Belichick: 10 Teams Get It, 22 Don't Friday, November 6, 2009

Jason Cole of Yahoo Sports interviewed Patriots Coach Bill Belichick on everything football.

The whole interview is really interesting, coming from a guy who seems to be interested in nothing BUT football. My favorite part was the end, where Belichick talked about Jimmy Johnson's theory on what it takes to win in the NFL:

“You’re really only competing with about 10 teams a year. If you just say out of the way, the other 20 teams will screw it up themselves. Whether it’s ownership or personnel or coaching or some combination of factors.” Ego, internal struggle, something will happen to two-thirds of the teams, that was Jimmy’s theory. That leaves you with about 10 teams that you’re going to have to really battle with. Those teams have it together. They’re going to make good decisions and if you play bad football, they’re going to take advantage of it. They’re going to find some undrafted guy or some middle-round pick or some veteran free agent who is going to spark their team. Pittsburgh is always going to be there. Indianapolis is always going to be there. They may not win it, but they’ll be there. You’re going to have to beat them. Philadelphia is going to be there. Yeah, [quarterback Donovan] McNabb might get hurt one year and they might go 7-9, but they’re going to be there. You’re still battling them on every front."

I really like the theory, and perhaps more than any other sport, in the NFL, there are organizations who get it, and organizations who don't. Here's my list of the 10 teams who get it, in order: New England, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York Giants, Tennessee, Denver, Miami (under Parcells)... Wow, that's it. I could only find nine, and the last two are a stretch.

I suppose if Cowher, Holmgren, Gruden, or Shanahan return next year, we could see more teams who know what they're doing.

Pats cut Galloway, trade in works? And Predictions review Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Joey Galloway has been cut by the Patriots.

Three others have been cut as well, and people are wondering whether the Patriots are setting up a trade, with ProFootballTalk throwing Shawne Merriman's name out there. (If Rodney Harrison were still with the team, perhaps their HGH dealer could've been used to help bring Shawne into the fold).

I would like to point everyone to my regular season predictions, not because I made any good predictions but because I lamented about how everyone loves every Patriot personnel move, even the dumb ones.

Fred Taylor is injured (which shouldn't be a surprise) and Joey Galloway is unemployed. Richard Seymour just played a key role in beating the Eagles.

I know it seems silly to criticize the Patriots since they just won a game 69-0, but as Joe Torre would say, that only counts as one win. The Patriots are far from the Colts and Saints of the NFL world right now.

By the way, those playoff predictions weren't bad. I missed out on the Giants and Broncos. But who didn't miss out on the Broncos? And the Giants sill have plenty of time for a late-season collapse, while the Eagles always play better later in the year. I predicted 3rd-place finishes for both the Jets and Ravens, and while that looked dumb at first, the tables have now turned.

Clearly my Panthers playoff pick was a mistake, but look at what I saw that few did: The Bengals in the playoff race, the Saints as the best team in the NFC, the 49ers with a division lead, and the Titans being bad. And I still think the Texans and Eagles can come through for me.

Obviously the Aaron Smith injury hurts the Steelers chances. If had to re-pick now it'd be hard to pick against Peyton.

It Was Awesome While It Lasted Sunday, September 20, 2009

Well, the Jets won, beating the Patriots 16-9. Apparently, it's the first time the Jets have beaten the Patriots in the Giants' home stadium since September 11, 2000.

Surprisingly the defense which we all thought was shakey before losing Seymour and Mayo has been really good. They only let up 17 points today. The offense, which we all thought would be awesome, really let the team down. They had a drive stall at the Jets 44 and punted, kicked a field goal from the Jets 27 (after being backed up by a holding call), kicked another field goal from the Jets 7, a field goal from the 11, and had the ball on the Jets 35 and took back to back delay of game penalties on third down before punting. You're not going to win leaving that many points on the field, especially on the road.

So does this mean the mystic is over? Ever since the game that made the tuck rule infamous, anytime anyone ever dared to call out the Patriots or say something even a teeny-tiny bit negative about them, New England responded by beating the living daylights out of the offender, with one notable exception. Now the New York Jets of all teams, they said they wanted to embarrass the Patriots and they weren't going to kiss Belichick's rings and called out Tom Brady, and they backed it up. Might I add, throughout the game, the Jets fans were adding fuel to the fire, chanting "Brady Sucks Brady Sucks!" throughout the game. (At first I thought they were chanting "Yankees suck." The two sound remarkably similar when crowds chant them).

To answer my own question, it is. I knew they were going to lose today. I had a terrible feeling when they kept settling for field goals. When the Jets took the lead on a touchdown in the third quarter, I knew it was over. Last week I thought the game was over...this week I knew and in the third quarter. If I'm being honest with myself and all of you, I haven't known a game was over that early since the legendary Drew Bledsoe was quarterback. The era of Patriot dominance is officially over.

I'm not saying they suck. I think they'll still be pretty good. And I as wrote in the title of the post, it was an amazing ride, one that comes around to each city maybe once in a lifetime, if not once in a franchise's life. But they can lose now, even to the Jets...even when the Jets give them bulleton board material for months before the contest.

2009 Post-season Predictions Thursday, September 10, 2009

AFC Division Winners: Patriots, Colts, Chargers, Steelers
AFC Wildcards: Bengals, Texans

Notes: More people are jumping on the Bengals bandwagon but I've always believed Marvin Lewis isn't as bad as some say, and a healthy Carson Palmer can't hurt. The Bengals get to play the entire AFC West, too.

The Patriots will have a great offense, of course, but I'm sick of hearing how it will be as good as two years ago. The likelihood of any offense being that good is very low. Also, why do people laud the Patriots for every single personnel move they make? All I hear is what great use they're going to make out of Fred Taylor and Joey Galloway. Whaa??? What other team could add these two players and actually be praised for it? Taylor is 33 and Galloway is, wait for it.... Thirty-seven. We praise the Patriots because of our perception of them, not because we've actually looked at their decisions.

It's the same with Richard Seymour. We're praising them for getting a potential top-10 pick, but haven't they hurt their team for this year? Yet no one's cut a win off their projected totals. Besides that, if Seymour never shows up in Oakland, there's a good chance the Pats will have to give the pick back (since there was no physical performed on Seymour), and then they will just have a mess on their hands.

I really wish I could pick the Chargers to miss the playoffs, but their division is so bad, it's impossible. However, I do not at all understand the constant fawning and graveling people do at the feet of this team every preseason. They have a nice offense, but all they have on defense is a playmaker here or there. I vow that the Norv Factor will come to pass this year and this team will be embarrassed on a regular basis by non-division opponents. It starts next week against Baltimore.

NFC Divison Winners: Eagles, Saints, 49ers, Bears
NFC Wildcards: Panthers, Packers

Notes: The popular perception of the Vikings mystifies me. I think people start to spout an opinion and it sounds nifty, so it spreads everywhere. The Vikings apparently have had the most talented roster in the NFC for two years. But outside of big-name players, do they really have depth and talent? Or is it just name recognition? (Obviously AP is the best RB in the league.) Besides that, coaching will always be their achilles heel.

Meanwhile, while the Vikings haven't had an 11-win season since 2001, the Panthers have done that three times, have won lots of playoff games and have a solid, steady coach, and yet almost no one is picking them to make the playoffs. Some say Delhomme left a bad taste in their mouth due to his season-ending performance but... what, Bret Favre didn't?!

AFC Championship: Steelers over Patriots
NFC Championship: Saints over Bears
Super Bowl Champion: Steelers

Notes: The AFC is easy: The Pats and Steelers have the two best rosters and head coaches in the NFL. I picked the Steelers to make the Super Bowl, of course, because I'm a homer.

To me, the Saints are a proven commodity. They averaged 29 points per game. TWENTY-NINE POINTS! Their putrid defense HAS to regress to the mean and become merely below average. If they do, it should mean 11 wins. If they can get a couple home playoff games, they can go far in the playoffs.

Giants vs Patriots Friday, September 4, 2009

The Giants actually played their first team offense and defense for a good portion of the game last night, though Eli only played one series. David Carr came in relief of him and played with the first team for a while. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised. Coughlin played all his starters in a "meaningless" game week 17 in 2007 against the Patriots.

The Giants first team is a lot better than the Patriots 2nd string. When Carr and the first stringers came out at the end of the first, it was 21-0 Giants. The Patriots second stringers are better then the Giants, and the Patriots rallied to win 38-27. As always, the Giants were pretty well represented in New England. I don't know if the New Jersians...I mean Yorkers drive up or if its carry over from before the Patriots existed. I'm told New England was Giant country back then, and just thinking about it makes me want to throw up a little bit. At any rate, the Giants are probably the team that travels best to Foxboro... with the obligatory nod to the Steelers who also travel pretty well.

So, given that there were a lot of Giants fans, I was shocked and surprised at two things. The first was I saw more Patriot fans wearing Jerseys with the Super Bowl XLII patch on it. In fact, surprisingly I saw not a single Super Bowl XLII champion hat or tee shirt or blanket or anything.

Even more surprising, especially considering the 21-0 pounding the Giants were given the Patriots at one point, was I heard no "18-1" chants until one guy said it as he was leaving the stadium with less than a minute left. In his defense, his friend (wearing a Randy Moss Jersey) screamed "Hey, hey, hey, Goodbye" as they were leaving the section, so he was provoked. I figured that would be the new "1918." Dare I say it... are New Yorkers becoming classy? Probably not. I'm thinking the fact that there was no 18-1 chants and the Giant fans in attendance were all classy proves that they are probably from New England and never switched allegiances when the Patriots were founded.

Moving along, in CAA news, Villanova upset FBS Temple. Watch out Kansas State. You're next.

Massachusetts Football Report Thursday, September 3, 2009

- UMass opens it's season Saturday @ Kansas State, and that means one thing: It's a bad week to be a Wildcat. Junior College Transfer Kyle Havens was named the starting quarterback. I feel bad for senior Scott Woodward. Whenever he came in for an injured Liam Coen, I always thought he did well. I think a lot of times during games, the coaching staff never trusted him though. I remember one game in particular against Boston College where Coen got hurt early in the third quarter. UMass stopped passing the ball completely unless it was third and long in their own territory. If memory serves correct he made something good happen more often than not, but I still wonder to this day why they didn't open the play book for him. Must be something they saw with him in practice. Most times a FCS team upsets and FBS team, it's with a scrambling quarterback who runs the option. As a result, some UMass fans speculated that Octavious Hawkins would start the season opener. I like the idea in theory, but I think Head Coach Kevin Morris is doing the right thing. You're probably not gonna win anyway, so you might as well treat this like a practice and try to work out all the kinks with the first team offense your gonna go with the rest of the season. By the way, the best thing about Havens being named the starter is he wears #12. That means my Liam Coen jersey (which doesn't say Coen on the back) can now become a Kyle Havens jersey. Sweet!

- I'm going to my first football game tonight to see the New England Patriots take on the New Jersey... I mean New York Giants. As no one is gonna play besides third and fourth stringers, the most exciting thing this blog will observe is what jersey I'll wear tonight. I have at my disposal good looking home blue Adam Vinatieri and Drew Bledsoe Patriot jerseys, a good looking silver Richard Seymour jersey, a fake looking blue Laurence Marony jersey (no numbers on the sleeves, no stripes on the shoulder, no gray on the collar...it's terrible) and a really nice blue Tom Brady I've never worn. The Tom Brady is the best jersey cause the name and number are actually sewn on whereas the others look machine painted. I decided to go with the Drew Bledsoe jersey, as he is undeniably the most important man in New England Patriot history, and I feel like since Brady wont play anyway it's the perfect time to honor Drew. Julian Edelman is also honoring Drew Bledsoe tonight, and if he makes the team he will probably continue to honor Bledsoe the entire season.

-I'm also going to a football game Saturday- Northeastern vs Boston College. It's a bit of a dilemma as UMass fans are suppose to hate Boston College whereas Northeastern is the poster child for schools that think they're better than you only because they're a private school. My hatred for Northeastern runs deep. On the other hand, I taught a few of the BC football players and some of them work their butts off and are good people, plus I got a degree from there, so I'm rooting for BC.

2009 AFC East Predictions Friday, August 14, 2009

I'm gonna post, along with some comments, my predicted finishes for all eight NFL divisions over the next couple weeks. I'll start with what I think is the easiest division to predict: The AFC East.

Last year, this division had a cake schedule, with everyone in the division playing the 49ers, Rams, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs and Raiders. That explains the turnaround from 1-15 to 11-5 for the Dolphins. This year, not so lucky. Everyone in the division must play Indianapolis, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Carolina, New Orleans, and Atlanta.

1. New England Patriots - In some ways, last year's championship wasn't quite as satisfying without having to take down Brady. He's back, he's good, and their offense will still be the most productive in the league. I do think their defense will continue to slip, but there's just no one who can keep up with them in this division.


2. Buffalo Bills - Terrell Owens will improve the team (though one aged wide receiver can only do so much), but with our without him, it's a team that's been building talent and competing for a couple years. Anyway, I believe 8-8 could claim second place here


3. New York Jets - I'm sure we're all big fans of their new running back, Shonn Greene, but a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback do not a division winner make.


4. Miami Dolphins - Besides the opponents listed above, the Dolphins will also have to face San Diego and Pittsburgh, which their division foes do not. The Dolphins benefited from an incredibly easy schedule last year, not to mention a crippled Patriots team. Despite what was seen last year, Chad Pennington and Joey Porter are at the ends of their ropes. You heard it here first: The Dolphins will fall back to earth hard.

Tomorrow or something: The NFC East