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Week 11 Was About as Goofy as the NFL Can Get.

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The National Football League might be the most successful, most prominent sports league on the planet. It makes nothing but money and is on television in just about every country in the world.

But every now and again, there comes a week when the craziness just gets bigger than the biggest league on the planet.

For instance, take the Sunday that was:

1. Tennessee quarterback Vince Young doesn’t like the fact that his head coach Jeff Fisher took him out of Sunday’s game against Washington. Seems Fisher was told by the team doctor that Young had injured his thumb and the doctor worried that he would have no control over his passes. Young disagreed, but Young apparently didn’t make his own opinion known to the head coach. So the coach takes Young out of the game. Young blows up. Not only does he throw a temper tantrum, he tosses his jersey and shoulder pads into the crowd and bolts the stadium before the coach’s post-game address to the team. Kids don’t do that at the bantam level.

2. The worst offensive line in the history of professional football killed the Minnesota Vikings once again. Of course, everybody in football wants to blame Brett Favre for the fact that nobody on his team can block. The defense gives up, the coaching staff mails it in and the Vikings get waxed 31-3 at home by Green Bay. Monday morning Brad Childress is fired as Vikings head coach. Leslie Frazier is named interim head coach. Why? Frazier’s defense quit on him on Sunday. Will he fix the offensive line? No. Will players re-sign because of Frazier? No. Wilf fired Chilly for the sake of firing him.

3. Now with the Dallas Cowboys, quarterback Jon Kitna faced his former team, the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Dalls blasted Detroit 35-19. The Lions should never have released Kitna.

4. Halftime: Cincinnati 31, Buffalo 14. Game over: Buffalo 49, Cincinnati 31. Oh, my goodness. And IN Cincinnati, no less.

5. Raheem Morris might be right. The 7-3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers might be the best team in the NFC.

6. There will be no Disney sports movie. Brian St. Pierre, the stay-at-home dad who was signed off the couch last week, started for the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. The Panthers lost 37-13 to Baltimore. St. Pierre completed 13 of 28 for 173 yards and a touchdown. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t play at the UFL level this season. And against that Baltimore defense. It still might be a Disney movie.

7. Michael Vick wasn’t as good as he was in Week 10, but he was calm, cool and collected as he beat the New York Giants 27-17 with a late comeback. He’s still on pace to be NFC MVP.

Let’s take a close look at what went on in Week 11.

Sunday night…

Philadelphia 27 NY Giants 17

LeSean McCoy rushed for 111 yards on 14 carries, the big run was a 50-yarder for a touchdown late in the game that gave Philly a comeback win. The Eagles led 16-3, fell behind 17-16 and won late.

Sunday afternoon….

Green Bay 31 Minnesota 3

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers went 22-for-31 for 301 yards and four touchdowns. Greg Jennings caught seven passes for 152 yards and three touchdowns. It was Minnesota’s worst home loss since 2001 and it’s expected that Brad Childress will be fired as head coach soon.

Pittsburgh 35 Oakland 3

The Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger went 18-for-29 for 275 yards and three touchdowns.

Dallas 35 Detroit 19

Former Lions quarterback Jon Kitna completed 18-of-24 passes for 147 yards and three touchdowns as Dallas won its second in a row under new head coach Jason Garrett.

Baltimore 37 Carolina 13

This was surgical. Joe Flacco completed 24 of 33 passes for 301 yards and a touchdown.

Jacksonville 24 Cleveland 20

The Jags’ Maurice Jones-Drew followed a 75-yard reception with a one-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to win it. Jones-Drew rushed for 133 yards and caught three passes for 87 more yards.

Buffalo 49 Cincinnati 31

Cincinnati led 31-14 at the half and were outscored 35-0 in the second half. Buffalo’s Freddie Jackson carried 21 times for 116 yards and two touchdowns. Steve Johnson caught eight passes for 137 yards and three touchdowns.

NY Jets 30 Houston 27

Mark Sanchez, who had three TD passes, hit Santonio Holmes with a six-yard touchdown pass with 10 seconds left to win it. Holmes caught seven passes for 126 yards and two TDs.

Washington 19 Tennessee 16 (OT)

Graham Gano kicked a 48-yard field goal in OT to win it. Tennesse’s Vince Young is no longer the starter and Randy Moss didn’t catch a pass.

Kansas City 31 Arizona 13

Dwayne Bowe caught two touchdown passes, giving him a team-record six straight games with at least one score, and Kansas City remained unbeaten at home.

New Orleans 34 Seattle 19

The Saints Drew Brees completed 29 of 43 passes for 382 yards and four touchdowns. Marques Colston caught eight passes for 113 yards and two TDs.

Tampa 21 San Francisco 0

The surprising Bucs improved to 7-3 by winning in San Francisco for the first time in nine tries. Josh Freeman threw two TD passes for Tampa.

Atlanta 34 St. Louis 19

The Falcons Matt Ryan threw two TD passes and Michael Turner carried 28 times for 131 yards and another TD.

New England 31 Indianapolis 28

The Pats improved to 8-2, but had a 31-14 lead in the fourth quarter, but Manning, who threw for 396 yards and four touchdowns, almost brought the Colts back.

Tonight, in the Monday Nighter, it’s the Denver Broncos in San Diego to face the Chargers.

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Put on your fantasy thinking caps. The 2008 NFL season starts tonight.

Posted on September 4, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Say whatever you like, but this is the greatest moment of the sports calendar.

 

The National Football League, the greatest sports league on the planet, opens a new season tonight with the Washington Redskins at the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants (that’s still hard to write with a straight face), and I have just spent an entire morning answering questions like these…

 

“I have a choice. The Lions defence in Atlanta or the Jags defence in Tennessee? What do you think?”

 

I like the Lions defence, not because I particularly like the Lions defence per se, but because the Lions are favoured on the road for the first time in 23 games and only the fourth time this decade, so since hell has indeed frozen over again, I fear Vince Young more than I fear Matt Ryan.

 

“I have a choice between Matt Hasselbeck in Buffalo or Derek Anderson at home against Dallas. What do you think?”

 

I hate road openers (unless it’s Detroit in Atlanta), and I’m not sure Dallas is as good as everyone thinks. Derek Anderson will put up some points at home. I’m not sure Hasselbeck, against a pretty decent Buffalo defence playing in their own backyard, will do much of anything.

 

“I can either go with Arizona’s Anquan Boldin at San Francisco or the Jets’ Jerricho Cotchery in Miami. What do you think?”

 

Boldin is a great receiver, but Kurt Warner will look for Larry Fitzgerald first (wouldn’t you?). Boldin doesn’t even want to be in Aizona anymore. Brett Favre, meanwhile, seems to love Cotchery. Big target who runs Brett’s routes. Take Cotchery simply because he’s going to see the football.

 

Isn’t this fun? It’s football season. Real football season. Major league football season. And there is nothing more fun than lining up your fantasy team in Week 1.

 

So without further adieu, here are the 10 things you need to know heading into the NFL’s Kickoff Weekend:

 

1. The Lions and Vikings will battle for first in the NFC North. Barring catastrophic injuries to either team, they could both battle for the NFC crown. In fact, if you’re looking for a sleeper team in the NFC this season, look out for Detroit. they have an easy travel schedule (only 11,860 miles, making them 27th on a list led by Seattle at 34,766 miles) and their quarterback, Jon Kitna, is not as inept as his reputation would suggest. In fact, Kitna threw for 4,068 yards last year, his second with the Lions, becoming the first quarterback in club history with back-to-back 4,000-yard seasons.  Kitna, who passed for a career-high 4,208 yards in 2006, ranks fourth in the NFL with 8,276 yards over the past two seasons. The 12-year veteran has thrown for 200 yards in 28 of his 32 starts with Detroit, the most 200-yard games in the NFL during that span. If the Lions get any defence at all, they could win a lot of football games. 

 

2. The New York Giants won an NFL single-season record 10 consecutive road games in 2007, going 7-1 in the regular season. Considering they opened the year in London, England, they travelled 15,618 total miles. They won’t do that again and, as a result, won’t win the NFC East.

 

3. Watch out for teams with a “tandem backfield.” In 2007, 12 clubs boasted two running backs each with at least 500 rushing yards apiece, including five playoff teams: Dallas, Indy, the Jags, the Giants and Seattle. In fact, in Jacksonville, Maurice Jones-Drew and Fred Taylor (1,202) combined for 1,970 yards and they went 12-4 with a first round playoff win.

 

4. RUN THE FOOTBALL!!! Last season, teams with a 100-yard rusher won 73.4 per cent of the time, compared to 56.9 per cent for teams with a 100-yard receiver and only 53.1 per cent for teams with a 300-yard passer. Run the football, win the game.

 

5. Oh yeah, and force turnovers. San Diego led in takeaway-to-giveaway ratio with a plus-24 takeaway differential and finished 11-5 (it didn’t hurt to have LaDainian Tomlinson either). 13-3 Indy was next at plus-18 while 16-0 New England was third at plus-16.

 

6. The New England Patriots went 16-0 last season. They also finished first in fourth-down conversions, going 11-for-11 and second in sacks with 47. The Super Bowl champion New York Giants led in sacks with 53, but both defensive ends Michael Strahan (rertirement) and Osi Umenyiora (knee injury) are gone.

 

7. Win in Week 1: According to the NFL’s media department, there are never any guarantees, “but there are trends and they start in Week 1.” History is clear that the best way for a team to start its drive towards a possible Super Bowl championship is to win its opening game. The 42 Super Bowl winners have a 34-7-1 record in the Kickoff Weekend games of their title seasons. However, as the Super Bowl XLII champion New York Giants proved, a loss on Kickoff Weekend can still lead to a championship season. According to the league, since 1978, when the NFL went to the 16-game schedule, and excluding the abbreviated season of 1982, teams that are victorious on Kickoff Weekend are more than twice as likely to reach the playoffs than losers of an opening game. 

 

8. Once again, you have to like Pittsburgh. After all, QB Ben Roethlisberger is chasing his third divisional title in five years. Roethlisberger has a 39-16 (.709) regular-season record and was named to his first Pro Bowl after shattering the Steelers’ single-season record for passing touchdowns (32) and passer rating (104.1) last season. Yeah, it’s hard NOT to like Pittsburgh.

 

9.  A team that’s been forgotten during the pre-season is Tampa. The Bucs won the NFC South last year and have won the division three times under head coach Jon Gruden. In fact, under Gruden, the Bucs are 17-0 since 2002 when not committing turnover. Meanwhile, quarterback Jeff Garcia was named to Pro Bowl last year and in his career (incl. playoffs), Garcia’s teams are 32-12 (.727) when he has 95+ passer rating. The Bucs will not roll over this year.

 

10. Can the Giants repeat? The short answer is no, but until we meet up in Tampa in January, who really knows, right?

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