Let's Talk Some Football: Week 13
My Bears are pretty hot, huh? The Green Bay Packers were the big dogs on the block and the Bears have made a nice step towards taking that title from them as far as the NFC North Division is concerned. The offense still sucks but a win is a win. I think the only team in the NFC that will challenge the Bears is the Seattle Seahawks.
My top fantasy football team lost this past weekend and it dropped me from 1st to 4th. It's a pretty tough league. My foo foo team won. Looks like that team might make the playoffs. Heck, it just might win the entire thing.
I've never seen a week where everyone won over 12 games but that's what happened last week. Good job folks. I guess it does get easier at the end of the year. The good teams start to stick out and it become predictable but there is always a chance for an upset. I'm picking Houston the rest of the way out because I think they have at least one game in them.
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati played an excellent game. I think the Bengals are ready for prime time.
James 13-3
Dell 13-3
Rell 12-4
nikki 14-2
Dan-E 15-1
10:36 AM 25-7 isn't bad -- as long as I beat nikki (literally and figuratively) i'm good...
haha
11:02 AM rell...too bad you didn't, either literally OR figuratively, hehehe
i think you guys are purposefully doing worse than me because you enjoy being spanked by a girl (and i ain't mad at it)
i went from fifth to third place and am officially in the playoffs in one of my fantasy leagues. i'm done in the other league. this is why i hate the auto-draft format.
i think cincy are almost there. let's be real here...pittsburg's offense isn't all that this year. rothlesberger is a guy who got alot of hype because he went undefeated in the regular season of his rookie year. meanwhile, how difficult could it have been for him to hand the ball off to the running backs? pitt was second in the league in rushing last year, 27th in passing. someone do the math.
now that a guy gotta throw, he's tossing ints all over the place. now we're seeing the quarterback and not just the guy giving it to the running back and getting all the props cuz he didn't fumble during the exchange.
so cincy is aiight, but i'd like to see them handle a team more in line with indy, where they've gotta protect down the field. that's where i see cincy being most vulnerable.
chicago...get a quarterback. when you get to the playoffs, don't assume you're gonna be able to get by with orton. green bay were the big dogs on the block what, five years ago? now they're like little crippled puppies. someone toss 'em in a bag and drown 'em already.
atlanta looked HORRIBLE on sunday. carolina exposed three of atlanta's weaknesses:
1. vick's inability to read defenses quick enough to dump the quick pass effectively.
2. vick's slow release.
3. atlanta's secondary and their susceptibility to the big play downfield.
oh, and atlanta's running defense is suffering because that secondary is so weak.
something tells me atlanta folk are gonna be sad come playoff time when we don't see the falcons make it.
11:17 AM Nikki,
The Packers were a psychological hurdle for the Bears. Even when the Packers were sorry they'd beat the Bears. So it was a good win.
I don't think the Bears can handle the balanced attack of Seattle. that is their problem because the offense cannot generate points.
Cincy better play defense because their offense is good enough. I'm not going to down Rothlesberger because he's playing with a bad hand. I will say this, he is a better quarterback than most in the league... I suspect the Steelers will do what they have to do to make a run in the playoffs (then get outed in the first game).
11:32 AM rothlesberger is still overhyped. he doesn't make mistakes, but until now he hasn't really been forced to make passes in order to save his team. is he really better than most quarterbacks or is the system he's playing under a better system for his skillset?
when his running game was top notch and they used it to control the clock, all rothlesberger had to do was toss a couple of passes here and there to keep the defenses honest. i think that makes him lucky to play in a system that doesn't force him to do much more than not fumble the ball or throw an interception.
he's great for that system, but i'm not sure if i'd call him a better quarterback than most in the league.
i'll reserve that call until i see more of his action as a play maker and not just the guy who assists other in making the plays.
11:35 AM 15-1?!?! WOOHOO!!!
denver? i hate you.
11:55 AM Nikki,
I'm looking at all the QB's in the league and I can say that once I exclude Manning, Vick, Palmer, Brady and Hasslebeck(sp), I would take Rothlessberger over the everyone.
It is about a system, I grant you that. But every QB needs a running game. I think only Manning and Palmer are good enough to throw 50 times in a game and not have their hats handed to them. And then some of them just suck like Joey Harrington and Jeff Garcia.
Put Rothlessberger on the Bears and they become contenders for the NFC title.
12:37 PM james - harrington and garcia don't suck, their offensive line sucks. neither can get the ball into their hands before they're being flushed out of the pocket. you stick rothlesberger there and the same thing would happen, i guarantee. detroit's o-line has totally crippled that offense and millen is too stupid to do anything about it.
every quarterback needs a running game and the o-line has alot to do with whether or not a running game is gonna succeed. rothlesberger has a good team around him. i'd like to see him shine on a crappy team. then i'd give him more props.
12:59 PM Joey Harrington sucks, he'd suck with the bears but I think Rothlessberger would shine with the Bears.
Any QB is going to look bad with a bad team around him. Look at what happened in Minnesota. Somehow they had it in their mind that Randy Moss was a problem. Culpeper had problems because his receivers couldn't get open and teams and no reason to fear Randy. And their running game sucks. Culpeper is a good QB but you wouldn't know it without Randy.
Put Joey in Pittsburgh and he still sucks. And Detroit's O-line is a siv. I don't think any QB could do well there.
I wish I could have more conversations like this - I love me some football.
4:00 PM see why I love nikki? How many women can you have a football conversation like that, with?
4:04 PM james - how you gonna say that about harrington when you haven't even see him play with anything more than a crappy team?
really, he's NEVER had an offensive line. NEVER. he's NEVER had more than one decent receiver healthy at one time, NEVER had a running back worth a crap...
stop hating on harrington until you see him somewhere else (hopefully that'll be real damn soon)
as for culpepper, i think moss' departure points to another crucial point about football and offensive systems: one really dangerous receiver can create all kinds of opportunities for other receivers, thereby making the quarterback look good, almost to the point where he might think he doesn't need the big one receiver, but he does.
it might not have been so bad for culpepper if burleson hadn't gotten injured. then again, burleson looked good last year cuz moss was getting doubled. i don't think burleson was good enough to be a one receiver anyway.
so then the question is: is a quarterback only as good as his one receiver? montana had rice...young had rice...marino had clayton and duper...elway had...um...SOMEBODY.
oh well, for the most part, if you can name a great quarterback, you can also name the great receiver he was throwing it to. rothlesberger has hines ward, but ward was good before rothlesberger got there and i'd even say that ward makes ben look good.
4:36 PM Niki,
I'm not hatin on Joey, I was rooting for him when the season started. And I know how poor Detroit's line is but still, the dude seems to be out of his element. I think a change of scenery will be goo and I hope he does well. Joey reminds me of Maddux. Maddux sucked in Chicago but went to the Steelers and took them to the NFC Championship game.
Actaully, I think systems that recognize the level of talent and figures out how to best exploit teams with that talent make great players. The Bears style of football worked great for Walter Payton. But would Peyton Manning flourish in it. Had Randy Moss come to Chicago would he be where he is today... doubt it. Even with that talent you still need a QB that can deliver - Chicago has never had it.
Elway, Manning, Marino, Bradshaw and Montana had great receivers but they were great QB's that you could design an offense around.
4:49 PM rell is so right.
hey nikki? i love you.
5:41 PM james - but isn't a system being built around the tools provided more about upper management skills? in other words, if you've got a quarterback who's decent (like harrington is), a good front office will build around his skills, right? doesn't that mean really that any quarterback who makes it to the league can be a good quarterback if he's got management making the right moves in getting the right folks around him?
for example, montana wasn't a great quarterback on a mediocre team. he was a great quarterback on a great team put together by carmen policy (and from what i understand, alot of that wasn't on the up and up, but i digress)
alot of folks say terry bradshaw was just a mediocre quarterback benefitting from being surrounded by great talent, including receivers stallworth and swann.
what's so different between bradshaw and montana? both teams were super bowl winners, but whereas montana is considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks in nfl history while bradshaw is seen as the guy who didn't mess it up for pittsburg, the guy who basically threw it in the air and didn't look stupid because swann and stallworth made all those acrobatic catches.
so i think alot of it is about perception. it's easy to say a quarterback is great when he's on a talented and successful team that gives him plenty of chances to win. it's more difficult to say that about a quarterback who is playing for a crappy squad, even if it's obvious he's suffering as a result of the lack of talent on the team and the crappy system that doesn't make the best use of his skills.
he can't prove he's great until he finds the right system. unfortunately, many quarterbacks never find that right system. ultimately, the failure of alot of quarterbacks occurs as a result of front office basically throwing them to the dogs and not building the team or creating a system that could have made him great.