like the Steelers and Patriots, or at least two evenly matched teams battling it out, like the Vikings and Panthers, or an upset that like the Bills shocking the Patriots a few weeks back in a game where both offenses dominated the game in a shootout.
What its not is supposedly good teams like the Ravens and Giants playing like garbage and letting truly awful teams like the Dolphins and Cardinals almost beat them. Who’s happy after these games? Not Ravens fans. They have to play the Steelers next week and this was no way to show that they’re ready for that. Maybe Dolphins fans are happy - they lost. And watching the 0-6 Rams with backup QB AJ Feeley beat the Saints? That’s horrible.
Keep in mind, this isn’t Holy Cross rising up to beat Michigan. It’s just a really lousy NFL team beating one that was supposed to be good enough to avoid something like this. And it’s just not that exciting. Oh great, the Rams won. Big deal. They stink. They will be double digit underdogs next week regardless.
But now you can cross the Saints off the list of teams that you thought were good enough. Obviously not. Ditto the Giants. They already lost to the Seahawks, now they nearly dropped one to the Dolphins? They’re not good enough either.
The Ravens probably aren’t either, but I still hold out a little hope for them. But enough about what wasn’t that exciting this week. How about the stuff that really was exciting?
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Similar to last year's preview with fellow Bloguin blogger, Dustyn Richardson, we decided to do another round of "Know Your Enemy" for the Jaguars/Texans division matchup.
Being that I'm a huge Jaguars fan and Dustyn is a diehard Texans fan, these kind of interviews are always fun because you can see the points of view from the other side of the fence.
Let's gear up for another Sunday of NFL action by digging into these questions. Hit the jump to see them....
My typical week this season has seen me do poorly in the early games, only to rally in the late ones. Consequently, I was pretty disappointed when I saw my 5-2 start this week limp to a 7-6 finish, but every little bit helps.
This week’s games sees a lot of big spreads that are somewhat confounding, and a number of teams leaving you wondering if you can trust them week to week to be either as bad or as good as you think they might be. What a dillemma.
Hit the title/read more to check out the picks for the eighth week of the NFL...
(Won-Loss Record and Last Week’s Ranking in parentheses)
1. Green Bay Packers (7-0) (1) - I’m starting to think the only way to beat this team is to bring motorcycles and weapons onto the field.
2. New England Patriots (5-1) (3) - Have done it against a tough schedule.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers (5-2) (4) - Must find a way to break the Brady curse.
4. New Orleans Saints (5-2) (6) - Second in the NFL in points differential - only the Packers are better.
5. Baltimore Ravens (4-2) (2) - Two inexcusable losses.
Hit the title/read more to see the rest of the rankings...
I know, I know. There were more truly unwatchable games this week than every other week this season (possibly combined). But if you cull through Cleveland/Seattle, New Orleans/Indianapolis, Oakland/Kansas City and the rest, you eventually found some pretty good football being played. Still, you have to be glad week 7 is over (I know the Colts are).
JUMBO Jets
How do the Jets keep doing it? I’m pretty sure everyone wants to know. There are not too many NFL teams who have looked worse than the Jets over the last three weeks. And there are definitely none that looked any worse or more tentative on offense. The Jets couldn’t run. They didn’t want to throw. They couldn’t really throw either. Their defense couldn’t stop the run. The bad offense was putting pressure on the defense. Everyone was mad at everyone else. The dream was dead. And for most of the first half of this week’s game against the Chargers, the Jets did nothing to dispel any of those notions from anyone’s mind.
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Because Polamalu has had a history with concussions, it would be considered very plausible that family and friends watching from afar would be very nervous as to his health status.
One of those who were worried, was Polamalu’s wife, whom he called during the game to let her know that he was ok. This apparently didn’t sit too well with the NFL and their fine committee as later on in the week, Polamalu was fined TEN THOUSAND dollars for that phone call.
This fine along with other situations where a fine did not occur, is enough to make a fan scream.
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The normally quiet NFL trade deadline was more boisterous than usual.
The Lions traded Jerome Harrison to the Eagles for Ronnie Brown, the Broncos traded Brandon Lloyd to the Rams and, of course, the huge deal is that the Raiders made a panic move, trading entirely too much (a first round pick and conditional second round pick that could be a second first round pick) for Carson Palmer, who hasn’t played all season.
You have to feel bad for the Raiders, who were forced into this move because of Jason Campbell’s injury. Meanwhile, Mike Brown of the Bengals looks like a genius even though he completely lucked into this deal, and it absolutely never would have happened if a) Campbell hadn’t gotten hurt RIGHT before the deadline and b) the Raiders are playing such good football they decided they couldn’t stand to see the season go into the toilet because of one injury.
I hope the deal works out for Oakland - once upon a time Palmer was a great quarterback and, with Oakland’s running game-focus on offense, he won’t need to be great - just good - to run the offense effectively. I think Carson Palmer can probably do that, but who knows?
Meanwhile, my horrendous first two weeks still has me under .500 overall in picks, but I’ve been cruising along on Best Picks and I’m now 13-10-1. Hopefully I can continue the trend.
Hit the title/read more to check out the picks for the seventh week of the NFL...
(Won-Loss Record and Last Week’s Ranking in parentheses)
1. Green Bay Packers (6-0) (1) - League’s elite remained that way.
2. Baltimore Ravens (4-1) (2) - The most balanced team in football.
3. New England Patriots (5-1) (3) - It takes a miracle to beat these guys. Just ask the Bills.
4. Pittsburgh Steelers (4-2) (7) - Kid yourself that they’re not actually that good. Go ahead.
5. San Diego Chargers (4-1) (6) - Entering the toughest part of their schedule.
Hit the title/read more to see the rest of the rankings...
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So the Lions/49ers clash of the unlikelies totally lived up to its billing, right? After all, this game featured 5 lead changes and the winning touchdown was scored with under 2:00 to go. All good, right? Well, sort of.
It is the nature of the way the 49ers are built that their wins are basically ALWAYS going to be ugly. Alex Smith, San Francisco’s 5-1 start notwithstanding, is kind of useless.
Even in this game, he managed only 125 passing yards on 32 attempts. He also fumbled and got intercepted once. And that winning touchdown? Even that was a short dump over the middle that the receiver had to take in to the end zone. That’s right, despite it being 4th and goal with less than 2 minutes to go and his team trailing, the best Smith could do was dump the ball off and hope.
But that’s all he’s SUPPOSED to do. The 49ers are all about their defense and they came to play (5 sacks, 8 tackles for a loss, 10 hits on Detroit QB Matthew Stafford, kept Calvin Johnson out of the endzone). They’re all about Frank Gore, and he came to play (15 carries for 141 yards and a touchdown).
And once again, the San Francisco special teams delivered them from defeat, as David Akers went 3 for 3 in field goals, including a 55 yarder, and a Ted Ginn 40 yard punt return set up the winning touchdown drive. On that drive, Smith didn’t attempt a pass until it was third and goal. Like I said: one-dimensional. Ugly. And very effective.
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