Packers perfect season in 2011? Part two

by | Nov 6, 2011 | NFL Random Thoughts

Somewhere along the end of the early games and the start of the late ones on Sunday, the 2011 NFL season will hit its halfway point. And without question so far the Green Bay Packers have looked like the league’s most dominant team so far.

Are they a shoo-in for another Super Bowl Championship? Absolutely not. When St. Louis kicked all kinds of dog crap out of New Orleans last Sunday it only served to prove once again that on any given Sunday anyone can beat anyone else. And once the playoffs start it’s one-and-done.

But they are the best thing going so far. And if they run the table in the regular season, they have a good chance at accomplishing what New England could not: 19-0.

So who are the NFC’s biggest playoff threats to Green Bay between now and the awarding of another Lombardi Trophy? Here are our guesses:

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Suck-for-Luck candidates start to separate

by | Oct 10, 2011 | NFL Draft, NFL Random Thoughts

The Seattle Seahawks and particularly the San Francisco 49ers have proven to be more competitive than I expected they would, already virtually eliminating themselves from competing for the number one pick in the April 2012 NFL Draft, from which Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck is the biggest prize and by a wide margin.

Kansas City is bad enough to warrant earning the Luck pick but they’ve foolishly gone and found balance on offense the last two weeks, which has allowed them to at least temporarily remove themselves from the discussions.

But several teams are starting to separate from the pack, some sucking well worse than expected. Here are my latest thoughts on who the top contenders are for the Luck pick: (more…)

Colts efforts at locating heir to Manning come too late

by | Sep 15, 2011 | 2011 season, NFL News, NFL Random Thoughts

I had two reactions when word spread earlier this week that Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian spent a good chunk of the Stanford season opener scouting quarterback Andrew Luck.

My first thought was good luck getting Luck. There are more than a half-dozen teams worse off than Indy is this year. Despite getting manhandled by Houston in the opener, the Peyton Manning-less Colts still have Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie, Pierre Garcon, Joseph Addai and enough other weapons to complement an aging-but-still-solid Kerry Collins that there is no way Indianapolis will fall off the map enough to be in position to draft Stanford’s signal caller.

My second thought was what took so long? (more…)

Bad luck is good Luck for several teams entering 2011

by | Sep 10, 2011 | 2011 season, NFL Draft, NFL Random Thoughts

Most years most teams like to go into the season creating at least some sort of vision that they can be the last team standing, the franchise hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy handed out at the end of the Super Bowl in February.

Arguably one-quarter of the league this year appear to have their sights set much lower … or would it be higher? They will be competing less for the championship and more for the consolation prize – first pick in the draft and the rights to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck.

By most accounts, Luck would have been the first pick had he chosen to leave Stanford after his junior year. That honor went instead to Auburn signal caller Cam Newton.

Several teams spent their off-seasons not getting better, some of them barely masking the fact that they are sacrificing 2011 for the potential riches that may follow.

Eight teams vying for Luck: (more…)

Forte equal to Peterson? Not even close

by | Jul 20, 2011 | NFL Random Thoughts

Sometimes sports statisticians find new measurements that shed light on players in ways that old numbers never did.

Sometimes they try a little too hard.

The latter happened today to KC Joyner, who calls himself the Football Scientist, when he tried to convince himself that Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte “stacks up evenly with” the Minnesota Vikings’ Adrian Peterson.

Now, are there things Forte does better than Peterson? Yes. He is a better receiver out of the backfield. Forte has 51, 57 and 63 catches in his three seasons. Peterson is not terrible catching the ball, with 119 catches in four years, but I would give the Bear the nod in that area.

I’m not an expert in pass blocking either, but the Vikings routinely remove Peterson from games on third downs. Joyner claims Forte is a better blocker. Some seem to agree he prevented Jay Cutler from getting killed at times. I haven’t seen enough to judge so I’ll concede the point (though at least some seem to feel Forte and his fellow backs could improve in this area).

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NFL Sunday Ticket canceled

by | Jul 17, 2011 | NFL Lockout, NFL Media, NFL Random Thoughts

I canceled my NFL Sunday Ticket subscription tonight.

I actually started having second thoughts about it over the weekend, despite writing a week or so ago that I would do so if the NFL did not solve its labor issues by July 15.

They seem to be close to arriving at a deal. But they have seemed close to coming to a deal for two or three weeks now. Enough is enough.

Even as early as this morning, however, I thought DirecTV might get a reprieve. A friend emailed me information that DirecTV was offering its Sunday Ticket package for free for the season. That would seem to be a reasonable offer. But after a little reading and a couple of phone calls, I learned that, of course, DirecTV was only offering that deal to new subscribers.

Existing subscribers, I was told, are appreciated, but ineligible for the service. So DirecTV is competing with most cell phone companies and who the hell knows how many other businesses in treating new clients better than existing ones. Does nobody remember how much it costs to get a lost customer back?

So, anyway, for the 2011 season DirecTV is ineligible to keep my business, at least as far as Sunday Ticket goes. I can use that $300-and-change on other things.

Again, as I have written before, I am aware that my little protest alone is not going to have much of an impact on the business of the league or DirecTV. But I share in the hopes of AOL FanHouse Columnist David Steele, who writes at SportingNews.com that he hopes fans do not “give their love back to the NFL for free.”

I agree. Regardless of whether they return in time to play a full season or not, the owners and the players have cost us virtually the entire offseason. Let’s have some pride as fans and make them pay in the pocketbook enough so they can feel it.