Superbowl Saints

Tweet Last week, Daki and Luka both sent me texts being like, “Damn Drew Brees played like crap today.” How in the world someone can claim that throwing for over 380 yards is a bad day is beyond me, but throwing 3 picks is clearly not the best game(even if 2 weren’t his fault). However, this week the Saints played the Colts in primetime and ran a clinic.

Whenever the commentators talk about Brees, the recurring word is “leadership.” Sure Drew Brees probably has the best accuracy in the league, but other than that, his skill set is not anything spectacular. The thing that separates Brees as one of the top 3 QBs in the league is the way he leads his team. Even with his head coach upstairs in a press box and the assistant head coach calling the plays, Drew seems to always be in command, changing plays at the line and keeping everybody focused on the gameplan. I could talk about Brees all day, but i’ll stop and just leave you with his stat line: 31/35 for 325 yards and 5 touchdowns...and the Saints decided to stop using him in the 3rd quarter.

There were a few other players on offense that showed they deserve to be in the Pro Bowl this year. Firstly, what is wrong with the San Diego Chargers? They develop a person into a force to be reckoned with, then simply let them go. A few years back, Marty Schottenheimer coached the Chargers to a league best 14-2 record. They lost a very close game to the Patriots in the playoffs, so SD decided that the most logical thing to do was to fire him as head coach. They also had this one running back that was pretty decent: LT. Once his contract expired, the future hall of famer had to beg to have his contract renewed. The Chargers gave him a 1 year contract and decided that he had too much left in the tank and that he could still contribute, so they decided to let him go. Darren Sproles is the most recent Chargers talented castoff, and I’m amazed that the Saints got him. Sproles is one of the most versatile players in the league and is a matchup nightmare for defences. Also, weighing in at about 180 lbs, he plays every game like he has something to prove. He’s averaging 7.4 yards/carry, 7.3 yards/catch, has 5 total TDs and can make anything happen on special teams. This week he had 12 carries for 88 yards (7.3 yard average) with 1 rushing TD and 1 receiving TD. Stay classy San Diego.

Anyone who has followed the Saints knows that since about 2006, they’ve had some talented receivers. Between Meachem, Colston, Henderson, and Moore, you never really know where the ball is going but you can be sure that someone’s going to make your defence look stupid. However, the new kid that everyone is raving about is Jimmy Graham. I watched Graham play a game at the U and must admit that I was sceptical when the Saints drafted him in the third round. In the game, he had 2 chances for HUGE 3rd down completions that he could have potentially turned to TDs, but watched them both hit him in the hands and turn into drops. The season that Jimmy Graham is having should be fully accredited to head coach Sean Payton. Graham brought the size and freakish athleticism, and Payton moulded him into the beast that he is turning into. Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth were pretty much having a Graham d***-sucking contest in the commentators booth last Sunday. Collinsworth went so far as to say that by the time Jimmy is retired, he’ll pass Tony Gonzalez as the best tight end of all time....ITS HIS SECOND SEASON!?!? Either way, this kid is someone to watch for. His current stats on the season are ridiculous: 45 catches for 674 yards and 5 TDs.

The only part of last Sundays game that had me a little bit worried was the defence. I’m a huge fan of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and his blitz-happy, bend-but-dont-break style of coaching. However, for his defences to be successful, they have to be creating turnovers. The Saints D has been pretty average this season but average won’t be enough to win a superbowl. They only picked off Curtis Painter once last week, but hopefully they’re settling in like all other teams and will start racking in the turnovers.
Overall, it was a great week for the New Orleans Saints. They showed that they’re a top 3 team in the NFL and look to have another huge weekend against the lowly St. Louis Rams.



Last week I highlighted 3 things I was going to be looking for in Week 7 and I’d like to quickly cover them.

TIM TEBOW BABY. GODS GIFT TO THIS EARTH! Did you see the way he sucked for 57 minutes and didn’t even put his team in position to get a freakin fieldgoal!! Then he led a miraculous comeback against the superbowl contending Miami Dolphins. The truth is, once Tebow stepped up and started playing mediocre, his team (which is far more talented than the Fins) did most of the work. His line paved the way and the coaches called the plays to wreck Miami, but no one will ever talk about the other 52 players on the team. Tebow played like crap for all but 3 minutes of the game, but history will remember it as him leading a glorious comeback against a fierce competitor. BS

The Oakland Raiders are beyond screwed. They were absolutely embarrassed by the Chiefs this past week and didn’t even deserve to put up a single point. Kyle Boller started the game and posted a dismal 22.3 quarterback rating. Hue Jackson decided that it was time to give Palmer a shot, only a few days after he joined the team. Palmer showed that you dont just come out of retirement and shit on the NFL by posting an even worse QBR of 17.3....yikes. The future of the Raiders is in serious jeopardy. It scares me that my hopes for the Silver and Black lie with Terrelle Pryor.

Defences are finally back on track. This week featured 2 pillow fights (Browns 6-3 Seahawks and Jags 13-7 Ravens) and there weren’t as many offensive players taking over games by themselves. Granted, players like DeMarco Murray and Arian Foster demolished their competition this week, but that’s just the way the NFL works. I’m happy we’re back to the ways of some games turning into shootouts and others turning into toilet bowls.

NFL Week 7

Tweet It has been a while since my last post. I was actually going to stop writing articles on the NFL because the whole purpose of me joining millennium was to write about the Saints. However, living in Toronto has seriously ruined the way I watch football and I’ve only watched 1 New Orleans game this season....despicable.
However, too many things have been going on in the NFL recently for me to not write out my thoughts. So here is what I’ll be looking for in week 7.

Carson Palmer ruining Oakland– Anyone who knows anything about my football history knows that Carson Palmer is my most hated player in history. I would even go so far as to say that he is one of my most hated humans of all time. If you’ve read any of my prior articles, you might get the impression that I dislike Tom Brady, but compared to Palmer, I have a mancrush on Tom. Oakland gave up a 2011 First round pick and a 2012 First or Second round pick (depending how well they do in the playoffs these next 2 years) to acquire the least consistent player in NFL history. Carson was on pace to be a guaranteed HoF candidate in his first 3 seasons, but thanks to a very illegal hit from the Pittsburgh Steelers, Palmer’s career fell apart. Now, some of you are probably under the NFL analyst hype and would believe that Palmer was still a good QB after his injury. Though stats would back up that statement, anyone who has been a diehard Bengal fan over the past 8 years knows that Palmer is a catastrophe. Almost all of his picks come in crucial moments of the game when they need him to be playing at his best and some of his throws are so errand and off target that the commentator cant even guess who the intended receiver was. Unfortunately, the Oakland Raiders, who I claimed would be making the playoffs this year lost Jason Campbell to a broken collar bone and decided that Carson Palmer was the next best choice. Though Palmer is regularly a bad bet, he has to start this week after almost a year in retirement, no offseason practice with NFL players, and worse physical fitness than the 88 year old Brett Favre. My prediction for the Raider’s success is looking rather grim.

Tim “Jesus Christ is 2nd string” Tebow – Denver has asked for it all season and now they’re finally going to get it. Tim Tebow was announced as the starting QB for the Broncos this week. I don’t know if anyone else actually cares about his play, or if they just bought into the “Superman wears Tim Tebow pyjamas” hype, but I think the Broncos are in for a rude awakening. Kyle Orton was one of the few QBs in this league that you could count on. Some people will immediately bring up the argument that Orton’s numbers are good, but he hasn’t amassed wins, but realistically, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, AND Drew Brees wouldn’t be able to fix that team. Their defence is terrible, they have the least consistent offense in the league, and the overall team mentality is miserable. Orton has put up the stats since Cutler left the Mile High City, and that’s all that you can ask of an individual. I heard a comparison that Tebow is the best QB since Jesus graduated from Jerusalem High....I wish I was joking. People claim that his style of play may be unorthodox, but at least he’s a winner. Tebow has 11 more weeks to show the world whether he can become an NFL superstar or whether he was destined to be a college legend and nothing more.

Defence is back on track - I outlined in my first article that defences were weak this year....REALLLY weak. However, the reason for the lack of defensive play was just an unusual amount of rust. Now that we’re entering week 7, defences are finally starting to mesh and offensive play has calmed down a bit. I noticed that the D was finally stepping it up while watching the stat lines for last week’s games. QBs were held to much fewer passing yards and a lot of them had put up at least 1 INT. I’m sure no one likes a game that’s all about field position with 10 punts and 7 field goals, but I’m not a fan of the ridiculous college style shoot outs either. It was getting rather boring watching these games with ridiculous combined scores in the 80’s. Now that defences are coming back, we’re finally going to see some real football with plays on both sides of the ball and great strategic battles. Can’t wait.

This week’s line up doesn’t look very promising and it seems as though we’re going to have quite a few blowouts. However, the Saints are playing the Sunday night game, so I will finally be able to report on the team that I love and miss dearly.

The Patriots Report: Week 4

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This past week I heard many people saying that Oakland was going to beat the Patriots outright and that New England would be exposed.  Whatever.

Tom Brady shook off one of the worst games of his career and had a relatively quiet game throwing for two touchdowns and more importantly, having no turnovers.  The Patriots have played three out of their first four games away from Foxborough and are sitting at a record of 3-1, I think most coaches in the NFL would love to be in their position right now.  The Buffalo Bills loss coupled with (at the time of this writing) the Jets losing to the Ravens, means that New England will be atop their division once again (tied with the Bills).  With seven home games left, it's hard to see this team finishing with less than 10 wins overall.  Wes Welker once again dominated proceedings, did you know he already has 40 catches this year?  This game he had 9 of them to go with 158 yards, considering that only 16 passes were completed by Brady, this is huge!  He was responsible for more than half of the Patriots offence (by air), I feel safe in saying that if Welker gets injured and has to sit out more than 2 games that this team would be in some serious trouble.  Chad Ochocinco continues his relatively quiet season; today he had 2 catches (although he was targeted only 2 times) for 26 yards.  Cabrock speculated in his last article that this could be a result of him not understanding New England's offence yet. if this is the case then Chad has 13 weeks to figure it out if he wants to contribute to this team.  In the playoffs (assuming the Patriots make it) New England can not rely only on Welker as a primary wide receiver if they want to contend.

Defensively, the Patriots finally held a team to under 20 points, this is a good sign after being torched by Buffalo last week.  Vince Wilfork had another pick (his only 2 career interceptions have come this year) and continued to be a beast on the defensive line, continually drawing double teams.  Patrick Chung also came up with an interception and showed that he is a valuable player to this team (he missed the game against Buffalo).  For some reason, (and I do not know enough about the technical aspects of football to explain this) Safeties seem to be really important to defenses (more so than other positions) and teams that had great safeties tend to have great defenses (Ed Reed, Bob Sanders, Troy Polamalu, Lawyer Miloy etc.).  This is an open invitation to Cabrock Jones to try and explain this in writing, it is something I've been wondering for a long time, so Cabrock: Why do defenses in the NFL rely so much on safeties?  and why do defenses under-perform when starting safeties are out?  Anyways, today it was business as usual for the Patriots who now host the New York Jets next week.  If the Ravens keep kicking their ass this game could put the Jets in jeopardy of missing the playoffs, should make for a very good game.  Two quick notes:  Tom Brady passed his idol Joe Montana (while playing where he grew up no less) on the all time Touchdowns list.  Just another achievement to put on the hall of fame plaque reserved for him.  Second thing, Brady cut his hair, Think what you will about this; my guess is that Belichick told him he's tired of his pretty-boy shit and that he wants him to take this season seriously.  The only true contenders that have emerged so far are all in the NFC (Saints, Lions, Packers).  Belichick senses that the AFC is weak and that this could be the Patriots year.  Stay tuned.

NFL Week 4 picks

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Week 4 Lines:

Sunday:
Carolina Panthers at Chicago Bears (-6.0)

Buffalo Bills (-3.0) at Cincinnati Bengals

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns (-1.0)

Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys (-1.5)

Pittsburgh Steelers at Houston Texans (-3.5)

New Orleans Saints (-7.0) at Jacksonville Jaguars

Minnesota Vikings (-2.0) at Kansas City Chiefs

Washington Redskins (-2.0) at St. Louis Rams

San Francisco 49'ers at Philadelphia Eagles (-9.0)

New York Giants (-1.0) at Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons (-4.0) at Seattle Seahawks

Denver Broncos at Green Bay Packers (-12.0)

New England Patriots (-4.0) at Oakland Raiders

Miami Dolphins at San Diego Chargers (-7.0)

New York Jets at Baltimore Ravens (-3.0)

Monday:Indianapolis Colts at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-10.0)

The Picks:

panthers
bills
titans
lions
steelers
saints
vikings
redskins
49ers
giants
falcons
packers
patriots
chargers
ravens
colts

Last week: 6-10

Overall: 23-25

Thoughts on Week 2

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Back on track baby! The Saints played great, not much else can be said about that. Instead of writing about them this week, I’ve decided that I’m going to share some things I noticed about week 2 in the NFL.

First off, what the hell is going on with Cam Newton!? He became the 6^th ever player to record back-to-back 400 yard passing games….in his first 2 starts! I didn’t have a chance to watch the game so yesterday I watched some highlights on him and their first 2 games. Newton makes Brett Favre look like a conservative panzy. This is the truest gunslinger I have ever seen and if it were up to him, they’d be throwing on every single play. Also, Steve Smith has returned from the depths of hell and is currently the league leader in receiving yards. On a side note, Cam Newton and Steve Smith win the award for QB-QR tandem that look like the true thugs.

Oakland is making the playoffs. They’ve started off the season 1-1 and their loss is to the Bills, but I’m certain they’re going to get it together and somehow squeak into the postseason. Darren McFadden is, in my opinion, the biggest ground threat in the NFL at the moment. I’m not saying he’s better than Peterson, but between the way the Vikings are playing and their coaches are coaching, AP simply cannot excel this season. I’ve also always had faith in Jason Campbell. He might make some bad throws, but in general, he’s a fairly conservative QB that keeps his mistakes to a minimum, and that’s becoming increasingly rare in the NFL nowadays. The only thing holding them back, like most teams at the moment, is their defense. They have the necessary pieces in place to be able to calm the game down, but in the first 2 weeks they’ve slipped up on too many crucial plays. We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but I think if they can tighten up on D and keep their league-leading penalties to a minimum, we’ll be watching the silver and black in January.

Tom “Terrific.” I still don’t buy into the Patriots and Brady’s heroics, and I can’t wait for them to play a complete team. Week 1, they played the Dolphins, didn’t even blow them out, and managed to make Chad Henne look like a viable option at QB. Week 2 they played a much tougher game against Rivers and the Chargers and managed to pull off a 35-21 win. This might appear to be an easy win, but realistically, San Diego beat themselves. The Chargers turned the ball over 3 times within the New England 30 yard line. That’s 3 prime opportunities to put up at least 3 points on the board completely wasted. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Patriots are an average team, but they have not played at the elite level that people are claiming, and there’s no way they can be proclaimed the league’s best team.

Some quick points: Julio Jones is going to elevate Atlanta and has the potential to be the best receiver in the league for many years to come. Philly’s play selection is absolutely retarded(how many reverses do you plan on running this season?) and Maclin should get beat for dropping that 4^th and 3 pass. Drew Brees is unbelievable at leading his team; he’s by far the best QB in the league in my mind. If Buffalo doesn’t start losing soon I’m going to start believing that we’re really living in the matrix. Seattle is absolutely dreadful; I think the University of Oklahoma would beat them 7 times out of 10. I hate betting against a point-spread. Washington, Denver, and Dallas all had the opportunities to go for touchdown but settled for narrow victories, effectively ruining 3 of my picks.

That’s it for Week 2. This week I’m actually going to Buffalo to watch the Bills vs Patriots game so hopefully I have some good stories to write about. See yuh!