Tomorrow’s post today!
Filed Under Dale Cooper, Sports
Usually Tuesday is my day at Porch Dog, but I have football on the brain this morning, so you get to hear from me now.
After all, who wouldn’t have football on the brain after yesterday afternoon’s exciting Cardinals/Packers tilt? The teams combined for 96 points, 1024 yards, 57 completed passes, 4 turnovers, one defensive touchdown (in overtime no less), one missed field goal (that would have won the game in regulation). Basically it was exciting as hell from halftime on, after looking in the early going like it would be a Cardinals blowout win.
OK, so I went 1-3 in picks. You can head to the customer service counter for a full refund. My initial instincts were 2-2, but I revised to a Green Bay pick after looking at the Cardinals injury report. That wasn’t as big of a mistake as trusting Aaron Rogers not to get sacked in a critical situation – silly me. I also made the huge error of picking Philadelphia to win, which always blows up in my face. I’m not kidding: Philadelphia has screwed me so routinely that I kind of hate Donovan McNabb now, even though he’s a lovable guy and a very good QB*. I have been knocked out of my office suicide pool in consecutive years by the Eagles – this year they crapped the bed against the dreadful Oakland Raiders, barely even showing up for the game – and now this on top of it. God help me if I ever pick a team to win that has McNabb throwing or Andy Reid coaching. They are the worst team in NFL history that annually wins 10+ games and gets into the playoffs.
I also missed on the Patriots/Ravens pick, but that was just a weird game – I stand by my selection. I just think the Patriots had an improbable explosion of bad luck in the first quarter, and once the score was 21-0 they rolled over and died. The Patriots gave up a rare long rushing TD to open the game. Then Brady was strip-sacked (an even more rare event – in fact he is seldom sacked, period) and the Ravens recovered in the red zone. Then on the next drive, Brady got happy feet and chucked the ball right to the defense, and the meltdown was in full effect. A later decent throw (but into tight coverage) that was tipped and then intercepted was just rotten icing on the poop cake. So yeah, I got the pick wrong, but I don’t think the Patriots would open a game that way more than one time in a hundred. And also, because I hate them so, I got to enjoy their ugly loss even though it was costing me prognosticator cred.
We have one more real football weekend, the last one with four games. So I’m ready to enjoy it to the fullest. Here are the picks:
1. Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints.
Key factors: Arizona’s offense actually caught fire midway through the Green Bay game (Larry Fitzgerald’s hands were burning, which is why he plowed right through a cornerback on one play – I assume smoke was in the official’s eyes). And New Orleans has been bad for a while now, losing three in a row (after winning thirteen) and looking lost and confused during the run. Can they rebound? Will losing the MVP make Brees mad? I say New Orleans will contain the Cardinals better than the Packers did, since it looked like the Packers were using two waterboys and a random guy from the stands to try to cover the Arizona receivers yesterday. The Saints are no offensive slouches themselves, which bodes ill for a Cardinals D that gave up 35 second half points.
The pick: Saints. I think they’ll get their crap together this week and win a slightly less exhausting shootout than the one the Cardinals survived previously. I also think Kurt Warner won’t have another game with more touchdowns thrown than incompletions, a stat which says a lot more about the Green Bay secondary and pass rush than it says about Warner’s abilities. (He’s still good – really good, I think – but that defensive “effort” was embarrassing.)
2. Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts.
Key factors: Baltimore looked great in the first quarter yesterday, running the ball with ferocity and playing lights-out defense against one of the league’s best offensive teams. Then again, the Patriots were uncharacteristically flat, sloppy, and panicked by turns. I don’t know if Baltimore will have another game like this in them. If Flacco has to make more plays than he did yesterday, they could be in trouble – he has been fairly pedestrian this season. On the other side, the Colts won 14 in a row and then shut it down the last two weeks before their bye, so rust could be a problem. But they have also beat the Ravens the last five million times they faced them (I think), including one game this season and a playoff game during their 2006 Super Bowl run.
The pick: Colts. But I like the Ravens to cover (the line opened at 6 1/2).
3. Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings.
Key factors: Minnesota is cold (3 losses in their last five games, then a bye – though they did hammer the Giants in week 17). Dallas is hot (four wins in a row, including the playoff game vs. Philly – plus Romo is actually putting it together in cold weather, who knew??). Sometimes it’s that simple. (And sometimes it isn’t. But I am a sucker for simplicity.)
The pick: Cowboys. But don’t feel bad for Favre – he’s just a kid out there, just slingin’ the ol’ pigskin around and havin’ fun. Wranglers.
4. New York Jets at San Diego Chargers.
Key factors: The Jets stomped the Bengals twice in a row, and are trying (along with Baltimore) to disprove all the pundits who claim that the NFL is now a passing league, and running + run defense no longer wins championships. Well, here’s a real test for that theory. The Chargers throw the ball very well, so this may well be a microcosm for the evolution of the NFL. We know teams are passing more in the regular season – does passing now win a title, too? Stay tuned. Of the eight remaining playoff teams, the Jets, Ravens, and Vikings adhere closest to the old formula for winning the Lombardi Trophy. But the sexy teams have laser rocket-armed quarterbacks and a healthy disrespect for tradition. We’ll see how it plays out.
The pick: Chargers. The Jets are living on borrowed time. The Sanchise is not good. Relevant quote from ESPN’s The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons**: “I don’t know what kind of quarterback Mark Sanchez will be five years from now. But if I had to LOSE a 2009 playoff game and could pick any starting QB, and JaMarcus Russell was trapped under a rock, I’d think long and hard about the Sanchize.”*** That is not a ringing endorsement. Sanchez is bad. And lord help the Jets if they ever need him to do anything to win a game. San Diego is better than the Bengals, and they’re at home – they’ll either crush the Jets or force them into a corner where Sanchez is the only way out, and he’ll rise to try to meet the challenge, except it will collide with his face like that I-beam that smacked Joe Pantoliano near the end of “The Fugitive.”
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* Suck it, Limbaugh.
** In his pick of Cincinnati to win on Saturday – I suppose we have to mention that.
*** Spelling of Sanchize/Sanchise apparently not yet standardized. I expect it to appear in Webster’s next year, resolving the quandary.
Comments
7 Responses to “Tomorrow’s post today!”
For what it is worth, has anyone noticed that the Patriots just have not been the same team since they got busted for filming the apposing teams practices?
Okay, maybe it more their receivers inability to actually receive, but it that was just a thought that came to mind yesterday during the rather embarrassing NE game.
Well they rattled off a pretty good season after Spygate, but it ended with a Super Bowl loss at the hands (and helmet) of a man who never caught another pass in the NFL. Which is crazy. Since then, yeah – they seem snakebit. The key players on the team aren’t that different from the 18-1 squad, but the Brady injury cost them 2008 and he seemed… different in 2009. Randy Moss has had good games but overall he doesn’t seem to be trying as hard. Welker was injured just before this game and may miss a big chunk of next season. And their defense is not the same proud, resilient, insert-more-cliches-here bunch that they were during the Pats’ dynasty years. Just a weird team – it really feels like karma has been gang-banging them hard for a few years now.
Or maybe that’s just the way of the NFL. You can’t be both good and lucky forever.
I predict you are going 1-3 again.
The Saints used up their momentum, and I don’t think a week off will improve that. This will be close, and won’t surprise me too much if I’m wrong, but I think Arizona gets an early lead and holds it this time.
Baltimore feels like they should’ve beaten the Colts once already this year, and have experience knocking the Colts out of the playoffs. This game will forever be referred to as the “Caldwell’s Karma” game, as the Ravens pull out a win.
Cowboys vs. Vikings … meh, I’ll give you this one. My best shot at analysis tells me that Romo comes out of the Eagles game thinking he is, in fact, the man, and if Wade buys in and lets Romo run the game, it will cost them. Roy Williams showed up for pretty much the first time this year, which I’ll be surprised to see repeat. And the Vikings have a lot of weapons. I’m going to TRY to make the coin land on “Vikings”, but I’m still flipping the coin to pick.
I think this may be the year of the Jet. They have figured out just in time not to let Sanchez throw the ball, and Jones/Greene are just blowing it up as a result (Jones has been all year). I also just know that in a Bizarro season that has Tom Brady fumbling away the ball and throwing pick after pick in a playoff game, Sanchize will somehow manage to throw an 80-yard pass to an open man in the end-zone with 2 seconds left in a 4 point game. But mostly I just like the Jets D to shut SD down, since they have no running game to worry about.
Drew Bennett tweeted something pretty funny yesterday. Paraphrasing, he said God is fair, and won’t let a man marry a supermodel, have a baby, and win a Superbowl in one year.
Josh C -
You are incorrect about the Ravens. (Well possibly not about them winning, but about everything else.) The Ravens have no “experience knocking the Colts out of the playoffs.” They have faced them in just one playoff game since Manning became a Colt, in 2006, and lost. The teams have met in the regular season six times in the last eight years, and here are the scores, all Indy wins: 17-15, 31-3, 44-20, 24-7, 20-10, 22-20. It’s been a looong time since the Ravens had experience beating the Colts, in the playoffs or otherwise. They could pull off the upset (and like I said, I do like them to cover), but I wouldn’t put money on it. The reason I like them to lose is the same reason the earlier reg. season game didn’t trouble me, even though it was close – the combination of Indy’s D and Baltimore’s mediocre O kept them out of the end zone, and I knew if it came down to one team or the other needing points on a last drive to win, the Colts would get it done and the Ravens wouldn’t. Basically I see that the Ravens need to get turnovers and big momentum plays from their defense or special teams to win this game. They won’t just run to victory (the Colts will stack the line to stop it), and if it’s a low turnover, close game, I’ll take Manning over Flacco and the Ravens run game any day.
I’m not sold on the Jets. I agree with your analysis of their strategy, but I can’t believe a team can win multiple playoff games with a rookie QB playing that badly. The minimum level of QB competence you need to win is a caretaker type (think Dilfer). Sanchise ain’t there yet, or even close – they are going out of their way to protect him from himself. All it will take is one team to stuff all their guys in the box, take away the run game, and dare Sanchez to throw. The last time that happened was week 15 vs. Atlanta. He came up with 7 points, 3 picks, and a QB rating of less than 50. You think the Chargers or Colts won’t figure out how to exploit that?
Last time the Colts won a divisional playoff game at home was 1970. Baltimore won that one, and I think they’ll win this one, too
But I think my stronger argument is Karma. I’m not even a Colts fan, and I’m annoyed that the most impactful coaching Caldwell did all season was essentially forfeiting a game to stop a potentially historic achievement. I do stand corrected on the Colts being beaten by the Ravens in the playoffs – last year, the Colts were knocked out by SD, and the Titans by Baltimore. It was the year prior that the Titans and Colts both got taken out by the same team (SD).
I assume that, before last weekend, you didn’t think a team can win a single playoff game with a rookie QB playing that badly, since it’s never been done before (there have been only a couple rookie starting QBs to win a playoff game, period, and one of them was Big Ben, who was playing very well). Nonetheless, it happened. Besides, I stand to win quite a bit of money if the Jets happen to win the Superbowl, so, “GO JETS!”
Oh Josh C, must I constantly do your legwork for you? I picked the Jets to win last week – it was the only pick I got right! (Whoops.) I thought the Bengals were the perfect match-up for the Jets – not a strong running team, weak for a division winner, and generally stuck in a nosedive. I still say the Chargers take care of business this week, but I will concede that they are an easier target for the Jets than the Colts would be, and no outcome would really surprise me greatly.
Jets winning the Super Bowl, though? It’s a crack pipe dream. I don’t see any chance they beat San Diego, then Indy or Baltimore, then Dallas/Cowboys/Vikings/Cardinals. It’s too much of a gauntlet for them to run.
As far as karma and Caldwell, despite my tongue-in-cheek proclamations about what brought the Patriots down, I don’t believe in it. The only question in my mind is if that decision has impacted team morale significantly. But I believe the Colts more than probably any other team are cold, efficient professionals – it would take more than this predictable pulling-of-the-starters to shake them – and on top of that, it might make Manning mad, in a good way. If he opens the Baltimore game with a 60 yard bomb aimed at Dallas Clark, we’ll know.