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- Mar 25, 2005
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Rich is a pretty savvy insider by and large, but what disappoints me with this early assessment is how he moves the Colts up a notch and positively vaults the Miami miracle up the charts.
The Colts lose a HOF RB who will be replaced by the 4th rookie RB selected in this years draft. They lose a couple of defenders who will have to be replaced from within on a D that has never featured quality depth. They are coming off a magical season that garnered them HFA throughout and once again fold like a cheap shirt in the first round of the playoffs even with the zebras falling all over themselves to hand them the game late. Whatever...
Miami adds what apparently is being viewed as the missing link QB and vaults from the mid teens to #5. They get kudos for a winning record that resulted from playing their starters into the 4th quarter of the last game of the season thus beating a third string unit of a team whose starters were resting for the playoffs. No mention of the fact that their new QB has never been successful unless paired with Randy Moss, is coming off triple ligament surgery, has to scramble to succeed and is along with his teamates learning a new offense under their second OC in as many seasons. He says Ronnie Brown will have to run for a thousand yards and that is certainly the case since he ran for 900+ in a 9-7 season (and they lost almost 750 yards of production to the Toronto Argonauts). Again, whatever....
One problem with his rankings is he has 2 NFC teams in the top 5. Seatle certainly deserves the nod after making the Bowl and nearly winning it, but Carolina somehow slides in at #1? Adding a running back we passed on in favor of Maroney somehow takes the pressure off Jake and the passing game in their case, while getting back an injured OT mitigates the loss of your leading tackler in Witherspoon. Okey-dokey.
So where do we land? 7th. And it seems to be the loss of the PK that did us in. We are now left with the Big Two - thank god it's Belichick and Brady.
I will be the first to admit I do not think you replace AV with a rookie or a former headcase and gain ground. But the fact that we ADDED Maroney to Dillon, Faulk and whomever ought to count for something. And the fact that we got to the second round minus 4 key players, with our best ILB only coming of PUP and rehabbing from a stroke after the bye, with the best DE in the league out for 5 weeks, starting 2 rookies and a backup center on the Oline and with our featured RB and all his backups injured - well I guess when we get guys back, and he assumes we will, it doesn't count for much. Glossed over a lot where we were concerned too - Givens and Willie's loss didn't warrent a mention.
I don't expect him to rank us #1. But out of a top 5 that includes Miami and two NFC teams? Nonsense. At least he's not buying the TO saves the Cowboys BS.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...elin/stories/061106dnsponflranks.785cf76.html
The Colts lose a HOF RB who will be replaced by the 4th rookie RB selected in this years draft. They lose a couple of defenders who will have to be replaced from within on a D that has never featured quality depth. They are coming off a magical season that garnered them HFA throughout and once again fold like a cheap shirt in the first round of the playoffs even with the zebras falling all over themselves to hand them the game late. Whatever...
Miami adds what apparently is being viewed as the missing link QB and vaults from the mid teens to #5. They get kudos for a winning record that resulted from playing their starters into the 4th quarter of the last game of the season thus beating a third string unit of a team whose starters were resting for the playoffs. No mention of the fact that their new QB has never been successful unless paired with Randy Moss, is coming off triple ligament surgery, has to scramble to succeed and is along with his teamates learning a new offense under their second OC in as many seasons. He says Ronnie Brown will have to run for a thousand yards and that is certainly the case since he ran for 900+ in a 9-7 season (and they lost almost 750 yards of production to the Toronto Argonauts). Again, whatever....
One problem with his rankings is he has 2 NFC teams in the top 5. Seatle certainly deserves the nod after making the Bowl and nearly winning it, but Carolina somehow slides in at #1? Adding a running back we passed on in favor of Maroney somehow takes the pressure off Jake and the passing game in their case, while getting back an injured OT mitigates the loss of your leading tackler in Witherspoon. Okey-dokey.
So where do we land? 7th. And it seems to be the loss of the PK that did us in. We are now left with the Big Two - thank god it's Belichick and Brady.
I will be the first to admit I do not think you replace AV with a rookie or a former headcase and gain ground. But the fact that we ADDED Maroney to Dillon, Faulk and whomever ought to count for something. And the fact that we got to the second round minus 4 key players, with our best ILB only coming of PUP and rehabbing from a stroke after the bye, with the best DE in the league out for 5 weeks, starting 2 rookies and a backup center on the Oline and with our featured RB and all his backups injured - well I guess when we get guys back, and he assumes we will, it doesn't count for much. Glossed over a lot where we were concerned too - Givens and Willie's loss didn't warrent a mention.
I don't expect him to rank us #1. But out of a top 5 that includes Miami and two NFC teams? Nonsense. At least he's not buying the TO saves the Cowboys BS.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...elin/stories/061106dnsponflranks.785cf76.html
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