1. Steelers - Tough win against the Bengals. Kicking troubles may come back to haunt them though.
2. Ravens - Big win over a tough Dolphin team. Looking forward to Thursday's match-up with the Falcons.
3. Jets - Wow. Some offense. This young team does NOT need a bye.
4. Giants - Rolling on all cylinders.
5. Patriots- Hillis ran through this D. This team will win some games but they won't make the Super Bowl.
6. Falcons- Beat the Ravens on Thursday and then I'm a believer.
7. Saints - Crushed the hopeless Panthers. Team is gaining momentum
8. Packers - Clay Matthews is ridiculously talented. He plays with anger. I like that.
9. Eagles - Vick makes this team extremely dangerous. They have speed everywhere.
10. Colts- Too many injuries to overcome. Their defense needs the lead to be effective but with all the injuries on offense, leads will be hard to come by. They will have grind all season.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
My All-Time NFL Team
With the release of the NFL's Networks 100 Greatest players, I think its a good time to release my all time team. This line-up will be my favorite players at each position. Many of them will be some of the all-time greats but these may or may not be who I think are the greatest to have played that position. For example, Ronnie Lott is probably the greatest Strong Safety of all time but he's not the strong safety on my all time team. I'm starting with the defensive backfield and will work my way back until I finish up with the quarterback. So here are my starting safeties.
Strong Safety - Jack Tatum
If you have read my blog, you already know that I love the way Tatum played. He played with reckless abandon. He patrolled the middle of the field and if you ran a crossing pattern, you risked serious injury. That's the kind of safety I like. Guys who change offensive play calls and make good receivers shorten their routes and get "alligator arms." Nothing changes momentum like a devastating hit and no one laid people out quite like Tatum. I was saddened when he passed away this year but his memory lives on.
Free Safety - Ed Reed
A free safety needs to be a ball-hawk. There is no better ball-hawk than Ed Reed. EVER! His instincts are amazing. He has a knack for being around the ball and making big plays in big games. He makes interceptions, forces fumbles and can return a kick in a pinch. Injuries have taken their toll on him now but in his prime, there has never been a more effective defensive centerfielder.
Honorable mention -
Strong Safety: Andre Waters - as you can tell, I like my safeties aggressive maybe even borderline dirty. Andre was nicknamed "Dirty" Waters. However, protecting the middle of the field is important stuff. Waters protected the field fiercely from the mid 80s to mid 90s for the Eagles.
Free Safety: Sean Taylor - Another ferocious hitter. Too bad his life was cut short. The sky was the limit with his abilities. He could cover and hit. Immense talent.
Who are your favorite Safeties?
Strong Safety - Jack Tatum
If you have read my blog, you already know that I love the way Tatum played. He played with reckless abandon. He patrolled the middle of the field and if you ran a crossing pattern, you risked serious injury. That's the kind of safety I like. Guys who change offensive play calls and make good receivers shorten their routes and get "alligator arms." Nothing changes momentum like a devastating hit and no one laid people out quite like Tatum. I was saddened when he passed away this year but his memory lives on.
Free Safety - Ed Reed
A free safety needs to be a ball-hawk. There is no better ball-hawk than Ed Reed. EVER! His instincts are amazing. He has a knack for being around the ball and making big plays in big games. He makes interceptions, forces fumbles and can return a kick in a pinch. Injuries have taken their toll on him now but in his prime, there has never been a more effective defensive centerfielder.
Honorable mention -
Strong Safety: Andre Waters - as you can tell, I like my safeties aggressive maybe even borderline dirty. Andre was nicknamed "Dirty" Waters. However, protecting the middle of the field is important stuff. Waters protected the field fiercely from the mid 80s to mid 90s for the Eagles.
Free Safety: Sean Taylor - Another ferocious hitter. Too bad his life was cut short. The sky was the limit with his abilities. He could cover and hit. Immense talent.
Who are your favorite Safeties?
Saturday, November 6, 2010
NFL's 100 greatest players
So the NFL Network released its Top 100 players of all time. I have no problems with their top 5 - Jerry Rice, Jim Brown, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Montana and Walter Payton. The problem when one makes these lists is how do you compare the different eras? What stands out in all the old footage is that the players that were great were typically large for their positions for that time period or fast for their era. For example, Brown was a 220 lb running back that ran a 4.4. He was larger than all the linebackers at the time and of course no one have ever seen anything like him. Now, if you don't weigh 240, you are undersized at linebacker. Not to take away from Brown's greatness, but one can not ignore the size and speed differences in the game.
Don Hutson also made the list at number 9 even though played from the mid-30s to mid 40s. From the film, Hutson was a speed guy, one of those 11 in the 100 kind of guys. Well no one else had that kind of speed so of course he was unstopable. Now, every secondary in the league has track type athletes. So I wonder how his skills would compare to the guys in the 60s and 70s and to today.
I have three big problems with the list. First, Deion Sanders is too low. The first cornerback is at 30 -Night Train Lane while Prime Time appears at 34. I won't debate who is the better corner but one of them should have been in the top 25.
Emmitt Smith is also ranked too low. I hate the Cowboys and believe that he was helped by a great line. Given that, I can not overlook the massive production. At every step of the way, he produced at historic levels. He rushed for nearly 9,000 yards in high school which was the 2nd most yards ever in the U.S. when he graduated. He left Florida as their all time leading rusher with nearly 4000 yards in 3 seasons. Then he goes on to retire from the NFL as the all-time leading rusher with over 18,000 yards rushing and scored more touchdowns than everyone else in history except Jerry Rice. Rice by the way was number 1 on the list. I think Smith gets discriminated against because of his running style. He was short and was considered too slow even though he had his share of long runs. He didn't have that long stride or break-away speed that fans drool over. He didn't have those breathe-taking cuts that some backs had. He simply produced. Produced at a greater rate than any other running back ever in the history of the NFL. Plus he won 3 Super Bowls. For this, he deserved to be in the top ten.
My last problem is that Joe Namath made the list. You know what his completion percentage was? 50.1%. Want to know what his TD to INT numbers were? Namath threw 173 touchdowns with 220 interceptions. He had a career 65.5 passer rating. Namath lost more games than he won. Namath's name should be no where near this list. He is perhaps the most overrated player in league history.
Don Hutson also made the list at number 9 even though played from the mid-30s to mid 40s. From the film, Hutson was a speed guy, one of those 11 in the 100 kind of guys. Well no one else had that kind of speed so of course he was unstopable. Now, every secondary in the league has track type athletes. So I wonder how his skills would compare to the guys in the 60s and 70s and to today.
I have three big problems with the list. First, Deion Sanders is too low. The first cornerback is at 30 -Night Train Lane while Prime Time appears at 34. I won't debate who is the better corner but one of them should have been in the top 25.
Emmitt Smith is also ranked too low. I hate the Cowboys and believe that he was helped by a great line. Given that, I can not overlook the massive production. At every step of the way, he produced at historic levels. He rushed for nearly 9,000 yards in high school which was the 2nd most yards ever in the U.S. when he graduated. He left Florida as their all time leading rusher with nearly 4000 yards in 3 seasons. Then he goes on to retire from the NFL as the all-time leading rusher with over 18,000 yards rushing and scored more touchdowns than everyone else in history except Jerry Rice. Rice by the way was number 1 on the list. I think Smith gets discriminated against because of his running style. He was short and was considered too slow even though he had his share of long runs. He didn't have that long stride or break-away speed that fans drool over. He didn't have those breathe-taking cuts that some backs had. He simply produced. Produced at a greater rate than any other running back ever in the history of the NFL. Plus he won 3 Super Bowls. For this, he deserved to be in the top ten.
My last problem is that Joe Namath made the list. You know what his completion percentage was? 50.1%. Want to know what his TD to INT numbers were? Namath threw 173 touchdowns with 220 interceptions. He had a career 65.5 passer rating. Namath lost more games than he won. Namath's name should be no where near this list. He is perhaps the most overrated player in league history.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Lombardi contenders....
1. Patriots - This team always finds a way to win.
2. Steelers - Lost to a motivated Saints team. Super Bowl preview perhaps?
3. Colts - Steamrolled the Texans with a depleted roster. Will Peyton win yet another MVP?
4. Ravens - Let's hope they open up the offense coming off the bye. This team has the talent to score big.
5. Jets - Team implodes coming off a bye. Can’t do anything offensively. Figures though as their key offensive players are all young. Young players need the continued structure of the season as oppose to rest.
6. Falcons - I still don’t like this team.
7. Saints - Team showed moxie in beating the Steelers. Three stops from the 1 foot line was championship caliber. Perhaps the team is finally sobering up from its Superbowl hangover.
8. Giants - t\They have had some dominating wins and some ugly losses. Which is the real team!
9. Chiefs - Probably the ugliest win in NFL history last Sunday but as Bill Parcells always says, "You are what your record says you are." They are 5-2 and in first place.
10 Buccaneers - Perhaps the only time the team will make the top ten so I’ll give the Bus their props. Freeman is a stud and Morris should be in consideration for Coach of the year.
With the 1st pick of the 2011 NFL draft.....
5. Bengals - A 4 game losing streak. Yikes! Remember when Carson Palmer was on the verge of becoming a great QB? Now he’s just another guy who couldn’t come back from injury.
3. Cowboys - They just stink.
2. Broncos - Talk about a team headed in the wrong direction. And Tebow is suppose to be the savior?
1. Bills - They haven’t quit. They play hard every week but lack overall talent.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Things I think I know....
Charlie Villanueva - you do look like a cancer patient. I know these are sensitive times and everyone has to be PC but dude, just be glad KG didn’t call you Powder
……Brad Childress took all the attention off Favre’s injuries, the winky-dink incident and his piss-poor coaching by releasing Randy Moss. So we have Hall of Fame quarterback, Brett Favre, telling people you are offensively inept. We have a Hall of Fame receiver, Randy Moss, upset with your offensive game-plans and we witness your weekly failure to maximize the abilities of stud running back Adrian Peterson. I think its safe to say that offense is not your strong suit……Miley Cyrus’s mom hooked up with Bret Michaels. Now that’s classy!!!!! After watching the “For/Of Love” series on VH1, would you hook up with anyone on there? I’d put on a Hazmat before I shook any of the participants hands!......I think Randy Moss has one more big run left in him. Everyone thought he was washed-up when he left the Raiders and then he went on an unprecedented run with the Patriots. Moss plays best when there is stability and a sound organization. The Vikings were that under Denny Greene and Moss thrived. The Raiders haven’t been stable this millennium and you saw the production. The Pats are as sound an organization as you can get so it had to be a culture shock to arrive in Minnesota
The World Series was played, did anyone watch?
So I watched the World Series. It was good to see my favorite team from my childhood finally make the Series. I wish the Series would have been more competitive. But with the ratings at a 30 year low, many folks missed it anyway so the Rangers need not be to ashamed for not showing up. The ratings for baseball has steadily decreased and I don't know if they will ever return.
Baseball is suppose to be America's pass-time. But everyone knows the sports get killed in the ratings now. Stretch run baseball pitting teams that are fighting for the play-offs get crushed by NFL pre-season games. The Chase in NASCAR bumps baseball now too. I find it ironic since I think baseball most truly represents American society. See the other two major sports try their darnest to make things fair and equal for all teams. They have salary caps and all incoming players come in through a nice orderly draft process. The playing fields have the same dimensions. Baseball doesn't care about any of this. To hell with a salary cap. As for players, the whole world is their market. They sign them as young as 16. They build academies in Hispanic nations to find the best talent as early as possible. A player defects from Cuba, he's a free agent and can sign with the highest bidder.
The thing that is most telling is the stadiums. While the pitcher's mound is uniform and the distance between bases is predetermined, everything else is open to the owner's interpretation. Can you imagine if some football fields were 110 yards while others were 95 or 98. That's what baseball does. Each team is on it own to determine field dimensions. That is the beauty of the sport. Every thing changes from day to day, game to game.
That's the beauty of baseball in that it is different. The players have "stufff". They go on unexplainable hot streaks and unbelievability awful cold streaks. They make errors and never can make another throw. The game is perfect for fathers and sons, families and eating. I hope it can make a comeback.
Baseball is suppose to be America's pass-time. But everyone knows the sports get killed in the ratings now. Stretch run baseball pitting teams that are fighting for the play-offs get crushed by NFL pre-season games. The Chase in NASCAR bumps baseball now too. I find it ironic since I think baseball most truly represents American society. See the other two major sports try their darnest to make things fair and equal for all teams. They have salary caps and all incoming players come in through a nice orderly draft process. The playing fields have the same dimensions. Baseball doesn't care about any of this. To hell with a salary cap. As for players, the whole world is their market. They sign them as young as 16. They build academies in Hispanic nations to find the best talent as early as possible. A player defects from Cuba, he's a free agent and can sign with the highest bidder.
The thing that is most telling is the stadiums. While the pitcher's mound is uniform and the distance between bases is predetermined, everything else is open to the owner's interpretation. Can you imagine if some football fields were 110 yards while others were 95 or 98. That's what baseball does. Each team is on it own to determine field dimensions. That is the beauty of the sport. Every thing changes from day to day, game to game.
That's the beauty of baseball in that it is different. The players have "stufff". They go on unexplainable hot streaks and unbelievability awful cold streaks. They make errors and never can make another throw. The game is perfect for fathers and sons, families and eating. I hope it can make a comeback.
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