Blog Posts For Tag: Nfl

As of Week 9, there is only one division that has been decided, the NFC West. However, there is one more at the cusp of picking a clear winner, the NFC East. This is especially unsettling to those with Dallas Cowboys tickets. Yes, the experts were unsure that the Cowboys would win a paltry 8 games, but the local fan base expected much more.

The seventh week of the NFL season has a surprisingly few premier games on the schedule. There is one game that stands out among the many others though. On Sunday, at 1:00 PM ET, the Atlanta Falcons will travel to Ford Field to play the Detroit Lions.

Would you rather have a 5 foot 9 receiver who weighs 185 pounds, runs a 4.61 40-yard dash, and has a 30 inch vertical or a 6 foot 5 receiver who weighs 236 pounds, runs a 4.35 40-yard dash, and has a 45 inch vertical? Or perhaps the question should be, would you rather have a receiver who has 45 receptions for 740 yards through five games or the receiver who has an NFL record 9 touchdowns through five games?

The Houston Texans are trying to fill the void left by Peyton Manning in the AFC South. The Colts are winless, making Manning’s placement on the IR more and more likely. Meanwhile, the Texans are taking advantage of an impressive running game while the passing game heats up.

It has been two weeks and the NFL is down to seven undefeated teams, and three of them are in the AFC East. This really is incredible. The teams on the list are even more unbelievable. There are the typical teams like the Patriots and Packers, but then there are the Redskins, the Bills, the Lions, and the Texans (the Jets could really go either way here).

The New York Jets have a championship caliber defense and added two talented veterans to its wide receiver core, yet the postseason hopes remain in the hands of Mark Sanchez, the same man who let the football consistently slip out of his hands in the last preseason game on the schedule. This is disconcerting for fans that purchased Jets tickets expecting a chance to see this team make a run at the Patriots and first place in the AFC East and then the Super Bowl.

Gentleman, we can rebuild him. We have the short attention span and penchant for sports hero worship. We have the capability to rebuild the career of the world’s most dangerous fantasy football player. Michael Vick will be that man. Better than he was before. Better…more experienced reading blitzes before the snap…more accurate from the pocket.

It is uncommon that an NFL team would come into the season with an issue at kicker, but the Dallas Cowboys can hardly be called the typical NFL franchise. This is “America’s Team” with an overbearing owner in a state where football is a religion that inspires fanaticism that goes beyond the Sunday morning tailgate.

Last season the Dallas Cowboys finished sixth in the NFL in passing yards, even with Romo under center for just six games. Well, if the fans want Dallas Cowboys tickets to extend beyond the 2011 regular season into the NFL playoffs, this team is going to have to figure out just how to put together as prolific an air attack with Miles Austin, Dez Bryant in his first healthy year in the league, and a collection of unproven wide receivers.

I am beginning to think the NFL should always operate on an abbreviated offseason. Last week I was intrigued by the Washington Redskins and this week I am contemplating the hopes of two teams that have remained committed to the run in the age of the pass. These two teams, the Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans, obviously believe they should be playing in the postseason and have added veteran quarterbacks in hopes of proving that they are not fools for investing in the running game.

The road to Super Bowl LXVI runs through Gillette Stadium in Foxboro on the AFC side of the playoffs and through the Georgia Dome on the NFC side, but the Super Bowl tickets will only be good for the game at Cowboys Stadium on February 6, 2011.

For those looking ahead to February in Dallas, Week 13 in the NFL proved to be a revelation for the AFC and a confounding experience leaving a glut of potential Super Bowl suitors in the NFC. The New England Patriots set themselves apart as the best team in the AFC East and the team with the most momentum heading into the last few weeks of the NFL regular season. Meanwhile, the top six NFC teams all won, most struggling in the process.

The Philadelphia Eagles are 7-3 and suddenly they are clearly the best team in the NFC East. They also may be the best team in the NFC. They certainly possess the best weapon in the NFL in Michael Vick. I know Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are enjoying early MVP buzz. I also know Aaron Rodgers continues to be a vastly overlooked quarterback. But, Vick can outrun and maybe out throw this competition, though he does lack the touch and the recognition these pocket passers possess.

The NFL is a little over the half way mark and as far as I can tell there 11 teams capable of reaching the Super Bowl, five from the NFC and six from the AFC. While I base this simple observation on records, the scoring differential, and not playing in the West division of either conference, I see these teams and get excited by the story lines FOX and ESPN will be busy creating a week's worth of film around. I know it is silly. I should be thinking of offensive and defensive stats, but nobody buys Super Bowl tickets and gets excited by the yards allowed per carry no first defense allowed by their favorite team.

One look at the NFC standings and I wonder if any of these teams truly deserve Super Bowl tickets to Cowboys Stadium as players or fans. The list of teams more than two games over .500 is short, just four teams. This is quite embarrassing compared to the plethora of AFC teams meeting that criterion - eight teams. Of those four teams with the best early season chances, which is most likely to survive the remaining 10 weeks of the NFL schedule?

The Dallas Cowboys may have won state bragging rights after Week 3's 27-13 win over the Houston Texans, but they have won nothing else, literally. The 1-3 Cowboys are in last place in the NFC East, a division plagued with three 3-2 teams atop the division standings.

The news that Michael Vick had supplanted Kevin Kolb as the Philadelphia Eagles starting quarterback hardly came as news to Eagles fans and hardcore NFL fans. We all knew once Kolb gave Vick a chance to electrify the fickle crowd at Lincoln Financial Field, then Kolb’s tenure would come to an end. This serves as an example of one of two ways a professional quarterback not in a body cast can lose his starting job.

I began this piece trying to find a way to compare football to a relationship because it is just that. Every season I begin a love affair with a definite shelf life. I like to think of it as my Fall Fling. However, I discovered the stages of a relationship are far more arduous and contentious than my feelings about the NFL season.

Last season I wrote pretty extensively about the NFC East. This is a hard fact to swallow for a NFC North kind of guy, but the division had the most compelling storylines and it seemed every team in the division had at least a couple of weeks in which they appeared to be serious playoff contenders (even the Washington Redskins were once 2-2 in 2010). This season I am going to have to swallow that bitter pill again.

The Washington Redskins are the 2010 Redeem Team. Donovan McNabb needs to prove he is a Super Bowl-caliber winning quarterback, Coach Mike Shanahan has to prove he was not just riding John Elway and Terrell Davis’s coattails for two years, and a host of veterans want to prove they have not yet passed their prime.

Most years, being first on the clock is a mere formality in the NFL Draft game, with the last-place team’s needs and choices obvious, and left to be envied by much of the league. Such is not necessarily the case for the St. Louis Rams in 2010; with the direction they choose going a long way in determining the franchise’s long-term future.

I have not seen the new movie Legion, but I have seen trailers and read reviews and the big-budget apocalyptic thriller is by all accounts a disaster. Similarly, I have not seen the backroom collective bargaining agreement (CBA) discussions between the NFL Players Association and the team owners, but I have seen trailers (the three debacles known as the 1994-95 MLB strike, the 1998-99 NBA strike, and 2004-05 NHL lockout) and have read the reviews (Tim Graham’s February 1st ESPN column) and am pretty sure it would be a disaster of actual biblical proportions.

The Monday after the NFL conference championships the football news is pretty scarce. There is some analysis of the Colts victory (they looked bored until the Jets scored their second touchdown, at which point they outscored New York 24-3) and the Saints overtime win (they struggled to win despite winning the turnover battle 5 to 1). In other news, the Pro Bowl replacements have been announced for the four players playing in the Super Bowl. Then, there was a little ditty about the league canceling a second game in Britain next season…and possibly expanding the league with a team in the UK. That’s right; the NFL is publicly championing expanding American football to a country whose sports fan base is upset that we call their version of football soccer.

With one week left in the regular season I must ask, has the tide finally turned? Has the unbridled domination of the NFL by the AFC finally been undone? Can the NFC finally hold its head high and make a case that it is not a Triple-A version of professional football?

With three weeks left in the 2009 NFL season the playoff picture is still unclear. The NFC is wrapped up in NFC East drama and the AFC has four teams vying for the last wild card spot with a 7-6 record. All the while, there may be two undefeated teams in the postseason. Suddenly I am worried that this will not end in a historic match up between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. Alas, before we get to that February 7th game at LandShark Stadium in Miami more than a month of football has to play out, so I say why not offer a few predictions.

Get ready for one the worst years for parity in the NFL in 2010. Some would argue that parity has been on its way out since the Patriots went 16-0 in 2007 and the Lions went 0-16 the very next season. Those franchises are just aberrations though. The New England Patriots were somehow able to convince aging players to take a pay cut in exchange for a very real chance for a Super Bowl ring and the Detroit Lions are just a franchise with a terrible front office year after year. The real attack on parity is behind closed doors being decided by the players union, owners, and Roger Goodell.

Most years my football obsession begins to lose a bit of its maniacal edge in the last few weeks of the season, especially as a Chicago Bears fan. However, the 2009 edition of the NFL still has kept me on edge and checking ESPN just about every day to look for more than just fantasy football advice for the weekend. What is so different about this year that I have remained tethered to the television for 10 hours every Sunday through Week 12?

Just two divisions left and all the starting quarterbacks in the NFL have been unfairly judged by me. The AFC South and AFC West are perhaps the two divisions in football with the most upheaval ahead. They have consistent champions, yes, but they also have franchises that have consistently fallen behind in the standings and need a gale force wind worth of change throughout their organization.

Last week I scrolled through the current starting quarterbacks in the NFC, did a little mental carbon dating, and gave each quarterback a shelf life, giving some praise and future accolades and damning others to the fledgling United Football League. This week I look at the AFC East and make some bold and some quite obvious evaluations.

Great running backs and playmaking receivers have been a rare find in the NFL, championships teams have always been able to get by with simply very good backs and wide outs. At the turn of the century this could be said about quarterbacks as well. Just look at a list of Super Bowl champions. The Tampa Bay Bucs won the big game in 2003 with Brad Johnson behind center and Trent Dilfer managed the Baltimore Ravens offense in 2001 as they won the Super Bowl. Now the league is more pass happy than ever and a simple game manager will not be enough, making a quarterback the most precious commodity on a football team once again.

The World Series is finishing up with the Yanks up 3 games to 1. The NFL season is about halfway through and just about every team still has a shot at the playoffs. The college football season has just a few weeks over, meaning it is time for the BCS standings to screw a deserving team over and start the annual clamor for a playoff system. In the midst of all this the NHL and NBA seasons have started.

After six weeks of the 2009 NFL season it is just about to start seriously listening to those early MVP murmurs. The field is going to be dominated by quarterbacks with eight starters posting a quarterback rating in the triple digits, lacking running backs with just one back averaging more than 100 yards a game, and unfairly biased against defensive players because an assisted tackle is simply so much less sexy than anything a running back can do.

The NFL is entering a new era when quarterbacks have more fantasy value than running backs, home field is not that big of a deal (the home team only wins 54 percent of the time this season), and parity has dissipated as nine of the 32 teams in the league have either no losses or no wins. Yes this is a new age in the league and there are seven football seals that have been broken this season to put an end to everything we knew about football.

No Bears, no Packers, no Saints, no Chargers oh my! What will Week 5 behold without two of the classic football franchises and what may be the NFL’s best football team. We can do without the Chargers until the last five or six weeks since that is when they start playing for real and making there annual improbable playoff run. This week definitely has some interesting match ups, but there are plenty of blowouts on the horizon to boost the fantasy numbers.

After three weeks of NFL football all the preconceptions from the 2008 season have been washed away and replaced by new beliefs. Some of these new revelations are not that ludicrous, for instance the Jets look like they will actually be a good team this season and may challenge the New England Patriots for AFC East supremacy. Most of these developments are just trends that will fade in the next couple of weeks though. Five of those most bizarre trends are listed below.

The first week of football is great for two reasons. The first is that you get to watch 10-plus hours of football. I know I woke up at 7:00 in the morning because I was so freaking giddy to sit on the couch for 10 hours. It somehow seems ridiculous that I could get so excited to play an invalid for the day. The second reason is that suddenly you have real stats to compare and make educated guesses and bets for Week 2. Below are my guesses, with scores compiled by some miraculous mental operation that takes into account stats, injuries, the latest Vegas lines, and useless emotional allegiances.

Is it too early to use Halloween sayings in September? Well, five pound bags of candy imaginable have been out on the shelves since August so I guess not, especially when that simple turn of phrase so perfectly embodies the NFL preseason. Should fans expect what transpires on the field in the four-game preseason to become any sort of a reality during the long 16-game regular season? Is this a trick or a treat? What are we supposed to expect from these preseason trends?

 The fall TV schedules are starting to surface and there are some old favorites that will be missing plus several many shows with some of your old favorite celebrities resurfacing. Over at ABC, Christina Applegate and her show “Samantha Who” will not be returning, along with “According to Jim”, “The Unusuals” and big surprise “Cupid”. Coming back to TV are Kelsey Grammar, new mom Rebecca Romijn, Patricia Heaton, and one of my favorites, Courtney Cox. ABC tops the new show charts with 11 new shows, 4 of which are comedies and 6 will be dramas and only 1 will be a reality show from by Mark Burnett. The show is called “Shark Tank” and will have people trying to get millionaires to choose their ideas to fund. Cox will be playing a cougar in her new comedy “Cougar Town”, where she will be back in the dating world as a single mother. Patricia Heaton will also be in a comedy called “The Middle” where she will be living in Indiana as an average middle class family…I can feel the laughs already. “Eastwick” is one of the new dramas starring Rebecca Romijn, Lindsay Price and Jamie Ray Newman who are women with unique powers that are brought together by a man who helps them realize those powers. And remember, “V” the miniseries back from the 80’s (I do), this is being remade and updated. “V” stands for visitors so it will be sci-fi and stars Elizabeth Mitchell from “Lost” who should feel right at home in that series.

My heart jumped when I realized that my latest move landed me in the cave of married friends’ duplex in Chicago without any means to watch March Madness. They did not want to get cable, which is cool, and meant to get rabbit ears at some time but never quite got around to it. I could have gone out and splurged on rabbit ears and that digital signal box but I really did not want to start feeding me television habit. So there I was stuck between my desire to watch endless hours of basketball and not wanting to spend needless money on something I was going to use for a couple weeks. Then I found that NCAA.com was streaming the games live and the heart murmur went subsided.

This weekend not only signals the beginning of the March Madness, but it also marks the final playoff games of the World Baseball Classic and the beginning of the MLS season. The sad reality is that I do not care about either one. I do not care about the WBC because I have 162 games of MLB baseball in front of me and that is a lot of baseball to care about. I simply do not know why I cannot get myself to care about the MLS though.

Terrell Owens left America’s Team for a team he dubbed North America’s Team. While some might be amused by this clever turn of phrase, many more are surprised by the decision to play in Buffalo for Dick Jauron, the place offense goes to die. In retrospect, the last couple of years have actually been a pretty dynamic and shocking time for us in the sports world. Owens decision joins the ranks of these other sundry moments that have kept me on my feet in the last couple years.

It seems odd to me that I am spending so much time clicking on the NFL tab on ESPN in March, but this year I cannot help but turn my attention to a wild array of signings, trades, and controversial roster moves. The latest escapade to pique my interest is the cutting of Terrell Owens by the Dallas Cowboys.

The stock market may be a bear right now, but the first day of the free agent market was bullish. The opening day acquisitions have been somewhat surprising considering the fact that most MLB teams spent the winter in hibernation despite a very soft luxury tax and most NBA teams scrambling to gather as many expiring contracts as they could in preparation for the salary cap decrease, the loaded free agent market in the summer of 2010, and the impending lockout in 2011.

Professional sports in the United States are a funny thing. A sport that goes in circles can entertain millions. A sport as quick and violent as Lacrosse cannot make headway in a culture that loves to see pain being doled out and inflated scoring. A sport loved by the world fails miserably time after time (I must admit I cannot stand soccer either).

Sports leagues are an even more amazing phenomenon. Look at the history of the NBA, MLB, and the NFL. They each seemed to catch a lucky break or get a particularly stellar group of showmen that moved each league into the major three. Is there any room left for competition though? Four football leagues are about to find out.

It seems fitting that Super Bowl XLIII came down to the final minutes of the fourth quarter. The best games build tension until the final minutes when a few memorable drives define whole careers. This season’s 27-23 victory by the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Arizona Cardinals will go down in history as one of the best in history. It had two momentum changing drives in the final three minutes and a safety to boot.

Super Bowl!!! After this incredible season in which the chi of the year was changed with the injury of Tom Brady, the NFL season has come down to a game between the 14-4 Pittsburgh Steelers dominating defense and the 12-7 Arizona Cardinals tremendous passing attack. To end it all, I have a few predictions to make.

Does great offense trump great defense? Anybody in Chicago who watched Michael Jordan terrorize the league’s best perimeter defenders every night would say so. Anyone who has watched Alex Rodriguez win intense battles at the plate for the New York Yankees against Cy Young winners would say so. Anybody who remembers the smooth skating of Wayne Gretzky would say so. So, in this upcoming Super Bowl will the explosive Cardinals offense be able to overcome the dominating Steelers defense?

Now that the only high seeded team left is the Pittsburgh Steelers I think it is official that all bets are off. Say what you will about the Steelers defense, the offense has been inconsistent and the playoffs, especially the conference championship, is no time to test your defenses ability to carry a game.

The experts are dumbfounded and I am looking back at most post Friday and wondering how I could have been so blind. Surely, everybody in the Carolinas and Tennessee assumed they were going to have another week to find NFL Playoff tickets. Three of the four favored teams lost this weekend. The Ravens started out by surprising the Titans 13-10, then Cardinals embarrassed the Panthers 33-13, and the upsets were capped off by the Eagles delivering the emotional defeat of the New York Giants 23-11. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers were able to take advantage of home field advantage in a 35-24 win over the San Diego Chargers that was much more one-sided than the score reveals.

Yes, the Florida Gators won their second BCS championship with a 24-14 victory over the Oklahoma Sooners. The season’s end was of course embroiled in the controversy, for the sixth time in 10 years (I thought the new system was supposed to clear up the confusion not further institutionalize it). There are loud voices of outrage…again.

This time the argument is that the Utah Utes have been robbed of the college championship for the second time (the first time was in 2004). Luckily my preference for the professional game really pays off this time of the year. It is not a bowl committee deciding which single game decides the “best” team, but NFL Playoff tickets that will give a definitive answer.

After four weeks of meaningless preseason games and 17 weeks of football that twisted and turned, beginning with an injury that cost the Patriots NFL Playoff tickets and gave every team a chance to fill the void in the Super Bowl, the wild card round of the postseason finally began.

The one and done feature after 17 weeks of jarring hits, needless holding calls, and general professional football drama is set to start this weekend. It is almost fitting that the second chapter of the NFL should begin the first week of the New Year. The only thing that matters from the 16 previous regular season games and the pointless four preseason contests only matter in the respect that they got these 12 teams here.

The NFL postseason is set after an improbable Week 17. The Dallas Cowboys came into the week as the last wild card team for the NFC. Dallas’s hope for the playoffs was thwarted by the Philadelphia Eagles. It was clear before the game began that the Cowboys that their fate would be determined in a game that was without question the primetime game of the second afternoon game.

This is the final week of the NFL regular season and there are still several games that are actually worth watching if you are not from that city or have become an indentured fan thanks to your family lineage.

There are only two games that need to be talked about after this last week. They are not the useless contests between the Bengals and the Browns or the 49ers and the Rams. No, they are the match ups between the league leaders.

Without the question, the biggest game this week has to be the New York Giants-Carolina Panthers game on Sunday night. It has the two top tiered teams, it has something worth playing for (the number one spot in the NFC side of the postseason), and it has a big market team playing (the Giants).

This week in the NFL is almost over all that remains is a game between the Cleveland Browns and the Philadelphia Eagles, who really have no shot at making the playoffs at this point. After 15 games I am more confused than ever and completely perplexed by the last remaining division races and the teams clawing at each other for the final wild card spots.

The NFL Season is 14 weeks old and the experts are talking about who is the most value player. I hear names like Kurt Warner, Eli Manning, and Drew Brees. I hear about a couple of running backs named Adrian Peterson and Michael Turner and a safety called Troy Polamalu. I do not hear talk of who is the least valuable player, though.

Early on in the season the winners and losers of the weekly slate of NFL games are pretty clear. As the season wears on that simple definition becomes more and more complicated. Each game holds meaning and value with regards to the immediate postseason, the upcoming off season, and the team’s future seasons.

This week feels like its time to keep the dream going or give the fans a little End of the Season Affective Disorder. While this week has a couple of great marquee games, the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Bucs versus the Carolina Panthers, there is that wonderful sense of urgency for a number of teams.

This week played out like the typical Thanksgiving weekend. It started Thursday with a trio of blowouts. The Tennessee Titans, Dallas Cowboys, and Philadelphia Eagles put their opponents to shame like the Grandma’s mashed potatoes did to the new wife’s attempt to cook and contribute to the family.

The Holiday Season is about to begin, my dad has already reported that the enclosure has been set up in my uncle’s backyard and three-plus cases of beer have been purchased to celebrate the best day of all, Turkey Day.

54-31! 54-31! How often does a team (the Kansas City Chiefs) score 31 points and still get blown out by 23 points?!?

Two months ago, the AFC was written off to the New England Patriots. Then Tom Brady went down with a season-ending injury and it was like a completely different universe was born.

The NFC playoff picture is starting to come into focus after the 11 weeks of the season. The New York Giants look like a lock in the NFC East. The Giants had the advantage of an easy schedule. The Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys, and the Philadelphia Eagles have had problems coming down the stretch after many experts felt they would at least challenge the 2008 Super Bowl champs.

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