NFL third quarter review
Filed Under Dale Cooper, Sports
The NFL has been gosh-darn fascinating this season. In the AFC we have the Colts up top, and then two giant logjams – first a large mess of good-but-not-great teams, some of whom are in control of their divisions but look very vulnerable a lot of the time, and some of whom are wildcards in spirit even if they are denied the actual privilege by not winning enough games to qualify for a playoff berth; and second a group of laughers duking it out for draft position and occasional spoiling someone (usually the Steelers)’s Sunday. In the NFC we have the Saints, the Vikings, and a large pile of who-gives-a-shit, although I wouldn’t put it past the Cards or Giants to make things a bit interesting at the last minute. We have two undefeated teams, one per conference; we have a grizzled vet playing for his former team’s arch-rivals and putting up almost career-best numbers; we have two former powerhouses in the Patriots and Steelers playing way below their potential; I could keep going but I guess the sales pitch has already been made. You’re either watching this fascinating mess or you’re not. But I hope you are.
Here are my top five favorite storylines and points of interest going into the last quarter of the season:
1. Who’s gonna beat us? Surely not one of you. The Colts and Saints are a combined 24-0. Will they win out? Well, the Colts are one AFC win from clinching the conference’s #1 seed, and with four games to play that seems a virtual certainty. They have a long and troubling history of getting off to fast starts, then resting (read: rusting) starters in the last couple games, taking some losses, and cruising into the playoffs with no momentum at all. I make no secret of the fact that I’d prefer them to gun the engine right now rather than let it slip into an easy idle. But Jim Caldwell and Peyton Manning aren’t on my speed dial, so I guess they’ll probably do what they’ve always done. The Colts have Denver up next – a good but inconsistent opponent. If they do win that, they’ll have the one-seed locked up with three games to go, and some players in want of rest. My guess is that they’ll drop one, maybe when visiting the NY Jets, who are fighting for a wildcard spot or possibly even the AFC East crown. The Jaguars are also not a gimme considering how they always play the Colts close. And if they manage to win all three of those, they will certainly be playing third and fourth-stringers for the season closer at Buffalo. I predict they’ll go 15-1 or 14-2, much like they did after winning 13 in a row to kick off the 2005 season. (You may remember that as the year they laid an egg against Pittsburgh in their first playoff game. I’ll stop beating this point into the ground now.)
The Saints still play Atlanta and Dallas, two teams capable of beating them but not reliably good. Plus December is like Romo krytonite, except that Romo is hardly Superman to begin with. Let’s say he’s more like a fat dude plowing through a bucket of wings, and December is a side of spoiled ranch dip. Things are always going so well, until he reaches for that little plastic cup… then hilarity and vomiting ensues. The Saints, unlike the Colts, have expressed interest in trying to win out, a la the Patriots in 2007. However they have looked pretty vulnerable in many recent games (not during that Patriots ass-whupping). They were a little sloppy in barely holding off the lowly Rams, and they tried like hell to lose to the Redskins (who threw the win back to them like they thought they were playing hot potato instead of football). If I had to guess I’d say the Saints go 15-1, just because their remaining schedule is soft but winning 16 is hard. But they’re probably more likely than the Colts to win out.
2. Who’s gonna beat us? Oh, I know! WE will! Green Bay was well-regarded early this season, and the Ravens were thought of as perhaps the best team in the entire league, for a few short weeks. Oh how times have changed. Last night’s game was a comedy of errors: the teams combined for 23 penalties, 310 penalty yards (the latter mark good enough to tie for second all-time), 7 turnovers, one missed field goal from about six feet away, and a hardly-scorching 50% red zone success rate. The Packers won the game, but the real winners were the viewers. Funniest thing since the penultimate “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode this season. I kind of want both of these teams to squeak into the playoffs so I can enjoy their subsequent meltdowns. And really, Green Bay deserves another shot to humiliate themselves against Favre.
3. You think THOSE guys know how to shoot themselves in the foot? You’re right, Patriots and Steelers: I wasn’t showing sufficient respect there. Pittsburgh has notched six losses, including an active streak of four in a row. Their six losses were by a combined 21 points; all but one was lost by exactly a field goal; in five of the six games, they led in the fourth quarter; and three losses were to the hapless, hap-free, completely unhapped likes of Chicago, Kansas City, and Oakland. Pittsburgh used to be a team that won close games and had a great killer instinct. Now every time the game is close in the fourth and the camera cuts to Chubblisberger looking ill and having a trainer massage his extra chins on the sideline, I have the same sinking feeling. The feeling is this: these cats are gonna lose again.
On the other side of the coin, Bill Belichick has lost his mojo, Tom Brady is a baby goat-hugging knob, and in the immortal words of the Sunday Night player intro: Raaaannnnndy Mooouuuuussss. (That’s an inside joke here at the Porch. It will make more sense when I find the completely obnoxious video for you – trust me on that.) Seriously though, I don’t understand how a team with so much talent and a recent history of winning basically everything has looked so lost. Belichick in particular has a glazed-over, depressed visage that I think I first spotted immediately after they kinda-failed to convert that fourth down against the Colts. He looks like he expects to lose, and it’s weirding me out. And Brady – what can you say about a guy that used to be so reliable in the clutch, and now seems to always end games with an embarrassing turnover? The Patriots could still get their stuff together, and I believe nobody really wants to play them in the post-season, but they aren’t SCARY any more.
4. I can throwz interception? Welcome back, Bad Brett. We missed you. I know probability doesn’t usually work this way, but I think the laws of the universe will bend to encourage the Grizzled One to throw six or seven picks in the next few games. He was dancing through raindrops most of the season; it’s time to get wet. Also, you can’t tell me a guy with that many years and mileage on him can keep playing at such a high level, for so many games. It’s like Harrison Ford in “Crystal Skull”: at first you were impressed that he still looked like Indy, and then you were dazzled when he threw some good punches and shot a couple Russkis; but by the end of the movie he was hitching up his pants a lot and mumbling things under his breath about George Lucas’s script, and it was all crashing down around us.
By the way, Vikings fans: feel free to throw this back in my face when Peyton does his traditional playoff swan-dive. (Fuck you, Chargers. Fu-uuu-uh-uh-uuuuck… you.)
5. Let me in, c’mon guys! I brought comic books! Is it just me or do all the AFC wildcard contenders seem like they can’t possibly get anything done against the truly good teams this year? Look at ‘em: Jacksonville, Denver, Baltimore, Miami, NY Jets, Pittsburgh. Would you trust any of those yahoos, except maybe Pittsburgh on a good day, to beat any of the division leaders (Bengals, Colts, Chargers, and Patriots)? I sure don’t. In the NFC, at least it seems like Arizona, Philly, or the Giants could get hot at the right time and give the Saints or Vikings a game. But on the whole I feel like I’m going to be watching the wildcard weekend games out of a sense of obligation, rather than a feeling that somebody could catch a break and go all the way. (Now watch the Jaguars or somebody similarly atrocious prove me wrong.)
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Brett Favre update: Don Banks over at Sports Illustrated(.com) included this item in his weekly Snap Judgments:
“Got some testy e-mails for bringing it up last week in the Vikings’ entry in my weekly NFL power rankings, but the Brett Favre-hits-the-wall-after-11-games theory certainly held true for at least the first week of December. Favre’s late-season meltdowns on the turnover front have been almost a given since 2005, and as if on cue, he had his first multiple-pick game of the season (two, with two other potential interceptions dropped) in Sunday night’s 30-17 loss at Arizona.
“From 2005 on, Favre has thrown 36 interceptions and just 15 touchdowns in the last five games of the regular season, a differential of minus-21. In his first 11 games of those seasons, Favre’s touchdown-to-interception differential was a gaudy plus-48, with 99 touchdowns and 51 interceptions. That’s a swing of 69 clicks, making it fairly difficult to dismiss as a five-year trend. Or at least a trend of four years and one game.”
That’s pretty amazing. I know Favre has been having late season swoons in recent years, but I had no idea it was THAT bad. The Vikings could possibly come crashing to earth unless they start giving the ball to Peterson more, and re-design their pass scheme to protect Brett from himself.