This is the same picture I put up back on March 4, 2008… when Brett retired for the first time. I wonder how long it takes for him and the Green Bay Packers to make amends and have his number retired at Lambeau?
NFL’s Worst Blown Call? … I Disagree
Well a lot has been made of the Ed Hochuli blown call this past week in the Chargers/Broncos game but let’s not forget that the Chargers might have wanted to play some sort of defense all day. When you allow a team to score 39 points in merely 48 minutes, you can tell what kind of a day they were having. Yea the call came at the absolute worst time and certainly took a victory out of their hands but they still had to play for another minute and 20 seconds or so.
They could have stepped up once to make a stop on a 4th-and-4 with 24 seconds left in the game to stop the Broncos from scoring. How about playing some more defense on the 2-point conversion where Cutler slices up 3 people in the end zone and completes a pass Royal to go up by 1.
How about some sort of double or extra coverage on Brandon Marshall who has 18 receptions for 166 yards? How about getting some pressure on Cutler who went 36 for 50, passing for 350 yards and 4 touchdowns? How about converting 3 drives of over 65 yards into touchdowns instead of field goals? How about three drives inside the opposition 30 yard line that only led to field goals? How about two drives inside the 20 yard line that were only a field goal? How about converting a 1st-and-5, 2nd-and-5 or even a 3rd-and-3 into a touchdown instead of settling for a 4th-and-3 field goal?
You convert any of those and you don’t leave the game hanging in the balance and the let the outcome be determined by a bad call. Yea it was a bad call but the game should have been over before then so it would not have even mattered.
Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and feeling self-pity that you are 0-2 on two last minute losses because you have a New York team coming in fresh off a game they felt they should have won too and before you know it, you’ll find yourself 0-3 with no shot at the playoffs.
What A Weekend.
Edit: I am listening to Mike and Mike from last week as well as the Michael Kay show where they both have “NFL Experts” in Ron Jaworski and Peter King who both said that Tom Brady looks as excellent as ever and he’s going to have another unbelievable year. Probably not as good number-wise last year but their chemistry is too good for them to struggle. Ha, so much for that. /Edit
This pretty much sums up the Jets/Dolphins game:
With the score 7-all and Jets kicker Mike Nugent nursing a thigh injury suffered in the first quarter, the Jets decided to go for a touchdown on fourth-and-13. Under heavy pressure, Favre shrugged off 305-pound defensive end Randy Starks, and as he was sandwiched by two defenders, he threw a dying-quail pass that found an open Chansi Stuckey for the go-ahead touchdown.
“He’s a miracle worker,” Dolphins fullback Boomer Grigsby said. “He threw that thing in the air and God said, ‘Brett Favre will have a touchdown pass.’ And he did. That’s Brett Favre being Brett Favre.”
P.S. Tom Brady is probably out for the year. Not that anyone should be celebrating the news or anything…
NFL Predictions… What Are Yours?
I’ll post my NFL predictions for this season now and talk about a couple of things I think will crucial this upcoming season. A couple of things to look out for will be the age of the New England Patriots’ defense. No one expects them to run the table again in the regular season but people might be in for a surprise if their age finally catches up to them and they end up losing 4 or 5 games. Also, who knows how injured Tom Brady really is and how effective he’ll be in the early parts of the season?
In the NFC, Aaron Rodgers has been handed a wonderful team but a great receiving group and all he has to do is not try to be Brett Favre. If he can stick to the short passes and allow the receivers to do their work with YAC as they did last year along with the new found running game in Ryan Grant – the Packers could really repeat as one of the top two seeds in the conference. New York Giants on the other hand have lost two considerablely talented players on defense and will that blow be big enough to keep them out of the playoffs? I doubt it because their offense has matured well enough and Eli should be able to carry a team to a couple of wins just by himself this year.
In the playoffs, you can never count out Brett Favre and certainly he’s not done with the way he played last year. Cold weather will be not be an issue and just might be something to provide Jets’ fans with something to hope for. However, let’s all be realistic. The Jets went 4-12 last year and just making the playoffs this year will be a dramatic improvement so I doubt they advance much further even though I do have them winning a game in the post-season.
Is this the year that Tony Romo finally breaks through and stops choking in the clutch? I think so. Packers losing Favre drops their main threat to be #1 once again in the conference and they had all the opportunities in the world to beat the Giants last year in the Divisional Round and if Romo can control the ball, they would have at least been a game away from going to the Super Bowl. No reason to expect the same progress this year, if not a little bit more poise and potentially a couple more wins in the post-season.
Does a Manning win a Super Bowl this year as well? Well that would make it three years in a row with Peyton and his Colts beating the Bears in 2007 although the loss of Jeff Saturday in the early parts of the season can slow down their progress but probably not enough to keep them from winning the division yet again en route to the Super Bowl XLIII victory on February 1, 2009.
Predictions are after the break. Continue reading “NFL Predictions… What Are Yours?”
Why So Serious?
Maybe, just maybe… some people in Wisconsin are taking this Brett Favre move to the New York Jets a little too seriously.
Also, as DeadSpin reports, “I can never figure out who’s supposed to be talking on these church billboards: is it God or the parish? Because if God is pissed at Brett Favre, well, it’s going to be a long season for New York.”
Anyone know? Who is supposed to be speaking on those billboards anyways?