Observations from around the NFL

[PonyExpress]

1. LB Derrick Johnson of KC, highly coveted in the '05 draft, is finally playing like a pro bowler.

2. Matt Schaub played extremely well at Qb with Patriot uber-rejects Kevin Walter and Andre Davis as his lead WRs. Even in this loss he enhanced his status as a quality signal caller. What else did we learn from this game, where coach Kubiak repeatedly went for FGs on 4th and goal from the 1? Kubiak has tiny testes.

3. The Ravens miss Adalius Thomas like the deserts miss the rain.

4. Poetic Justice that Cam Cameron, who treated Culpepper so shoddily, and in his arrogance bypassed Quinn for Ginn, now has zero QBs and egg all over his face. The Patriots have laid waste to this division. The best coach outside of Foxboro is Jauron.

5. Deion Branch has performed like a #1 WR the last 3 weeks.

6. LBs Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard are both pro bowl caliber players. No reason the Raiders can't win 8 games. They have plenty of talent on both sides of the ball.

7. Can we finally bury the putrid David Carr? Trent Edwards showed more in his first start than Carr, Losman, Alex Smith, Kyle Boller, Tavaris Jackson, have shown in their careers. Combined.

8. Jay Cutler will never be a big time QB. His mechanics are lazy and inconsistent. He has shown little progress from his rookie year. His brain does not seem to process information quickly and his accuracy is slipshod. He struggles from the pocket and is best on that Denver roll out play... But Jake the Snake could do that too, couldn't he?

9. Cleveland is going to come in next week (o(ky and ready to brawl.

10. Umenyiora is a selfish, albeit very talented player, obsessed with personal statistics. He learned his trade well from that sarong-wearing sea-lawyer, Strahan. Osi is not a favorite player of mine, despite his great performance last night.

 

[NE39]

3. The Ravens miss Adalius Thomas like the deserts miss the rain.

They definitely miss his ability to rush the QB, as their pass rush is anemic and that is hurting them as much as anything.

That said, the situation is as much due to Trevor Pryce being out as Thomas being gone.

 

[Rob0729]

Here are some of mine:

1.) The Eric Mangini's defense is nothing like the Belichick defense. The way the Jets are playing defense is much like we did in most of 2005 until Belichick took over the defense from Mangini. Not a lot of pressure up front at all and not very creative.

2.) Joey Porter should stop making guarantees about winning and put his efforts in improving his game. The Dolphins gave him a contract very similiar to Adalius Thomas' and he only 13 tackles, no sacks, and a pass defense for the season. Thomas on the other hand in one less game has 17 tackles, no sacks, 1 INT for a TD, and 4 pass defenses.

3.) AJ Smith should be networking right now for a new job. He let Schottenheimer go for the incompetent Norv Turner. Hey Norv, how can you have LT get 116 yards on 14 carries in the first half and only give him the ball six times in the second half when you had a 16-6 lead at halftime?

4.) The way the competition is in the AFC East is, we could lock up this division in late November. I wouldn't be surprised if the Pats have more wins than the rest of the AFC East combined. I can't see anyone else in the AFC East getting more than 6 or 7 wins the way they are playing right now.

 

[upstater1]

Derrick Johnson is a menace on Madden. If you trade for him, he does nothing but fly around the field.

Cam Cameron has always been a dork. Why would you hire someone that couldn't coach the Indiana Hoosiers?

Our division has not been laid waste by the Patriots as much as it has been mismanaged. Wannstedt to Saban to Cameron. Lousy player scouting in Miami. In Buffalo, you have Marv Levy watching football games in between naps. You cannot give your franchise over to an 80 year old. I'm sorry. Even Joe Paterno, the sprightliest octogenarian I have ever seen, has lost it. As for the Jets, the owner needs to get over it and start afresh. His jealousy is killing him.

 

[Slagathor]

Here's one for you.

Champ Bailey is slightly overrated.

 

[mosi]

Here are some of mine:

1.) The Eric Mangini's defense is nothing like the Belichick defense. The way the Jets are playing defense is much like we did in most of 2005 until Belichick took over the defense from Mangini. Not a lot of pressure up front at all and not very creative.

2.) Joey Porter should stop making guarantees about winning and put his efforts in improving his game. The Dolphins gave him a contract very similiar to Adalius Thomas' and he only 13 tackles, no sacks, and a pass defense for the season. Thomas on the other hand in one less game has 17 tackles, no sacks, 1 INT for a TD, and 4 pass defenses.

3.) AJ Smith should be networking right now for a new job. He let Schottenheimer go for the incompetent Norv Turner. Hey Norv, how can you have LT get 116 yards on 14 carries in the first half and only give him the ball six times in the second half when you had a 16-6 lead at halftime?

4.) The way the competition is in the AFC East is, we could lock up this division in late November. I wouldn't be surprised if the Pats have more wins than the rest of the AFC East combined. I can't see anyone else in the AFC East getting more than 6 or 7 wins the way they are playing right now.

I agree with all of these and would add two:

1) Philip Rivers is terrible. Just terrible. So is Jay Cutler. These guys will never be good QBs because they throw the ball where they want to throw the ball and not to the open receiver.

2) The Colts are very good. One thing Manning learned from Brady is to take what the defense gives you. The Colts scare me more than ever.

3) There are only 3 really good teams in the NFL but...

4) On any given day, any team can be beaten.

 

[desi-patsfan]

personnel statistics. He learned his trade well from that sarong-wearing sea-lawyer, Strahan. Osi is not a favorite player of mine, despite his great performance last night.

You got a problem with people wearing sarong's?

 

[Jacky Roberts]

Just because you used to coach with Bill Belichick, you don't become Bill Belichick when you leave. Bill is a pure genius at football and his knowledge cannot be taught. He is a freak of nature and just because you were an assistant with him, it doesn't mean you will have a fraction of his success when you leave.

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

little LdT is upset...

 

[PonyExpress]

You got a problem with people wearing sarong's?

 

[All_Around_Brown]

One obvious observation: there are some really poor teams in the league this year. I suspect that coaching has a lot to do with it as these teams seem to go out of their way to find the next BB among the ranks of assistant coaches who played under very successful HCs.

Also, there are some stark QB liabilities like Cutler, Rivers, Grossman/Griese, attempting to run offenses for what appears to be the first time. Also, Pennington is so weak I think they should stick with Clemens. Penny is going nowhere.

The Jets Bears and Chargers are all jokes...shells of their former selves. Two of these are a direct result of coaching. The Bears needed a QB last year and the year before and still cant find one that is worth a damn.

 

[patchick]

The Bears needed a QB last year and the year before and still cant find one that is worth a damn.

I would sympathize if they really couldn't find one; good QBs are hard to find.

The problem is they haven't even looked.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

6. LBs Kirk Morrison and Thomas Howard are both pro bowl caliber players. No reason the Raiders can't win 8 games. They have plenty of talent on both sides of the ball.

I agree with Morrison; He's ready for the Pro Bowl now. Howard is coming on fast, but not quite at Morrison's level...yet. A big improvement in Oakland this year is the OL's run blocking. The pass blocking still sucks, but if they can turn every game into a Bears/Ravens-type game (run the ball, play tough D), they will compete. I think their secondary is overrated, though.

10. Umenyiora is a selfish, albeit very talented player, obsessed with personnel statistics. He learned his trade well from that sarong-wearing sea-lawyer, Strahan. Osi is not a favorite player of mine, despite his great performance last night.

Osi should dedicate his 6-sack performance to Andy Reid, who refused to give any help to the rookie LT that failed to block him all night. Remember those years that Matt Light would struggle vs. Jason Taylor or Dwight Freeney? Did BB twiddle his thumbs and let Light "work through it"? Heck no! He gave him some help. Last night was clearly one of Reid's worst coaching jobs.

Regards,
Chris

 

[aluminum seats]

--Agreed that Branch has played well, but he's only got one TD on the year, which I seem to remember being an issue with the Pats.

--How does a defensive lineman play selfishly? Not being factitious, just not sure what that means.

 

[ayjackson]

8. Jay Cutler will never be a big time QB. His mechanics are lazy and inconsistent. He has shown little progress from his rookie year. His brain does not seem to process information quickly and his accuracy is slipshod. He struggles from the pocket and is best on that Denver roll out play... But Jake the Snake could do that too, couldn't he?

Hasn't improved at all from his rookie year? What's he got - 9 career starts?? He's played well this year and the Denver offense has performed well despite missing Walker some and his favourite target, Tony Scheffler. They have not been able to get into a rhythm though, due to the defense's abysmal perfomance against the run. Seriously, yesterday in the 4th quarter, everybody and their dog knew the Colts would run, and they were still snapping off 8 yards per carry, and by a CFLer.

 

[Ishdul]

- The Cardinals have looked as good as any non-Packers, non-Cowboys team in the NFC and I'm not just talking about this week.

- I think we'll be picking in the early teens with the 49ers draft pick.

- Adrian Peterson is going to get tired of playing in the Vikings O in a hurry.

 

[PonyExpress]

Hasn't improved at all from his rookie year? What's he got - 9 career starts?? He's played well this year and the Denver offense has performed well despite missing Walker some and his favourite target, Tony Scheffler. They have not been able to get into a rhythm though, due to the defense's abysmal perfomance against the run. Seriously, yesterday in the 4th quarter, everybody and their dog knew the Colts would run, and they were still snapping off 8 yards per carry, and by a CFLer.

His mechanics haven't improved. He's sloppy and inconsistent with his footwork. His decision making is not smooth. He performs best on dumpoffs and roll outs. So did Plummer. I've watched Cutler several times and from what I've seen, he doesn't remind me of any great Qbs of the past. The second year is the leap year for QBs. He had a whole uncontested offseason to work as the #1 Qb. If this pattern of play continues into next season, Bronco fans will start to worry. Fortunately for Cutler, he has an absolute monster WR with All-Pro potential playing with him in 2nd year B. Marshall. That kid oozes talent. He's baby T.O.

 

[Oswlek]

I was going to make a thread of my own, but I might as well stick this here. My thoughts on this past weekend:

* Pennington finally got burned. At least 3-4 times a game he throws a floater up there to a covered WR to "let the WR make a play on the ball." Hell, without seeing much of the game, I can name three right now; the pass after the fake spike, the TD pass and the game sealing int.

Look, I like Pennington and I think he is a good QB. But he has gotten inordinately lucky with passes that could just as easily have been caught by the defender. At the very least, you would think a good amount of those would be knocked away, but it just seems as if those WRs have vacuums on their finger tips. It was nice to finally see the defense come out ahead on one of those plays.

* That was the Indy defense that many have been expecting for some time. They seemed surprised that a Denver team missing its top WR would actually try to run the ball. If it wasn't for the fact that Denver's DL is unbelievably terrible and Cutler appears to be a little bit of a flake, Denver could have put a serious scare into Indy. Frankly, I don't think that Indy's offense was all that good yesterday. It's just hard to not have success when the DL is that bad.

* I second the "I thought that AD was supposed to look medicore when he was not surrounded by Baltimore not the other way around" comments.

* Damn that was an atrocious game by Philly. Take Westbrook out and they have nothing.

* I can see why people are all gaga over Dallas. They are exciting to watch and it is nice to have a team that appears poised to even out the AFC/NFC thing. But having watched quite a bit of that game, I don't see how they compete with NE in a few weeks. Everything just seems so haphazard with them.

I have a good friend that runs a statistical analysis to come up with what he feels is truer rankings of teams (as well as passing O/D and rushing O/D). I suppose that you could call it similar to footballoutsiders, but he doesn't measure success by individual plays.

Anyway, one of the things that he has come up with is a "matchup score" which is intriguing. Positive matchup score means that you are likely to win and vice versa for negative. Win margin is correlated with the size of the mactchup score as well. What is most interesting about the "MS" is that it isn't just a repeat of the rankings. Lower ranked teams can and do have positive MS's against higher teams and the gap in rankings is not necessarily reflective of the gap in MS.

Alright, I say all of that to say this. My buddy is predicting a blowout of epic proportions tonight. The matchup score between these two teams is the second highest that he has seen in 5 years of running his model - and is higher by a significant margin than any MS prior to this year.

 

[mosi]

Guys, check out page 2 today. Eery how close his joke are to the real situations - especially about the chargers!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070928&sportCat=nfl

 

[PatsFan37]

I have a good friend that runs a statistical analysis to come up with what he feels is truer rankings of teams (as well as passing O/D and rushing O/D). I suppose that you could call it similar to footballoutsiders, but he doesn't measure success by individual plays.

Anyway, one of the things that he has come up with is a "matchup score" which is intriguing. Positive matchup score means that you are likely to win and vice versa for negative. Win margin is correlated with the size of the mactchup score as well. What is most interesting about the "MS" is that it isn't just a repeat of the rankings. Lower ranked teams can and do have positive MS's against higher teams and the gap in rankings is not necessarily reflective of the gap in MS.

Alright, I say all of that to say this. My buddy is predicting a blowout of epic proportions tonight. The matchup score between these two teams is the second highest that he has seen in 5 years of running his model - and is higher by a significant margin than any MS prior to this year.

So how accurate has his score been in forecasting games?