Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Upon Further Review - Week 2 in the NFL

...11-5 in my picks last week. I wonder if that would have been good enough to win me money in a Pick 'Em league. I'm probably better off not knowing.

...Speaking of money - Tarvaris Jackson of Minnesota is now on the Never Bet On list, along with Joey Harrington, after his 4 interceptions cost me a $100 payout. I will never forgive you.

...Speaking of Harrington and Jackson, those are the two quarterbacks in the league that are absolutely killing their teams right now. If Minnesota had even a serviceable quarterback, they'd be 2-0 simply on the strength of their defence. Atlanta probably wouldn't be 2-0 anyway but somebody other than Harrington might actually give them a chance to win. Which is probably why the Falcons are talking to Byron Leftwich.

...Rex Grossman and Phillip Rivers are not too far away from being added to the list of quarterbacks that are killing their teams. Their poor play gets hidden by their fantastic defences/special teams.

...To wit - if not for Devin Hester, Chicago probably doesn't win that game against the Chiefs. The Chiefs! Hester ran a punt back for a touchdown, ran another punt back for a touchdown that got called back because of a penalty, had another punt return of 30 or 40 yards and made a great play stepping out of bounds while catching a kickoff to give the Bears great field position. Take a look. He's one of the most exciting players in the league right now.

...And speaking of exciting young players, how about 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis? I feel a man-crush coming on. I'm one more big hit away from ordering a Willis throwback jersey. Here's the hit on Matt Leinart I was talking about last week (thanks to Trevor for the video).

...I feel bad for Donovan McNabb. He's clearly not healthy and his receivers are terrible (that seemed to be the theme of the Monday Night Football telecast last night). It brings back memories of the Todd Pinkston (Stinkston) and James Thrash (Trash) days. And I'm pretty sure I saw James Thrash in a Washington jersey last night. Inexplicable.

...With all the talk about the Patriots spy scandal (which I can't believe was called CameraGate and not Patriot Games), I got to thinking about the least likable coaches in the league. My top 3 are: 1. Bill Belicheck (New England) 2. Brian Billick (Baltimore) 3. Mike Shannahan (Denver)
Of course between the three of them they have 6 Super Bowl rings.

...This week New Orleans joined the Do Not Bet On Until Further Notice list, which also includes: Atlanta, Minnesota, Jacksonville, NY Giants, NY Jets, Buffalo Bills, Oakland, Kansas City and Miami. Feel free to bet against them though.

...In other news, I can't believe the NHL season starts in a couple weeks. Didn't the season just end two months ago? I'm not ready yet.

...What's with Randy Moss flashing gang signs every time he scores a touchdown? (Now I'm not a cultural studies Ph.D, so I'm not certain that what he's flashing are gang signs - but he's definitely flashing something every time he scores. Can someone please explain this to me?)

...Did you happen to catch the Cowboys/Dolphins game on SportsNet on Sunday? Of course you didn't because SportsNet was showing a Blue Jays game that went into the 12th inning. So those of us that tried to watch football missed the entire first half and some of the third quarter. I understand the rationale behind staying with the baseball game, as I'm sure there were 1 or 2 people that had invested a lot of their time in the game between 4th and 5th place teams and wanted to see how it ended. But the next time the NFL rights are up for grabs in Canada we have to make sure the channel that gets them has the technological capability to split screen at the very least. We need to come up with technology that allows the viewer to decide if they want to switch to something that's being pre-empted, or stay with whats currently on. For example, if at 2pm the baseball game is not over a message comes on the screen that says, "To begin viewing the Dallas Cowboys-Miami Dolphins game press 995 on your remote now." Is that so far-fetched? If I have the ability to pause live TV, how come we can't make that happen?

...Who knew that Cleveland/Cincinnati game would end up being one of the games of the week, while the New England/San Diego game would be bordering on terrible.

...San Diego is going to rue the day they dropped Marty Schottenheimer for a guy with a career winning percentage of .413 (Norv Turner).

...NY Giants head coach Tom Coughlin is now firmly entrenched as the leader for the first head coach to be fired. The only thing that's going to save him is the injury card. If San Diego starts 2-4 or something like that, don't be surprised to be Turner get canned - he could be a darkhorse favorite right now.

...That is all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey buddy, you missed a qb on your "qbs who are killing their team" how bout the talentless McCown? Oh, I guess I should be specific since there is seemingly one on every other team in NFL. The hated Josh McCown of my beloved Raiders...who was 8/16 for 73 yds 1 td and...3...not 2...not 1...but 3 INTS!!!! Who knows what would have happened if they had had a servicable QB, perhaps a certain ex-Viking QB? Heck a one legged ex-Viking QB would be better than this guy...heck I caught myself hoping for Jeff George to come out of retirement for the 17th time.
Oh and yes you did see James 'taking out the trash' Thrash last nite...fantastic, it brought a smile to my face. I thought the Monday Night Game was fantastic, cause I hate the Eagles and everyone on the ESPN pregame show picked them except the only one I can stand, Tom Jackson. Here is a question for ya, how long before TJ can't stand the panel any longer and quits in the middle of a show? I hope he punches one of them in the face before he goes...maybe Emmitt (although I might feel bad cause he would never really know what had happened) or Keyshawn (who is seemingly the biggest jerk on the planet).
Well I know it is a bit early in the week for fantasy talk (or is it?) but I must say, even though I won this week (oh, thanks for the tip on starting farve, sorry I couldn't offer you any advice)...I have a sneaking suspicion that that was an anomaly. So riddle me this, who should I play this week at qb? Rivers or Farve (who are playing each other)? Jordan, McGahee or the now resurgent Jamal Lewis? Oh and no bad advice since I am playing against you in the league this week (can you separate personal from professional?).

TH

Forgot to say, during the pregame show there was a Steve Young sighting...is he going to come back...oh please steve come back and bring that big crybaby Michael Irvine with you.

Anonymous said...

how about the fact that in most leagues you had LT, Jackson, LJ going 1,2,3.... not sure what there yards were maybe 175 combined with no td's.......glad i got the number 4 pick and gore. LT there should be much cocern, but for the other 2... when do you think we'll start seeing michael bennet or whoever jackson backup is getting some touches?

another observattion... did you see merriman do his lights outs dance after sacking Brady. In itself not bad, but when your team is down by 3 TD's at the time ???

I don't think mccown is hurting his team...kicker has got to be able to make 2 kicks in a row... maybe NFL should also look at changing the rule so you have to call the timeout on the field to avoid this. Once the field goal was missed I would have bet any money that Denver would win... spirits of okatown up, then to come crashing down like that...

to also help out TH... I would start favre at qb and rb's jordan of course going aginst the browns and toss up both other rb have favorable match up's.... henry did rush for 120 some yards against oaktown so lewis should be bale to do the same.