Tag archives for Ravens

Is the Steelers Season Over?

11th December 2009 by under Uncategorized     

The short answer to this question is yes, but there are, it seems, scenarios that people are attempting to think up that could allow the champs a shot at defending their title.

Realistically, however, The Steelers are sitting at 6-7 right now with games against the Packers, Ravens, and Dolphins coming up. Best case for them is to win out this season, but even then they end up 9-7, chasing second place in a division that could produce a wild card contender. The Ravens are in second right now sitting at 6-6 with Lions, Bears, Steelers, and Raiders all coming up. The Ravens just had a heart breaking loss to the Packers, but let’s be honest, the Lions and Raiders are no where near as talented as the Packers, and the Bears look horrible this season. SO even if the Steelers find a way to win their game against one another, the two teams end up with a tied record and that will place the Ravens at 3-3 in the Division while the Steelers will be 2-4. So even in that sense, the Ravens will still own second place. In a conference with the Broncos sitting currently at 8-4 and the the Jags at 7-5, it simply doesn’t strike me that 9-7 will be good enough to make it in the end. The Steelers are the main example of why in this league it is so important to win the games u are supposed to win. Play off hopefuls cannot often afford to lose to the Raiders and Browns. Better luck next year!

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Looking Forward in the NFC

12th November 2009 by under Uncategorized     

The grand continuation.

East:

Usually thought of as the toughest division in the NFL, I don’t think this title truly applies this year. But it is still a highly contested one. The Cowboys are sitting on top after an unlikely win over the Eagles. The Cowboys are a spotty team at best that never seems to perform well late into the season. With games against the Giants, Packers, Saints, Chargers, and Eagles, all coming at the end of the year they could all result in losses. Optimistically, I’ll say they lose a total of 6 games this year. They lose against the Packers this week who are looking to regain their good name after the travesty in Tampa, a split with the Giants and the Eagles on the season will leave them at 10-6. The Eagles have a tough time looking forward as well. Giants, Chargers, Broncos, Cowboys, Bears, and Falcons. I don’t know the outcome of a lot of these because the Eagles are talented but looking somewhat inconsistent. I’ll say somewhere in the rang of 11-5. And the Giants just look horrible, and their schedule is just as tough as the rest of the division. After the Bye, they’ve got the Falcons, Cowboys, Broncos, Eagles, and Vikings, and honestly, playing the way they’ve been, I can’t seem them winning any of those games. To be honest I don’t have much hope of the Giants improving so I’m placing them at 7-9 on the season.

North:

Any chance the Vikings will fall off over here? While I’m not totally sure that Favre’s arm can hold out all season, but he doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Their toughest games come against the Bengals and two against the Bears. Personally I think the lose against the Bengals and maybe (big maybe) split against the Bears which will leave them at 13-3. My guess is 10-6 for the Packers with losses coming against the Ravens and Steelers. And 9-7 for the Bears with losses to the Eagles, Vikings, and Ravens.

South:

Saints are in the same boat as the Vikings. Their only potential losses come from the Falcons and the Pats. 14-2 is their ending record. The only game I see the Falcons losing from this point on is a maybe to the Eagles, but with games against the Saints and Giants, you never know. Either way my money’s on 12-4.

West:

Historically the weakest division in the league, the West barely warrants attention. But seeing as how last year’s Super Bowl contenders came from here, I guess we should talk about it. The Cardinals are up and down constantly and truthfully I expect them to lose this week to the Seahawks. I’m placing them at 10-6 with other losses to the Vikings and the Packers. The 49ers looked good at first and have fallen off a tad since then. And with potential losses to the Bears, Packers, and Eagles, I can’t see them being better than 8-8.

Wild Card:

I’m not sure exactly what the wild card race will look like over here. With the Falcons at 12-4, they’ll be on top, but with a number of 10-6 teams, I’m not sure who’ll carry the torch there after. Granted anything can change between now and the end of the season, but these are my preliminary picks.

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Looking Forward in the AFC

12th November 2009 by under Uncategorized     

Is it too early to start looking at the NFL play off picture? Yes! Are we all guilty of doing it anyway? Of course!

South:

I think it’s pretty safe to say the Colts have the South locked up. With potential losses coming from the Pats (which even I don’t think is a loss, but to be fair…), the Ravens, and the Texans, and a tough game against the Broncos that I’m still counting as a narrow win, the worse case for the Colts is to end up 13-3 (12-4 maybe), forcing the Texans to go perfect in order to tie them, but the Texans have games against the Pat and Dolphins to end the season, and one more against a Titans team that looks like its on an up swing. Do I think the Titans will win that game? No, but I do think the Pats and Dolphins will prove too much for this Texans team and will drop them to 10-6 and leave them in second place.

East:

The Pats are looking rather good standing at 6-2 right now. But with losses (I feel) coming against the Colts, Saints, and Dolphins, I think they’ll end up at 11-5. The Dolphins could potentially pull in close as I don’t see them losing again, except they do end the season against the Steelers so I think the best case for them is 10-6. The Jets looked like they had a chance at the start of the season, but with losses coming against the Pats, Falcons, Colts, and Bengals, I think they’ll find themselves in 3rd with a respectable 8-8.

North:

Arguably the toughest division in the NFL this season, I have a tough time saying where it will end. The Ravens are the shocker for me sitting at 4-4 currently. Looking forward, they could potentially win out this season with only one loss coming to the Steelers leaving them at 11-5, but with that being said, the Steelers could also win both of their games, and their games against the Colts, Packers, and Bears could go either way. So I’m saying best case for the Ravens is 11-5, worse case is 7-9. The Bengals and Steelers are ruling that division, and honestly I don’t know where it will honestly end up. The only losses I see the Bengals maybe (key word) getting are this week to the Steelers and one later to the Vikings. But honestly I think the Steelers is much more likely than the Vikings which will leave the Bengals at 13-3. But likewise I only see the Steelers dropping one of their two to the Ravens from this point on which will also put them at 13-3. But with the Bangels getting both of theirs over the Ravens, I guess that would leave them at the top of the division (right?)

West:

This is a closely contested race between the Broncos and the Chargers. The Broncos have finally been brought back down to earth with two back to back heart breaking losses to two really good teams, but looking forward, they have two more losses to the Colts, and Eagles, and a possible loss to the Giants if they get back on track, and that would leave them at 11-5, or 12-4 depending. I expect the Chargers to lose both games to the Broncos and a loss to the Bengals, but other than that there’s only a possible loss to the Cowboys, but that game comes in December and we all know how the Cowboys look in December, so I’m not sure of the outcome of that one. This places the Chargers at either 10-6 or 9-7.

Wild Card:

I expect the wild cards to come out of the North here, plain and simple. The Ravens maybe being 11-5, and the Steelers being 13-3 put them in my AFC wild card match up.

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Trouble Trouble Trouble

3rd November 2009 by under NFL     

What happened to the Broncos? After a dominating season and a hot 6-0 start not allowing more than 20 points to any team other than the Chargers (23), they come off their bye week and get their asses handed to them unceremoniously by a Ravens team hot off of a three game losing streak and their own bye week. The Ravens not only put up an effortless 30 points on the Broncos, they also punched them in the mouth with that patented Ravens defense and held the Broncos to 7 on the night. However, truth be told the game was less of a misstep by the Broncos and more of the Ravens being the Ravens. It was only a matter of time before Denver faced an opponent that gave it to them like this, and the test now comes in how this team can rebound from a devastating loss. And I think they’ll be just fine.

The team that is actually in trouble after this week is the New York football Giants. How this team has dropped off to completely is beyond me. A team that looked poised to return to the Super Bowl now won’t be able to even make the play offs if things don’t turn around. The Giants have not looked worse than they did this week in their 40-17 loss to the division rival Eagles. In the Giants’ three game losing streak, Eli has had passer ratings of 61, 47.5, and 55.7, and has thrown a total of 3 TDs and 6 INTs. It seems to me that the problems are starting at the QB position for the Giants, which hurts me to say because I’ve been on the Eli bandwagon for quite some time. However, the bigger problem for the Giants might be that the Eagles look unbelievable and the Cowboys are winning. What happens to the Giants for the rest of the season? My calculations tell me that the Eagles have recovered well from their embarrassing loss to the Raiders and they will continue to do well. I have no faith in the Cowboys what-so-ever down the stretch so look for them to lose late in the season, and I’d even take the Giants in their second meeting this year. I would still take the Giants to pull back up into second place, but that’s only if they can fix these problems they’ve been having. With games against teams like the Chargers, Falcons, Broncos, and Vikings, not to mention one more with the Eagles and Cowboys each, the Giants need to fix their problems and fix them soon if they want to make it to second place and a possible wild card birth. But if they don’t, don’t expect to see the Giants in the post season this year for the first time in…. well too long I’d say.

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Those Tops!

27th October 2009 by under NFL     

So after long hard (two words you’ve gotta love in conjunction with one another) consideration, I’ve decided to rank my top 5 NFL QBs. And it goes a little something like this:

Number 5:

Eli Manning
Even though I’ve starting to have worries about the Giants after their last two performances, I think that Eli has started proving himself to be one of the better System QBs in the league. He’s proven himself in many situations, and his athleticism is impressive. He can break tackles, look good in the pocket, and move is team down field to pick up a necessary 7 to win the game when he needs to. On top of that, he’s already gotten his Ring, and looks as though he’s more than capable of getting another one before his career is over. Could he do this on another team? Probably not, but in the system that Coughlin has built around and for him, he is great.

Number 4:

Donovan McNabb
Personally, I think that Donovan is one of the best all around QBs in the league. Here’s a man that can run, throw, read defenses, take a hit and still make something happen. He doesn’t get rattled in the pocket no matter how many times he gets knocked down, and he has had to deal with a hostile fan organization and media city since the day he was drafted. Not to mention put up w/ T.O. bull and he’s been a constant gentleman through it all. The only thing keeping him out of my top 3 is the fact that he doesn’t have a ring yet. This, however, is not fully his fault. The Eagles simply refuse to give him any substantive help out there and this keeps him from the promise land. If Donovan would simply leave Philly as he should have a long time (the Bears wanted him awhile back and if he’d gone there’s no doubt in my mind he’d have one if not a couple rings by now) then he’d make it. Either way, he’s one of the best QBs in the league and people need to recognize that.

Number 3:

Ben Roethlisberger
Big Ben is no doubt one of the better QBs in the league. He doesn’t have the best feet, but he’s got a cannon for an arm and when coupled with the receiving core he’s got, his accuracy is really good as well. The main criticism with Big Ben is that he holds on to the ball too long. He gets hit and sacked more often than any other QB on one of the top tier teams in the league. This isn’t due to a fault in is O-line, but simply to the fact that he holds onto the pigskin for 20 seconds longer than needed. However, even with that being said, these hit do not phase him, he’s strong enough to break tackles from time to time, and any loss he takes on a sack he’s more than capable of making up on the next down. He’s also really good as making something happen while a defender is riding his back and bringing him down. The fact is if you can’t tackle him and pin down his throwing arm, you might not get the sack at all. Not to mention how well he protects the ball while going down; you might get the sack, but don’t expect to get a fumble too. He’s got the rings to put him over the top, but until he learns to dump off in order to make it a loss of a down and not a loss of a down and long yardage, he’s relegated to number 3 on my list.

Number 2:

Tom Brady
Ok, my number 2 and 1 picks shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone (honestly neither should the order I put them in lol,) however, the reasoning is sound so hear me out. The Golden Boy is a great QB, but I think his greatness is directly contributed to Bill “Cheating, Score-Running” Belichick. While Brady looks a lot better than most System QBs, (both physically and in performance, God that’s a good looking man!) he still strikes me as a System QB. While I believe that McNabb, Roethlisberger, and Manning (Peyton not Eli) can win on any team, I think that the Rams are still winless even with Brady at the helm. On top of that, Brady has become the Kobe Bryant of the league. Not that he’s as selfish or show-boaty, but he looks for roughing calls before simply trying to make a play. The way he lobs the ball and then looks back at the Ref because he was touched, or almost touched as the case may be, and demands the flag thrown is not the mannerisms of a great QB. Make the play first, then worry about the whistle, not the other way around. That being said, Tom Brady is certainly a premier QB and he’s got the rings to prove it. Plus he’s just so ridiculously good-looking how could you not love him?

Number 1:

Peyton Manning
Surprise surprise right? But can you deny it? Manning is an amazing and complete QB. He doesn’t have the best feet out there, but don’t assume he can’t pick up key yardage on his own when the big play isn’t there for him. A cannon for an arm coupled with pin-point accuracy and receivers that keeping him looking amazing make him look formidable. The fact that he can march his team down field and put up a much needed 7 to win the game and do so in 35 seconds makes him the best. What other great QBs can do in 3 minutes, Peyton can do in 1/4 of that time. Also, there’s no one better out there at making a team pay for stupid mistakes. Give the Colts a turn over in good to moderate field position and you’re basically handing them a quick 7 points. Yes a QB is often only good as his receivers, and Peyton’s been lucky enough to have some of the best, but I believe that Peyton Manning can easily be the difference between a team like the Bucs being shut out, and that same team having 3 or 4 wins. Can he take a team to the promise land on his own? No, because no one can. But is he a major difference maker? Of course he is! Smart, controlled, accurate, great field vision, the ability to hit the open man in double coverage, reading defenses, calling audibles in response to what he sees, an O-line that simply will not allow him to be touched, and a wide number of overly effective weapons he can go to… I ask you what other QB has all that and uses it to the very best of his ability? He’s got one Ring already and I fully expect another before his time is up. Let’s just make it this year, Peyton!

Key Omissions:
Yes I do know who Brett Favre is. However, I don’t think that a Gunner really belongs in the top 5. The beauty of Farve is that he’s got a cannon for an arm and great accuracy. The ugly of Favre is that he relies far too heavily on his arm and will force it into double and triple coverage to guys who are not good enough to come up with it and against Corners and Safetys you really shouldn’t to that with. Favre can get you great numbers, but you also have to eat those 7+ picks he’s capable of giving you. Something you don’t see out of the rest of my top 5.
Drew Brees has the best numbers this season and he’s a fantasy footballer’s wet dream. But football is not baseball and there’s a vast difference between fantasy and reality. I’m coming over onto the Brees/Saints bandwagon slowly but surely. I didn’t think they could win from behind, but they proved they can against the Dolphins, but with that said, they did it against the Dolphins and I’m not sure they can do it in December against the Ravens or Steelers. If/when the Saints win a 13-7 hard hitting game, or when they show that the can win like this for a full season and not fall apart in December (as they’ve been known to do) then I’ll be more ready to add Brees to this list. But til then, you’ve gotta earn it kid!

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