Pro Bowl Prediction

I'm obsessed with football and yet can't stir up more than a casual interest in the Pro Bowl.  I predict a barnburner with zero blitzes and five plays where Julius Peppers yuks it up with D'Brickashaw Ferguson rather than rush the passer. I'm hoping that something memorable comes of the game.  If not, we'll always have this ridiculously over-the-top hit from the late Sean Taylor.

Jeff Fisher - A Titanic Loss?

In a surprising move, the Titans announced last night that they were parting ways with long-time coach Jeff Fisher.  After weeks of tension between the coach and owner Bud Adams about Vince Young's place on the team, the final straw apparently came when the Titans refused to let Fisher hire his son as quality control coach (Adams has said for years that he doesn't approve of nepotism on his staff, so he is sticking to his guns here).

It was a decision that will hurt both parties because of the mere fact that it comes so late after the end of the regular season.  At this point in the game there's no team with a head coach opening, so look for Fisher to go the Jon Gruden route and become a TV commentator.  As for the Titans, the list of possible replacements is much shorter than it was four weeks ago.  Early reports have them looking towards offensive line coach Mike Munchak.

Putting aside the timing of the decision, was this still a smart move for Tennessee?

Will Negotiate CBA Agreements For Food

As you might have read, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has pledged to drop his salary to $1 if the league doesn't have a new Collective Bargaining Agreement in place by the time the current one expires in March.  It sounds like a bold move, but it's impact is lessened when you realize that Goodell is not the one who needs to be pushed to the bargaining table.  There have been incentives in place for both the players and the owners, the real drivers in these negotiations, to come to an agreement long before we reached this point.  

When the current CBA was drafted in 2006, then-Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and then-NFLPA President Gene Upshaw put clauses in the last year of the contract to deter their successors from a work stoppage.  For the 2010 season, the salary cap would disappear if a CBA extension was not signed.  Upshaw hoped the owners would negotiate rather than lose their precious cap.  On the other side, the minimum requirement for a player to become a free agent would switch from 4 years to 6 years.  Tagliabue's reasoning was that nearly 200 players from the 2005 and 2006 draft would push their union president to make a deal so free agency could continue as usual and they could sign big contracts.  But as we saw, this was not how things played out.  The NFL owners happily waved at the extension deadline as it passed, hoping to garner a sweeter deal in 2011.  And new NFLPA President DeMaurice Smith (elected after Gene Upshaw's sudden passing in 2008) made no attempts to sway them.

So as much of a nice gesture Goodell's $1 salary promise seems to be, it has a much bigger impact on the NFL PR department than the bargaining table.  If we want to see a 2012 season, it's the players and owners who have to start conceding their incomes.

The Case Against Cutler - Perception is Real

By now, everyone from Mike Ditka to Charles Barkley has weighed in on Jay Cutler sitting out the second half of Sunday's NFC Championship.  In fact, we've reached the point where the critics are being criticized.

(Side note: I love Twitter for reasons like this.  In the old days, Babe Ruth would show up to the park piss drunk, hit a home run and then get ejected for punching an umpire.  But in recent years, athletes have been well-coached by their PR men to say little beyond "I'd like to thank my teammates" and "we're taking it one game at a time."  Thanks to the invention of smart phones and Twitter, the doors have been blown off again.  Now LeBron James can be swigging tequila in the VIP room and fire off an insult to the entire city of Cleveland before his publicist can stop him.)

So what are my two cents on the Cutler situation?  He's in the wrong.

If you look at the tape on Cutler's last play of the game (a short incompletion to Matt Forte), he  isn't moving noticeably worse than he was in the first quarter.  Even though he was subsequently diagnosed with a sprained MCL (an injury with a 3-4 week recovery timetable), many are pointing out that Philip Rivers played the 2007 AFC Championship game with a torn ACL.  So should Cutler be criticized?

Championship Sunday - Deja Vu All Over Again

Did anyone else get a sense of deja vu when watching the late game yesterday?  As the favored Steelers received the opening kickoff and marched down to field to put the underdog Jets in a quick 7-0 hole, I thought "I've seen this before...exactly 3 hours ago."  Yes, everyone expected to see two strong defensive struggles, but the similarities between the NFC Championship and AFC Championship games went beyond that.

Most pre-game analysis (mine included) focused on the quarterbacks, but both the Packers and Steelers rode their running games to a quick lead.  The Bears and Jets came into the game ranked 2nd and 3rd in the league in rushing defense, respectively, but neither of them could stop the run early.  James Starks rushed through some big holes for 55 yards and Aaron Rodgers escaped the pocket for another 40.  Similarly, Rashard Mendenhall broke some sloppy Jets tackling en route to 95 yards and 1 touchdown in the first half of the late game.  The Bears and the Jets gave up an average of less than 91 rushing yards per game during the regular season, yet both Green Bay and Pittsburgh had eclipsed that mark by halftime.

To their credit, Chicago and New York's defenses both settled down after rocky starts.  In fact, neither

Championship Sunday Picks

I'm a much bigger fan of analyzing games after they happen than predicting them before they happen.  However, it helps to have my picks on record on the off chance that they're right.

AFC Championship - Jets at Steelers  

Sunday, 6:30pm

Steelers favored by 3.5 

The Storylines 
Santonio Holmes faces the team that dumped him and his bong for a 5th round pick and a pack of silly bands.  Ike Taylor has already pledged to lay him out.  The Jets are quieter this week than they were before they faced the Colts and Patriots, but I'm sure Rex Ryan isn't here to kiss Mike Tomlin's ring.  The Steelers lost to the Jets in Week 15, in a game that meant a lot more to New York than it did to Pittsburgh, when Ben Roethlisberger's pass from the 10 yard line fell incomplete with no time left on the clock. 

Fact That Might Surprise You 
If the Jets win, then Mark Sanchez will have more road playoff wins than any quarterback in NFL history.  Right now he is tied at 4 with Roger Staubach, Len Dawson (two Hall of Famers), Jake Delhomme (definitely not) and Joe Flacco (to be determined).  An optimist would say that speaks to Sanchez's clutch playoff performances.  A pessimist (or most people outside of the Tri-State Area) would say that his inconsistent regular season play leaves the Jets fighting all of their playoff battles away from the Meadowlands. 

Are The Playoffs Fair?

One and done. This season, the Patriots won 14 out of their 16 games while defeating every AFC contender along the way. They beat both the Bears and the Packers, the last two teams left standing in the NFC. After Week 17, most analysts and fans agreed that New England was the best team in the NFL this season. Yet one bad game, and they have been deemed unworthy of being called just that. One loss trumps 14 wins. It almost doesn't seem fair. Is it?

Joe Posnanski addressed this in his Sports Illustrated column earlier this week. He points out that a somewhat unexplainable increase in Divisional Round upsets means that the best teams through the first seventeen weeks of the season are often not in the championship games. Whichever team wins the Super Bowl this year is guaranteed to finish with a worse record than the 14-3 mark the Patriots had. Are we crowning the wrong champions? Do we need a different system?

Everybody Blame Chung Tonight

In the wake of the Pats' stunning loss to the Jets Sunday evening (almost as big an upset as the Seahawks victory over the Saints one week earlier), everyone in Pats Nation is focusing on the failed fake punt at the end of the first half that sent New England into the locker room with a 14-3 deficit. Although Patrick Chung took responsibility for the call, many Patriots fans are questioning if he really had the authority to make that kind of an audible at such a crucial point. Unfortunately for them, a look at the tape shows that he did.

If you examine the play, you can see that the gunner on the right side of the formation (top of the screen) takes an inside route to get down the field:

Feedback Welcome

I'm new to this and it will probably take a few months of tinkering before I settle on the exact look and content that I want for this site. Bear with me during the changes and please post any feedback on what you like, what you don't like and what's missing. If there's a topic you'd like me to address, don't hesitate to suggest it. This should be fun. I hope you all enjoy the ride as much as I will.

- Pete

And Away We Go

Only 3 games left. There are 267 games in the 2010 NFL season and 264 of them have been completed. After the two Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl, we'll once again be unwillingly thrust into a seven month purgatory, waiting for the game we love to return on September 8th, 2011.

I recently remarked to a couple of friends that I wish there was a way to completely wipe our memories of the NFL season immediately after the Super Bowl so we could relive it in the months afterward. Fantasy football drafts in February. Kickoff weekend at the beginning of March. Monday Night Football in April. Eating wings and watching 6 games simultaneously at a sports bar in May. Enjoying our DIRECTV Sunday Ticket on our couches in June. And then watching the playoff drama unfold in July. And once the Super Bowl ends at the beginning of August...voila! Training camp 2011 is already starting.

This site won't be limited to football, as I do also take in interest in other sports. But football is king in my mind, and I aim to occupy myself and entertain you in the months as we wait for America's Game to return after Super Bowl XLV and beyond.

- Pete