News, Views and Playoffs

Consensus seems to be that the wildcard weekend was a snore fest for the most part.  I tend to disagree but I guess it depends on your idea of excitement.  I enjoyed the three that were competitive games and if nothing else, it gives us a little better idea how the winners may fare in the next round this weekend.

• It’s being said by many but I feel the need to echo the sentiment.  What the hell was Robert Griffin III doing on the football field after he re-injured his knee?  Early indications are that he escaped serious permanent damage – who knows how reconstructive knee surgery and the rehabilitation will turn out in the short and long term? – but really that’s not the point.  You are risking the long-term viability of your franchise quarterback and by extension the competitiveness of your franchise for years.  And for what?  The Redskins were not going to win the super bowl this season.  Yes, yes anything can happen anyone can win on any given Sunday blah, blah, blah.  The Redskins were not going to win this year.  What if the injury completely destroyed his knee?  We’re assuming it’s not bad enough to end his career, but if RGIII isn’t a serious threat to run the ball because of a wonky knee he becomes at best a middle of the road quarterback and the Skins, devoid of multiple draft picks given up in the trade to get him, likely flounder for the foreseeable future.  I do however believe Shanahan when he says he did not overrule team doctors’ advice on whether to let Griffin play.  If you don’t get the advice then you can’t overrule it.  Despite Shanahan’s claims to care about the health of his quarterback, he didn’t give it a second thought he only thought about winning the game.  If I’m owner Dan Snyder I fire Mike Shanahan immediately and if I’m another NFL owner I don’t ever consider hiring him.

• The Buffalo Bill hired Doug Marrone from Syracuse to be their head coach.  No disrespect to Marrone but I think this is a bad move.  Buffalo needs an established head coach to come in and straighten things out.  No way with the talent they have especially on defense should they have been so bad in 2012.  It was recently announced the Bills have also hired DC Mike Pettine away from the New York Jets.  On paper this looks like a good move, the Jets defense under Pettine have been very good.  Pettine had a very good defensive minded boss in Rex Ryan, so I wonder how much of the Jets defensive success was Pettine and how much was Ryan?  Marrone likely won’t be much help on the defensive side of the field.  I guess we’ll see come 2013.

• A running back to consider early in your 2013 fantasy draft is C.J. Spiller.  Spiller will have been on everyone’s sleeper lists to the point he’s no longer a sleeper at all and he’ll get drafted fairly early.  Assuming Buffalo learned anything last season (I huge assumption when talking about the Bills I know) it’s that Spiller is ready to be the team’s primary stud RB and he’ll rack up huge fantasy numbers if he gets to play 3 downs.  He’s a premiere talent no question.

• Surprise, surprise, Andy Reid ends up in Kansas City of all places.  I don’t really know what to make of it to be honest.  Based on what happened in Philly the last two seasons you have to wonder why Reid was such a hot commodity.  And looking at the Chiefs performance and the talent in their lineup you have to wonder why Reid chose to go there.  I don’t think the Chiefs are nearly as bad as they showed last season, the players maybe gave up on Romeo Crennel and stopped playing for him?  There’s more to the problems they had than the quarterback position.  With Jamaal Charles they should have been a decent run-first offense and call on the quarterback to be a game manager.  Matt Cassell, Brady Quinn, or even Ricki Stanzi should have been able to handle that.  With the overall talent level of the team they should have been good enough to be somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight wins.  Hopefully for them Reid determines the problem and makes swift moves to correct it.

• While on the Chiefs, just what exactly does Reid do with the QB situation?  I’m already reading predictions that Reid and the Chiefs will take Geno Smith with the first pick in 2013.  Big mistake if you ask me.  The Chiefs need to take the best player available at #1 overall no matter who that ends up being in their eyes.  And it shouldn’t be Geno Smith.  Reid needs to figure out the answer at quarterback, whether it’s one of the three incumbents or it’s later in the draft or via free agency.  If the Chiefs decide they want Smith they need to trade down, to a team that doesn’t need a quarterback obviously.  Because as we’ve seen again and again quarterbacks get pushed up the draft rankings based on the value of the position as opposed to the quality of the player himself.  I’m not sold on Smith so if I were Reid I would draft elsewhere.

• High value pick at running back in your 2013 fantasy draft?  Darren McFadden.  His stock will likely never be lower than it is now and the next OC for the Raiders will go back to a power running scheme, which better suits both McFadden and Oakland’s current offensive linemen.  Health will always be a question mark so expect he will miss a game or two but I see him putting up big numbers in 2013.

• I feel bad for Vikings quarterback Joe Webb.  Having to come in and start a playoff game at Lambeau without throwing a single pass all year is borderline cruel.  It’s not like he’s a veteran who’s been through this before, he’s only 26 years old and has played in only 15 regular season games.  That said, I believe the Vikings knew or were pretty sure that Ponder wasn’t going to play so at least Webb wasn’t surprised at the last minute announcement he would start.  And he did take all the first team reps at practice all week.  His future as an NFL quarterback may be limited, but the Vikings had no receiving talent for him to work with either.  Once the Packers defense caught on after the Vikes’ first offensive series Webb was doomed.

• A member of the Oakland Raiders was reportedly arrested this week.  In other news, grass is green, the sky is blue.

• I read a report recently that the Rooney Rule isn’t working.  For those unaware, the so-called Rooney Rule means any NFL team with a head coaching vacancy must interview at least one minority for the open position.  As to whether or not it’s working, I don’t need a report to tell me it’s not working.  It’s a stupid rule that should have never been implemented.  All it’s done is waste teams and minority candidates’ time.  If a team owner or GM harbors any feelings of racism, then they simply interview a minority to comply with the rule and are never going to hire him anyway.  It’s that simple and anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided and/or naïve.  If an owner or GM’s mind is already made up that a minority candidate is not qualified there is nothing they can say or not say in the interview that will change that.  And don’t trot out statistics showing that the number of minority head coaches has increased, they are meaningless.  I can dig up stats to show how the number of minority quarterbacks has increased a hundred-fold since the 1950’s and as far as I know there was never a rule requiring teams to give tryouts to minority quarterbacks whenever they had an opening at the position.  I’m not saying there is zero racism amongst NFL front offices, I have no idea if there is or not and I won’t make any assumptions one way or the other.  What I’m saying is the Rooney Rule won’t help eliminate it if it exists.  OK, rant over.

• Wow, I know there are many in the media who don’t care much for Jon Gruden but really?  He’s now being taken to task for not watching the BCS title game and going to watch live wrestling instead.  A quote from Mike Florio on ProFootballTalk ‘if he has any interest in coaching in the NFL next season, he’d possibly be more interested in watching the performance of multiple pro prospects as they perform in real time’.  Right, because if you don’t watch a game as it happens you’ll never really know how the players performed.  That’s why coaches and scouts only watch games live and don’t ever watch game film.  You can debate how much of a fan of college football he is based on not watching the game as it happened but to question his coaching interest or ability based on it is laughable.

• Finally, my two cents about Brent Musberger.  Leave it alone this is not a story.  He’s complimenting a beautiful woman in the midst of a football game turned blowout.  Big deal, get over it people.  In case you haven’t heard it, here’s the clip

Playoffs

For those of you in NFL playoff fantasy leagues, here’s my quick take on this weekend’s games.  The numbers shown here are not a prediction of how many fantasy points the player will score.  They are a player rating.  It works much the same way though, the higher the number the better I think the player will do based on the matchup.

I don’t claim to be an expert at picking game outcomes, so don’t mortgage the house and wager based on my game predictions.

Baltimore Ravens @ Denver Broncos

Saturday 4:30 P.M.

4/20f Slight Chc Snow

I have to stick with the majority and say Denver wins this one fairly easily.  I didn’t think the Ravens looked all that good against the Colts, if Andrew Luck’s receivers could have caught a few more of his passes and if they had a little more success in the red zone that game could have easily turned out differently.  Peyton Manning should have little trouble moving up and down the field, and Denver’s defense will not allow the Ravens to do the same.  Denver by 9.

Fantasy Projections

QB

Peyton Manning – 27.3

Joe Flacco – 12.7

RB

Knowshon Moreno – 12.4

Ray Rice – 11.2

WR

Demaryius Thomas – 15.0

Eric Decker – 13.6

Brandon Stokley – 6.6

Torrey Smith – 6.3

Anquan Boldin – 5.8

TE

Dennis Pitta – 5.1

Jacob Tamme – 5.0

Joel Dreessen – 4.8

Green Bay Packers @ San Francisco 49ers

Saturday 8:00 P.M.

40/50f Partly Cloudy

I’m really looking forward to this game but I’m not entirely sure how it will unfold.  Will likely hinge on Kaepernick, if he can make enough big plays then San Fran should win.  Otherwise the Packers will simply outscore the Niners despite their great defense.  You can’t keep Rodgers and company off the scoreboard.  I say Kaepernick and the Niners get it done and win by 8.

Fantasy Projections

QB

Aaron Rodgers – 21.2

Colin Kaepernick – 12.4

RB

Frank Gore – 15.2

DuJuan Harris – 6.6

Kendall Hunter – 6.1

James Starks – 4.2

WR

Randall Cobb – 9.3

James Jones – 9.1

Michael Crabtree – 8.6

Jordy Nelson – 7.7

Greg Jennings – 6.8

TE

Vernon Davis – 4.4

Jermichael Finley – 4.4

Seattle Seahawks @ Atlanta Falcons

Sunday 1:00 P.M.

Dome

I don’t want to fall into the trap of discounting Atlanta just because of their past playoff failures.  And I’d feel a lot more confident picking Seattle if Chris Clemons hadn’t blown out his knee on the rat’s nest turf of FedEx field.  Still, something tells me Russell Wilson and the Seahawks secondary get the job done.  I’m taking Seattle by 3.

Fantasy Projections

QB

Matt Ryan – 22.9

Russell Wilson – 18.1

RB

Marshawn Lynch – 19.2

Michael Turner – 7.5

WR

Julio Jones – 11.9

Roddy White – 11.6

Golden Tate – 7.0

Sidney Rice – 6.6

TE

Tony Gonzalez – 9.2

Zach Miller – 3.2

Houston Texans @ New England Patriots

Sunday 4:30 P.M.

39/52f Mostly Sunny

I’ve seen and heard some media types insisting the Texans have no chance this weekend, which is ridiculous.  Are they forgetting the New York Jets getting completely waxed by the Pats in early December a few years back, only to go into Foxborough in the playoffs and walk away with a win?  For some reason I think that sigh of relief we saw from Matt Schaub last weekend was simply him getting a load of self-doubt off his mind.  He’ll be better this weekend, but unfortunately not good enough to keep up with Tom Brady and the gang.  Gotta take the Pats but I think it’ll be a lot closer than many expect.  New England by 7.

Fantasy Projections

QB

Tom Brady – 29.4

Matt Schaub – 19.9

RB

Arian Foster – 16.1

Stevan Ridley – 13.1

Danny Woodhead – 7.5

WR

Andre Johnson – 14.1

Wes Welker – 13.1

Brandon Lloyd – 8.7

Kevin Walter – 4.9

TE

Rob Gronkowski – 16.0

Aaron Hernandez – 9.5

Owen Daniels – 8.8

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