I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving. I had a healthy serving of turkey and needless to say, it pushed back my journalistic inspiration so I apologize to the faithful readers. The week started off with another coaching change.
We had a great thanksgiving treat of a game between Dallas and New Orleans. Sunday definitely had some great matchups, both football and one that almost resembled a UFC match on the field.
Some old problems started to come back to haunt a coach from his former team. Let’s take a look back at what we have so far!
**Lets kick it off with our Thanksgiving Day matchups. We had the day open with New England visiting the Detroit Lions. In the first half of this game, it looked like we had an offensive shootout on our hands.
Then New England woke up.
This young but opportunistic New England defense really took over and started forcing mistakes left and right from the lowly Detroit team. Meanwhile Tom Brady was, well, Tom Brady. He proceeded to take over and hang 35 second half points on the Detroit defense to lead them to a lopsided 45-24 final score.
Detroit is a team similar to Houston and Buffalo this year that, in my opinion, plays great football for 2-3 quarters. All 3 have a very similar problem; they can’t finish games. New England, Atlanta, New York Jets, each of them are the exact opposite. They finish games. A note to the first group of teams listed: If you’d like to increase that win total, hammer down on the final quarter of play. It seems they have the first 3 under control, but that 4th quarter seems to always get them.
The game of the day on Thanksgiving has to go to Dallas hosting New Orleans. At first, this game seemed like a total blowout. New Orleans jumped out to a quick 17-0 lead and it seemed to be over. However, this showed that the Dallas
team is responding to Jason Garrett’s tutelage. Right after the half, Dallas springs back to a 17-10 game and all of the sudden, this looks like a ball game.
Play of the game: Roy Williams breaks for a long reception and makes it just past the 12 yard line when he sees a defender approaching on the right so he adjusts the ball to protect it with his left hand. What he didn’t see was S Malcolm Jenkins approaching on the left side from behind who stripped it right out of his arms.
Had Roy scored, Dallas would have made it an 11 point game and New Orleans would have been extremely pressed for time to come back from a 2 possession game. Instead, New Orleans strikes quickly and takes the lead back with just under 2 mins left. Dallas is forced to try and drive back and attempt a 59 yard field goal which went slightly left.
Finishing up the night was a matchup at the Meadowlands with the Cincinnati Bengals and New York Jets. This looked like it had more potential to be a game but ended up being a very lopsided game as well. This Cincinnati team has gone from division winners’ last year and playing great defense to being uncoordinated and looking just awful in clutch situations.
I truly think that this will be Carson Palmer’s last season with Cincy. He’s proven that he’s not a dependable QB who can take that Bengals franchise to the next level. He can be a decent backup who can get you through a couple games but I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to truly take control of a franchise the way the Bengals need.
Their defense has the ability to be a good unit. They have a very underrated secondary who can stop the pass. If they can get Antwan Odom to be consistent and give him another pass rusher in that front 7, I think the Cincy defense can contend. They have a brutal division so they need to stay in prime condition if they ever want to contend with the likes of Baltimore and Pittsburgh.
**Last week’s edition, I mentioned coaches on the hot seat. After Wade Phillip’s firing in Dallas, the next name that came to mention was Brad Childress. Well all it took was a total blowout at home by Green Bay for him to finally be shown the door.
With capable replacement Leslie Frazier sitting in the wings, it was hard to understand why they left Childress in charge for so long. It was evidently known by all that the players didn’t agree with Brad and his coaching decisions. The waste of a draft pick aka the Randy Moss decision should have been the final straw but it didn’t seem to end there.
I think this was a great decision. Childress has been on the hot seat since long before the chasing of Brett Favre. His “offensive mind” was being questioned for
a while for his stagnant play calling and I think that if they didn’t have Favre, they would have fired Childress long ago. Although I think Favre will “finally” call it a season after 2010, I think Minnesota had the right decision on the coaching staff the entire time. Frazier’s a no nonsense coach who will not tolerate poor hustle and bad decision making. He’s just what that team needs.
**On the opposite side of coaches, Josh McDaniels recently had a bad memory come back to haunt him but at a new franchise. When the Broncos and 49ers met in London, allegedly the video coordinator made the decision to tape the 49ers walkthrough practice which resulted in two fines of 50,000 for both McDaniels and the Broncos organization. This ultimately resulted in the termination of the video coordinator but when asked about this, McDaniels happened to make a slight inference that it was something he learned in New England.
Don’t get me wrong, considering it happened there, it is a “believable” statement, but that is not how you handle issues like this in the NFL. Since McDaniels joined the Broncos organization, he’s been an abysmal 5-16 since starting 6-0 last season. He traded away the franchise QB and WR in Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall. He let RB/FB Peyton Hillis go for a mediocre draft pick to Cleveland where he’s tearing the yardage stats up. His personnel decisions continue to get worse and worse by the season. I can’t see him surviving the end of this year after how far back he’s set the Denver organization.
Granted, they let Super Bowl winning coach Mike Shanahan go because of constant 7-9 and 8-8 finishes year after year. What they’ve done since that point though is move themselves further from the goal than closer.
With the amount of big name head coaches with decorated resumes on the market this offseason, I can’t imagine Denver not wanting to jump into that mix.
**Let’s recap our Sunday action going around the league on a few quick glances.
- Speaking of the Broncos, I do have to give them some kind of credit. Heck of a comeback attempt by Denver. After looking dead in the water at home against the Rams, Kyle Orton tosses another 300+ yard game to bring them within 3 points of taking it into OT.
- A few editions back, I said Chicago was a pretender, not a contender. I am willing to amend my mistakes however. Chicago’s defense is legit. Urlacher might solidify his case as one of the prime runners for Comeback Player of the Year. Their containment and attack on Michael Vick today really showed that this defense has the ability to take them places in the playoffs. Kinda reminds you of 2006, doesn’t it?
- Tampa Bay has heart. They’re young, they’re learning, and still gelling together. When the season started, they were getting blown out by tough teams. Now, they’re fighting tooth and nail against top teams. They took Atlanta to the wire. They took Baltimore today to the wire. I believe this
team is another year away from being a contender in the NFC South. They believe in Raheem Morris and he’s showing it is well worth it.
- I feel horrible for the offensive coordinator in Tennessee. After news breaks that Mike Heimerdinger is going through chemotherapy for cancer treatment, his offensive team goes down to Houston and gets the bricks put to them. Houston has shut out 1 team ever, and now they can add a second team to that list. Their QB situation in Tennessee is destroyed and its going to take a lot to fix that offense.
- Speaking of Houston/Tennessee, anyone else see the one sided boxing match between Houston WR Andre Johnson and Tennessee DB Courtland Finnegan? I’ve always heard many players complain about Finnegan’s playing style and how he is dirty, sneaks shots at players when refs aren’t looking, and has gained a reputation for being one of the dirtiest players in the league. Well, he finally got caught doing it against a guy who’s 7” taller and 40 lbs heavier. Johnson lost his cool after Finnegan snatched Johnson’s helmet off and took a swing at Johnson. Andre proceeded to muscle Finnegan to the ground and give him a few good slugs to the jaw. I don’t agree with the fighting at all on the field, but I’m glad that someone finally reminded Finnegan that dirty play will come back to bite you. Or punch you. I hope that Johnson avoids the suspension since he’s been flawless. Finnegan on the other hand, I think his luck will finally run out.
**Since this is a late edition and I won’t be able to do a Screamers and Sleepers edition, I’ll give a prediction on the Monday night game and have the next S&S for you on our typical Wednesday updates.
San Francisco at Arizona:
Normally I’d say that this should be all San Francisco, but Arizona is a Jeckyll and Hyde team. Their QB situation is a mess, but so is the whole SF franchise. The Niners think they’ve found a solution at QB with Troy Smith. Coach Whisenhunt for the Cardinals thinks they still are in contention for the division, which as sad as it is, they are. San Fran is slowly climbing back to relevance, especially with Seattle losing today at home against Kansas City. Look for San Fran to attack the interior of Arizona’s defensive line and utilize play action like its going out of style. I think San Fran can win this game since they normally play Arizona quite well, with a couple turnovers making the difference in this ballgame. Final Score: 24-19.
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