Phil Simms got off to an 11-5 start this year on his selections. Around the NFL we go, first stop Giants vs Colts.
NYG-IND. Simms has one BIG question about the Colts.. Is Freeney down a notch? Preseason and beginning of the season, he is “not the same Dwight Freeney. I have not seen the explosion.” Re the Colts OL, Simms implied that (1) the OL has never been very bad or very good, that Peyton does what he needs to do (footwork, pocket presence, etc..) to neutralize weaknesses and (2) some of the misery they experienced was directly due to Mario Williams (who now has a groin) being thatgood. Williams is one of the best Defensive Players in the League, he takes the double team and the rest of the DL (Okoye, Smith) are better than single coverage.
DET-PHL. Lions have a very good DL. Vick’s legs are back and his arm looks good. McNabb was let go in the offseason because of Kolb and Vick being there.
BAL-CIN. Ravens are not a legit Super Bowl contender yet, even if they beat the Bengals. Bengals were soft in preseason, and it carried forward to the regular season vs the Pats in Week1. The Ravens lost almost every battle to the Jets last week except a few key plays when the ball was in the air (/pass interference).
NYJ-NE. Jets lost last week, beat themselves. A big share of the loss falls on Schottenheimer and the coaches for making the offense too tight and not allowing Sanchez to get into some kind of rhythm. They admitted to Simms they took away the aggressiveness of the players. RB- Greene is fine, will have to learn to protect the ball. LG- Slausson is fine, played well every play except the big one where he got beat. Simms not concerned about the Jets OL. Pats OL has tremendous depth, that is so crucial to their success. In order to beat the Pats, the Jets need to show them new looks they have not seen before on 3rd down to get them off the field. Revis played great, he is amazing.. do the Jets put him on Welker on 3rd down? That slot receiver is a different animal altogether.
MIN. They showed age. Got extremely tired in Q3. They do have WR problems. Favre fastball was missing in W1.
DAL. OL problems are real. Unlike the Pats, where the 6th, 7th, 8th player fill in w/o a dropoff in talent, the Cowboys have a huge dropoff. The Cowboys’ defense is tremendous. Once again, not to beat a dead horse, but the implied discussion from Phil is that Wade Phillips is a boner who keeps killing himself, that it is on him for the play at the end of H1 that costs his team 7 points.
General NFL. (1) The officials are not supposed to overturn the Calvin Johnson call at the end of the Lions Bears game. It is too much of a judgment call, so it should not be overturned. (2) A lot of teams are adapting the Jets’ 2009 blitzing schemes, using smaller (cheaper $) guys in overloaded blitzes. (The copycat league continues.)
UltimateNYG note: Cover-It-Live session will get going right before gametime. Hope you’ll join us.
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