NFL Slants for Week 12

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you enjoyed the full slate of games. There is a lot to process from this weekend, so here we go:

Checking Down:

-Roy Williams, what was that? GET DOWN. Can we start teaching players that once a first down is made, or an interception occurs, and you have less than 2 minutes remaining, up by any score, you GET DOWN. I don’t care about you wanting to score. 

-The Jets won a game that was in contention for way too long. This will catch up to them versus New England this week.

-The truth is, I don’t blame NE, NO, or NYJ for their slow starts/close portions of games to inferior opponents. They played on 80 hours rest, 2 of them on the road. They won their games, with the Pats and Jets pulling away at the end. Just getting through the circumstances is good enough.

-ATL pulls out another close game versus a good opponent. This team can hang with anyone because of its methodical and complete style. Home field is huge for them. Green Bay showed great strength though. Atlanta seems the most consistent NFC team, if not a dominant one.

-Buffalo won a great moral victory today, and the Steelers showed they are the better team. However, they also showed they are incredibly vulnerable. Baltimore should take them head to head and win that division.

-CLE-CAR was just a big pile of yuck. Can Jake Delhomme just be done now? Steve Smith looks ready to kill someone.

-Tennessee is done. This is a good team done in by a lack of true Quarterback. Randy Moss anyone? His 4^th team might be coming soon.

-Rusty Smith is officially the worst starting QB in the league, congratulations. When you dethrone Jake Delhomme and Derek Anderson, you’ve accomplished something.

-Poor Chris Johnson. And his owners. Like me. Randy Moss creating spacing my…..

-Houston won a game versus an already defeated foe. Do not read into it. The Texans are not going anywhere either.

-Did either team really want it in the NYG-JAX affair? Neither one is going anywhere but a first round exit at this point if they do make the playoffs.

-Don’t get too excited Viking fans: it was just the Skins. Adrian Peterson’s injury is worrisome. They should shut him down if he has any kind of real issue.

-There’s Oakland! Who smells 5-11 coming?

-Miami is much better with Chad Henne, and no one should talk about Chad Pennington, Tyler Thigpen, or anybody else again. He is at least as good as a 2003 Jake Delhomme or 2005 Jake Plummer or the like, so he can be a usable starter, given time and more help at receiver. They need a running game. And a healthy Jake Long.

-Ricky Williams is clearly the better back in Miami right now. He needs to play more, and then be resigned to a decent deal. Ronnie Brown has never been healthy, and his skill at “Wildcatting” is overrated. They need a fresh new back, not overpay an old and overrated Brown. Of course, they will.

-KC won the game it should win, mainly because Bowe and Charles were awesome. Seattle pulls its Jekyll and Hyde routine again. Next week, we get “pumped and jacked” Pete Carroll or “let’s cut half the team and see what happens” Pete Carroll?

-TB made the game versus the Ravens close, but showed why they are one year away. They need a consistent second receiver, and an edge rusher.

-Chicago is for real people. When the offense clicks like that, the team is hard to beat. Hester makes a big different, and swings emotion and excitement at Soldier Field if nothing else.

-STL showed growth in this game, both in exploding to a lead and then barely holding one. Bradford showed progression and really just needs an ace wide receiver to grow with. Denver shows a lot of fight, but is really a bad fundamental football team. We do need to see Tebow at some point soon. You know, to firmly prove he is NOT an NFL QB.

-Chris Long, you have grown up! He made two great plays to close out the game for the Rams. While I am not sure he will be Jared Allen, being another Justin Smith is not out of the question. That is not a bad thing.

-SD made a statement, winning in Indy in primetime. Indy should recover from NE/SD in enough time to win this division. They should run the division games at least. However, this is a flawed team that is going to get killed in the second round on the road at New England or Pittsburgh/Baltimore. Hell, if they get San Diego at some point they’ll get killed there.

-This loss knocks Manning off the MVP list. Vick’s so so games and general low number of starts should prevent him from winning. At this point I have Matty Ice third, Brady second, and Rivers first.

-Yes, Rivers. He is now 6-5, and 4 of the wins are his alone. And, 2 of the losses would be wins by Rivers if the Bolts had any special teams at all. He is now the MVP favorite, deal with it.

-Funny stat: Rivers could break Marino’s mark this year and win the MVP but still be second in all time passing yards for a season. Kyle Orton is slinging it with no inhabitations right now. I think Tebow plays at some point and thus Orton is slowed, but you never know. 

-I am posting this column before Monday Night’s SF-ARI game. You know why? Because I don’t care about it. It doesn’t matter. And ESPN is going to take a ratings bath on it. The teams suck. I laughed so hard when I heard the commercials with Jon Gruden promoting “Derek Anderson’s big time arm” and “Patrick Willis’s toughness”. Hey ESPN? We don’t spend our time watching a QB ground balls ten yards from their receivers no matter how hard they throw it.

Going Deep:

-The Patriots are rolling, and are showing themselves as the class of the AFC at least, if not the NFL. It is like the 2003 Patriots offense with deeper routes. Their defense is growing all the time. They need a great pass rusher, and this unit will be above average at absolute worst next year. 

This win against Detroit was impressive for one particular reason. All this season, the Patriots have come out and dominated first halves, especially versus good teams. In the second halves, the other team adjusts and comes back, normally falling short. Other teams can do this because the Pats team, especially the young secondary, is not talented or developed enough. The win against Detroit is interesting because the opposite was true. They came out lethargic, clearly out of energy on short rest after two tough games versus Indy and Pitt, traveling to Detroit on a holiday. But, they came together in the second half and asserted their talent dominance. So, that was impressive.

The true test however, is the Jets next week. The Colts may not be very good anymore, and Pittsburgh has some clear issues. The Jets seem to be their truest test and the last thing controlling New England’s destiny in the AFC playoffs and division. I think they bet the overachieving Jets, but we will see. If they do, no matter how Atlanta plays, NE will jump into the top spot in my power rankings.

-We need to get over network rules. When a channel (cough, CBS, cough) has an hour of after game shows scheduled, there is no reason to switch away from an overtime game to let us watch the analysts talk about nothing. You know what you had CBS? An overtime game versus the first quarter of Fox’s game. You know what you did with it? You threw it away by “having to switch away”. Now, if you have another TV show starting up, I would understand more. However, you did not. You had an hour of the studio talking about the early games. Show the overtime game! I changed the channel to the Bears-Eagles game and looked up the Bills overtime on the internet. Congrats CBS, you lost a chance to keep some audience when they weren’t planning to be watching CBS.

It is time we ignore these “network regulations” and show the end of games. We want to see the whole product. In an era where CBS and FOX football games are slowly getting drained by RedZone, On Demand, every game on a NFL channels, and internet sites broadcasting individual games instead of watching a channel that happens to have a game, it would make sense to change the rules a bit. I mean, it is also important to show the end of games more than the beginning of others. See, TNT and the NBA does this. Even MLB will do this (On TBS no less). But the NFL is so tied up in contracts; they have forgotten that they have to finish what they start to show. We really don’t care about the analysts. Show us the games. Hell, even the Analysts seem to be annoyed by this to be honest.

BLISS