Archive for the ‘General’ Category
You are currently browsing the archives for the General category.
28
Nov
2010
Week 12 LIVE GAME BLOG
Matty Ice on tap. (Source: New York Times)
We’ll be watching and covering the games all day. If you want to join in the conversation, just use the comments section below.
¶ With Falcons driving, the team announced that Roddy White just became the 12th wide receiver in NFL history to register 80 catches & 1,000 yds receiving in four consecutive seasons.
¶ Falcons’ first drive ends with a field goal. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers waiting in the wings.
¶ Carolina marches right down the field and scores on the Browns in Cleveland. Mike Goodson with a 26-yard scamper for the score. The Browns drive right down the field, with Jake Delhomme going 5 for 7 for 63 yards. Peyton Hillis scores on a 9-yard touchdown run.
¶ The Jags have taken an early 7-3 lead on the Giants — New York, without Hakeem Nicks to bolster a thin wideout lineup, cannot fall behind by much in this game.
MORE AFTER THE JUMP
28
Nov
2010
Week 12 picks (post-Thanksgiving)
Josh's big test against the Baltimore Ravens defense is a measuring stick for the young Bucs. (Source: AP)
Buccaneers (7-3) at Ravens (7-3): Ravens 22, Bucs 16
Chargers (5-5) at Colts (6-4): Colts 41, Chargers 30
Chiefs (6-4) at Seahawks (5-5): Seahawks 12, Chiefs 9
Dolphins (5-5) at Raiders (5-5): Raiders 16, Dolphins 10
Eagles (7-3) at Bears (7-3): Eagles 21, Bears 7
Jaguars (6-4) at Giants (6-4): Giants 24, Jaguars 21 (OT)
Packers (7-3) at Falcons (8-2): Falcons 30, Packers 21
Panthers (1-9) at Browns (3-7): Browns 28, Panthers 17
Rams (4-6) at Broncos (3-7): Broncos 19, Rams 9
Steelers (7-3) at Bills (2-8): Steelers 34, Bills 32
Titans (5-5) at Texans (4-6): Texans 34, Titans 33
Vikings (3-7) at Redskins (5-5): Vikings 15, Redskins 14
28
Nov
2010
Sunday Morning NFL Notebook
Early tailgaters gather at The New Meadlowlands before a crucial showdown with the 6-4 Jacksonville Jaguars. (Source: Pat Hanlon, N.Y. Giants)
¶ Quarterbacks Donovan McNabb and Brett Favre square off today during a season which has seen aging veteran passers struggle. McNabb is 4-2 vs. Favre, but has yet to face Favre post-Green Bay.
ESPN’s Ed Werder reports that Favre will start Sunday’s game in Washington despite battling what could be pneumonia. Favre told Werder that he required a steroid pack and an injection Saturday, and missed the first hour of team meetings because he couldn’t drag himself out of bed.
For his career, Favre is 70-of-118 passing for 802 yards, 4 touchdowns and 8 interceptions against the Redskins, according to the ‘Skins Twitter page. Favre hasn’t played at FedEx Field since 2004.
¶ Judd Zulgad of the Star Tribune reports that Vikings wide receiver Bernard Berrian (groin) and cornerback Chris Cook (knee) are both inactive for today’s game.
¶ BTW, don’t assume we rate this Redskins-Vikings tilt a big deal. It’s not. What it is, is the meeting of two battered, lost teams — neither who have lived up to expectations this season.
¶ For my money, the game of the day is the Jacksonville Jaguars visiting the New York Giants, in what amounts to a solid test for both teams. The result will tell us a lot about both 6-4 teams as they fight for position in the playoff race.
¶ The Plain Dealer’s Mary Kay Cabot reports that the Browns’ Josh Cribbs is active against the Carolina Panthers. Quarterback Colt McCoy and cornerback Eric Wright are inactive.
¶ It will be interesting to see how the Denver Broncos respond today against the St. Louis Rams. The Broncos and coach Josh McDaniels were each fined $50,000 after Broncos’ video operations director Steve Scarnecchia violated NFL rules by taping a six-minute portion of a San Francisco 49ers walkthrough on Oct. 30, the day before the teams played each other in London.
MORE AFTER THE BREAK
24
Nov
2010
Should the Vikings cut Brett Favre?
READERS: How would you caption this photo? (Source: Daily News)
Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier has inherited a mess, but all is not lost.
Frazier has the opportunity to take decisive steps to show that he means business — and he better not waste the chance catering to Brett Favre. His best route is a decisive, fresh start at the quarterback position.
It’s a thought that’s been picking up steam all week, and NFL Network’s Mike Mayock makes a most compelling case for cutting Favre — not in the offseason, but now. With the playoffs out of the question, Mayock insists the Vikings must find out now who they have at quarterback.
You can’t do that with Favre in the locker room.
“At this point, you’ve fired your coach. It would be a crime if you don’t find out, in the remainder of the season, whether or not either one of your backup quarterbacks can play. So, if I was there, I would like to see a uniform situation within the organization where the owner, the new head coach and Rick Spielman, the head of personnel, sit down and say, ‘It’s time to release Brett Favre.’ We need to get a clean look at these two young quarterbacks and find out if either of them is our quarterback of the future. If that’s the case, then you know what you have to do in the draft. If you don’t have a quarterback, then you can go and get one. If you do have a quarterback, that’s great, but it’s time to cut the ties with Brett Favre right now.
“The bottom line is, Brett’s not going to be there next year … so you gotta find out right now who your quarterback of the future is, because … you do a disjustice to your entire organization if you don’t have a plan going into the draft.”
Favre loyalists will balk at such a plan, but it’s time for the Vikings to reboot the machine. It will be interesting to see what Frazier does with the time he has left this season. When it comes to Favre, we’re talking about a guy who’s basically never missed a day of work and never mailed it in. It would be a brutal ending, but Mayock is right — benching Favre doesn’t do you any good. It must be decisive. You cut him and move on.
23
Nov
2010
T.O. calls Revis, ‘Just an average corner to me’
Revis is average only when compared with the citizenry of Revis Island. (Source: AP)
The Associated Press reports Tuesday that Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Terrell Owens, in anticipation of Thursday night’s game against the New York Jets, labeled All-Pro Darrelle Revis “Just an average corner to me.”
Owens followed it up with this:
“No disrespect. He’s only done one thing for one year. You talk about shutdown corners, you need to repeatedly do it year-in and year-out. I think he did it one year and everybody made a lot of hoopla about it. I think he started feeling himself, then he wanted to come out and say that I am a slouch.”
Revis called Owens a slouch last season, citing his lack of hustle in their matchups. So, to be fair, the Bengals receiver was simply responding.
Owens had no comment about how his inflammatory remarks — coupled with labeling the Bengals as a “terrible” team — would help motivate the Jets and/or demotivate the Bengals, respectively.
Owens, it should be noted, is tied for third in the NFL with 62 catches — a receiver nobody wanted midway through the summer.
23
Nov
2010
Tuesday morning NFL notebook
Rivers fits in San Diego as well as Eli Manning ever would have. (Source: Splog.com)
¶ Chargers wide receiver Patrick Crayton dislocated his left wrist in the team’s 35-14 win over the Denver Broncos on Monday night and could miss two weeks, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Crayton, who had three catches for 105 yards and a touchdown, benefited from the return of wideout Malcolm Floyd, who re-tweeked his hamstring, according to the newspaper. Crayton’s set for an MRI today. None of this is good news for the Chargers, trying to distance themselves from the pack in the AFC West with an irritated Colts team on tap Sunday night.
¶ NFL.com’s Adam Rank journeys to the dark side of Philip Rivers’ titanic season — namely, your fantasy team, clinging to a lead heading into Monday, only to watch Rivers carve you up like Thursday’s bird. Rank feels your pain, fantasy owners:
“One week you are Mike Eruzione celebrating the ‘Miracle on Ice’ during the opening credits of the Wide World of Sports,” Rank writes. “The next week you are that anonymous skier wiping out in a blaze of snowy glory.”
¶ Do you think our grandfathers, who fought in wars across the globe to keep us free, would smile proudly on fantasy football? It’s probably harmless, until I take it one step too far and play fantasy businessman — where I sit on the couch and get points for someone else’s productivity and ingenuity. That, sir, would be going too fa… wait, that’s the stock market — and our ancestors invented that thing. OK, we’re good… continue on.
¶ Heading into Week 12, three Browns quarterbacks have generated three wins and three ankle sprains. Eric Mangini won’t say, but possibly three high-ankle sprains (which is the equivalent of a maternity leave in this league). Colt McCoy played most of the second half against the Jaguars on a sprained left ankle that required an MRI exam Monday. Per usual, Mangenius is quiet about who will start Sunday — and this might be the VERY first time in Cleveland that the decision even matters. On the heels of the battered, laborious Quinn vs. Anderson debates — which resulted in NOTHING, zero — the emergence of McCoy is a revelation for Browns fans used to the team’s Week 16 starter being a guy who started the year as a CVS check-out clerk in central New Jersey. With that said, we might see Jake Delhomme face his old team this weekend.
Speaking of the mess in Carolina, coach John Fox hinted at a potential mistake in allowing Delhomme to leave in the offseason.
“Looking back, sitting here at 1-9, I’m not sure how many moves were right,” Fox said Monday. “And that’s not being critical of anybody other than hindsight is always 20-20. But I know Jake is happy where he is. Sometimes change is good. I don’t believe in looking back.”
Not controversial. Fox is just being real about the quarterback mess in his own backyard — something Delhomme likely couldn’t have improved on. Delhomme’s done very little in Cleveland beyond hold a clipboard and nest in the whirlpool with Big Baby.
Before the season, people talked about Fox “writing his own check” for a new coaching job — almost anywhere he wanted. That’s quieted down, but he’s one of the better coaches in the league, despite this season’s Ho Chi Minh trail-like campaign.
22
Nov
2010
Week 12 Power Rankings (and introducing the “Berserker Number”)
Will this still be the AFC's best rivalry come February? Don't think so. (Source: Boston Herald)
Power Rankings are a problem.
Every time I scan someone else’s rankings, I fume.
“They’ve TOTALLY missed the boat on a third of the league — again — and they don’t understand my team……………”
I can promise to generate a similar reaction.
SOURCE: UNPAID BLOGGER POTENTIALLY MIFFS ON POWER RANKINGS
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Somebody writing articles about the National Football League from his couch has made a mistake in his weekly Power Rankings, according to a reader.
“He placed the Raiders way too low in the rankings,” said an agitated Raiders fan, nursing an Olde English40oz from his step-sister’s basement in Piedmont, Calif. “I’ve watched five Raiders games — they were on in the house. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
The Raiders fan said he was thinking about writing a mean comment, but needed his step-sister’s husband to get home from work to help him create a WordPress ID, in order to post his thoughts.
A source close to the situation reported that the earth’s sun rose the morning after the blogger filed his Power Rankings, even in the wake of the material’s inability to perfectly please 32 separate, self-serving fan clusters.
Bottom line: Whatever the system for ranking teams, we’ll keep seeing upsets.
I’ve added two elements here: For the teams from 32-17, I’ve tagged them with my BERSERKER NUMBER (B#). Ranging from 1 to 100, it rates a team’s ability to cause havoc for teams attempting a playoff run. Young, developing squads just beginning to show power (but stuck with losing records) are helped, in my rankings, by a high B#.
For the teams from 16-1, I’ve added my DESTINY SCORE (DS). Again, 1 to 100. Here, I’m attempting to weed out teams resembling, for instance, the 1988 Chicago Bears. Teams with towering regular season records that (we all know) will not get to — back to — the Super Bowl. Teams … missing something.
So — anyway — enjoy this dart-on-a-board rundown of the NFL’s 32 teams (unless, of course, you’re a Raiders fan).
32 Carolina Panthers (1-9) (B#12)
31 San Francisco 49ers (3-7) (B#25)
30 Cincinnati Bengals (2-8) (B#26)
29 Buffalo Bills (2-8) (B#44)
28 Arizona Cardinals (3-7) (B#39)
27 Detroit Lions (2-8) (B#54)
26 Dallas Cowboys (3-7) (B#52)
25 St. Louis Rams (4-6) (B#48)
24 Minnesota Vikings (3-7) (B#57)
23 Denver Broncos (3-7) (B#63)
22 Miami Dolphins (5-5) (B#58)
21 Washington Redskins (5-5) (B#71)
20
Nov
2010
A look inside…
Pat Hanlon of the New York Giants shared this photo Saturday of quarterback Eli Manning talking with NBC’s production crew in preparation for Sunday night’s grudge-battle between the Giants and Philadelphia Eagles.
Eli: student of the game. (Source: Pat Hanlon, Giants)
20
Nov
2010
We are family
Thanks to the New England Patriots (@realpatriots via Twitter) for this: The Pats, on a sunny, wind-swept New England morning, have just gathered to take their 2010 team photo. This on the eve of their showdown with the Indianapolis Colts. See what our very own SteveRodgers predicts for tomorrow’s game right here.
Here’s a link to the original image.
Can you find the long-haired chap who throws the passes? (Source: Patriots)
19
Nov
2010
WEEK 11 PICKS: STEVERODGERS EDITION
Winners in Bold
Buffalo @ Cincinnati: Pig City vs. the Home of Buffalo wings. Going with God’s favorite football snack on this one. I wonder if TO gets a little excited for this game – does he even remember playing in Buffalo? Did he buy a house? Regardless he is having a bang-up season.
Detroit @ Dallas: The media will needlessly hype Jason Garret because he is the Dallas Cowboys’ coach. However, in the end like all things Dallas he is wildly uninteresting and mediocre. There is no public transportation to Arlington. At least in Detroit you can still catch a bus.
Washington @ Tennessee: I have this strange feeling that Randy Moss and Jeff Fisher will get along. It might not translate into any wins, but I see them after the season on a road trip, two men searching for something intangible, maybe in a old convertible Mustang, listening to mixtapes with complicated cover art from college girlfriends, smoking cigarettes, picking up local girls at honky-tonks, emailing from local libraries along the way. At night they will drink beer and pass bourbon back and forth on the hood of the car. Silently they will stare into the twilight and let their dreams get lost amongst the stars.
Arizona @ Kansas City: I’d watch this game if I had to. Also the Chiefs coach seems very unlikeable. Take your lumps. If Belichik and Mangini can shake hands, you can too.
How Soon We Forget (source: NFL.com)
Green Bay @ Minnesota: The last hurrah. Brett Favre, the lion in winter. I find America’s newfound dislike of Brett Favre to be predictable and boring. This idea that athletes should know when to retire is daft. Athletes should play until they want to quit or they are cut. If someone wants to pay them a ton of money to play a game for our enjoyment then they should go for it. This game and season will be remembered briefly and then forgotten, and one day not far in the future the cynical adult in all of us will have a moment of clarity and we will remember #4 picking up Donald Driver after a touchdown and bouncing him up and down under a shower of Wisconsin cheers – a pure expression of joy in a sometime overtly serious league, and we will wonder why we decided as a nation to have a collective stick up our asses in 2010.
Houston @ NY Jets: The Texans are one of the teams that you just wonder why they are in the league. They have a Rothko museum in Houston. I can guarantee that staring at a Rothko painting for two hours would do more for your soul and wellbeing then watching the Jets paste this dead-on-arrival franchise on Sunday. Sanchise forever!
Oakland @ Pittsburgh: I am pretty sure that the Steelers will annihilate the Autumn Wind this weekend. I am only picking Oakland because I used to live there, in this old factory across from the Oakland Coliseum. The night they lost the Superbowl a few years back, I woke up to notice outside my apartment that someone had lit a car on fire. The car was burning alone by itself, flickering in the grey light. If Michael Mann were to film it a wolf would have walked by… things like that stick with you.
Baltimore @ Carolina: Do people really care about the Carolina Panthers? Do they have fans? I don’t get this team. Like the Texans, nobody cares.
Sometimes You Just Need a Chew (source: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
Cleveland @ Jacksonville: Browns need to win this one to keep some solid momentum going. They are beaten up a bit, but hope springs in the steely gaze of rookie Colt McCoy and the Juggernaut Peyton Hillis. I have noticed as of late that Mangini has given up trying to not use Kodiak, now he has got a big chaw in during the game, spitting, getting Kodiak jammed up into his clipboard, in Josh Cribbs’ cleats, just saying to hell with it, and embracing his addiction. I am pretty sure the NFL will send him a memo soon, until then however, I am enjoying it.
Tampa Bay @ San Francisco: Will the Josh Freeman train continue to roll? Will the Troy Smith train get started? Will Mike Singletary deliver a fiery sermon about how only the devil can’t run the ball and then shoot lasers out of his eyes? I don’t know but I do like Troy Smith. I think a lot of teams will be kicking themselves for not picking him up when they had the chance.
