10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 9

The AFC is a little more even through
eight weeks than the NFC is.

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10.            Trade Deadline

Because of Hurricane Sandy, the trade deadline was pushed back from Tuesday (yesterday) to Thursday (tomorrow). The deadline had already been pushed back two weeks from where it was last year to encourage more deals.

So far, one trade of note has come in after the original deadline passed. Wide receiver Mike Thomas was traded from the Jaguars to the Lions in exchange for a mid-round draft pick. Nate Burleson broke his leg last week and Detroit hopes that between Thomas and Titus Young, who is coming off a big game, will help pull coverage off Calvin Johnson.

9.            DeAngelo Hall

Shanahan, it’s time. Hall was ejected after getting into it with an official during Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh. Tuesday he tried to deflect blame when he appeared on a radio show. As it is, his level of play is declining significantly each year and while he was a good play for the Redskins for a couple years, he isn’t there anymore. That, mixed with his attitude, should be enough to ship him out of Washington when the season ends.

8.            Michael Vick

Andy Reid decided Wednesday that Michael Vick will remain the starting quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. Most experts are agreeing with the move, and I am, too. The Eagles are still in the playoff hunt, and bringing in an inexperienced quarterback, good as it may be for the future of the franchise, is not the right move as long as the team still has a chance of extending their season.

7.            Fantasy Disappointments

There were plenty of fantasy disappointments this week, so I’ll just list a few that stood out to me.

• Victor Cruz scored all of three points in my fantasy league, one of which came off his two receptions because it’s a PPR league. Don’t worry too much, yet, because his eight targets still led the team, and it was somewhat reminiscent of the Week 1 matchup against the Cowboys, which he bounced off of nicely, but it was still a disappointing week.
• The Vikings defense was averaging 14.5 points per home game this season. But when Tampa Bay paid a visit, Minnesota’s unit scored -2 points. Yes, two points in the red. That’s a disappointing outing anyway, but especially at home where the Vikings defense has been rock solid in 2012.
• Jamaal Charles scored just 1.5 points in my league this week. He had three consecutive big weeks earlier this season, but that feels like a distant memory now. Romeo Crennel was at a loss for why Charles only carried the ball five times against Oakland, so figure that he’ll carry much more against a struggling San Diego defense.

6.            Fantasy Surprises

• Matthew Stafford scored more points than anyone else in the NFL this week with 36. It was more of a disappointment for me, though, because he was on my bench. After he had struggled early in the season, I benched my first round pick – I’m aSHAMEd of that (Dave Dameshek would be proud) – for Andy Dalton. Dalton was on bye this week. So what do I do? I pick up Ryan Tannehill and start him. He gets hurt, scores no points. Meanwhile, Stafford is having his first multi-touchdown game of the season, sitting on my bench. If I had started him, I would have won my matchup by 3 points. Okay, I’m good.
• Seattle shut down Calvin Johnson and Titus Young responded. 28.5 points was good for fifth most in my league for Week 8.

5.            Games to Watch

Like last week, I’ll be more specific on why these are the biggest games to watch in my predictions post tomorrow.

• Kansas City Chiefs at San Diego Chargers (Thursday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Denver Broncos at Cincinnati Bengals (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Carolina Panthers at Washington Redskins (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Miami Dolphins at Indianapolis Colts (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Pittsburgh Steelers at New York Giants (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.) 

4.            Power Rankings

For the sake of space, I will list just the top 6 and the bottom 6 here. You can see the rest on NFL.com.

1. Atlanta Falcons	27. Buffalo Bills
2. Houston Texans	28. Cleveland Browns
3. Chicago Bears	29. Carolina Panthers
4. New York Giants	30. New Orleans Saints
5. San Francisco 49ers	31. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Green Bay Packers	32. Kansas City Chiefs

You figure that at this point of the season, there won’t be much change. In fact, the top six is identical to last week’s. But there were a few big changes. In particular, the Lions and Buccaneers both jumped 10 spots to 14^th and 16^th respectively. The Cardinals and Eagles dropped six spots to 19^th and 20^th and the Jets fell from 18^th to 25^th.

The Power Poll is a better representation of where the teams stack up, in my opinion. Check that out here.

3.            New York Giants

Despite nearly blowing a 23-0 lead in Dallas, the Giants maintained their standing as 4^th in the NFL.com Power Rankings. The Cowboys are reeling, and so some may think the Giants are doing the same. But this is a script many of us have seen before. The Giants struggle against the Cowboys. But after a tough loss in Week 1, I think all we needed to see was them win to keep our confidence in New York sky high.

2.            Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons were already #1, so they can’t go any higher, but in handing Andy Reid and his Eagles their first ever loss after a bye, the Falcons are flying higher than ever. The Falcons’ last three games have been near losses, but Atlanta is now 7-0 and faces a relatively easy schedule ahead. That spells trap, and I won’t hop on any undefeated bandwagons, but this is a team that could represent a stacked NFC in the Super Bowl, if they can put their postseason woes behind them.

1.            American Football Conference

Speaking of a stacked NFC, what about the AFC. The Houston Texans are the only team in the conference in the top 6 of the Power Rankings and of the Power Poll. But the first four out on both lists are the Ravens, Patriots, Broncos, and Steelers. A lot is being made of the NFC because there is usually a clearer line between those who will be in the playoffs and those who won’t be by this time in the season. The two conferences have seemingly switched places, with just about everyone within a few games of each other in the AFC.

Monday Night Football Afterword: Cardinals vs 49ers

The Cardinals failed to protect their home field against
NFC West rival, San Francisco, on Monday Night.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy kept me busy during all but the final seven minutes of the game last night. My bedroom window in my apartment was leaking quite badly (it’s currently under control and hopefully will stay under control until someone can come take a look at it). I don’t mean to whine too much, I know there are plenty out there in much worse shape than I am, and know my prayers are going out for you.

However, it does mean I don’t have much to say about the game. San Francisco took care of business. I expected it to be close but I felt that the offensive troubles the 49ers have been dealing with would only be magnified against a very good Arizona defense. That didn’t happen as Alex Smith had one of the most efficient games of any quarterback this year.

Smith completed 18 passes. 18 passes in 19 attempts, and the one incompletion was a dropped pass by an open receiver. I don’t care that I didn’t get to see all of them, and I don’t care how many short passes those completions came on, you can’t have a much more efficient game than that. His passer rating was 157.1 – a perfect passer rating is 158.3.

San Francisco blew the Cardinals out of their home stadium and extended their lead in the NFC West with all three of their division rivals losing this week. We will see if they can maintain it, but with how inconsistent the other three teams have looked, I don’t think any of them will catch the 49ers during the second half of the season.

Sunday Football Afterword: Week 8 Late Games

Peyton Manning won the fifth matchup of the two quarterbacks
and is now 3-2 against Brees. But Drew won the game that matters most.

I spent the afternoon mostly watching the Giants/Cowboys game. I switched over from time to time, but the Raiders game went about as I expected as Oakland won 26-16 in Kansas City. Brady Quinn, poor guy, went down early with an injury. Matt Cassel came in and played a decent game, but the Chiefs are just a terrible team this year, there is no way around it. In a league of mediocrity, they stand out as a truly bad team.

In Dallas, the Giants remained unbeaten at the new stadium by a fingertip. On a bomb into the end zone – I still don’t know how Dez Bryant got behind the Giants’ secondary – Bryant leapt up, made a catch, and came down with the official signaling touchdown. But all scoring plays are automatically reviewed and the replay showed that the tips of Bryant’s fingers touched the chalk at the back of the end zone before any other part of his body landed in bounds. To be fair, the Cowboys didn’t deserve to win the game. Tony Romo threw four picks, which isn’t even his worst game of the season. That said, the Giants didn’t exactly deserve the win either with how bad their defense was in the second half.

The Sunday Night game featured two of the best quarterbacks in the league right now; in fact, two of the best in the league’s history, in Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.

Manning’s Broncos won as the defense showed just how good they are. The Saints came in with the best offense in the league and were held to 14 points, with 7 of them coming on a garbage-time touchdown pass to Jimmy Graham. Manning became just the second quarterback in history to throw for 3+ touchdowns in four consecutive games. The only other quarterback to do so is Steve Young, who accomplished the feat in five consecutive games. With the easiest schedule in the league over the final nine games of the season, Denver figures to be on the brink already of winning the AFC West and is in a great position to lock up a bye in the playoffs. However, if history is any indication, a playoff bye does not spell good things for Peyton to get a second Super Bowl ring.

Check back tomorrow for my Afterword on tonight’s Monday Night Football matchup between the 49ers and Cardinals in Arizona. Thanks for reading!

Sunday Football Afterword: Week 8 Early Games

Michael Vick said after the game that Andy Reid is
"obviously considering a change" at quarterback.

Once again the NFL scheduled a ridiculous number of games for the Sunday 1 p.m. time slot; it certainly kept me busy trying to keep up with everything. As was the case last week, I couldn’t keep track of everything so I’ll talk about what I know and I won’t talk about what I don’t.

Carolina didn’t play particularly well, and Cam Newton threw two picks, but the Bears played their worst game of the season defensively, allowing him over 300 passing yards. Carolina led 19-7 in the fourth quarter but the Bears offense finally came alive and took the lead twice in the final minutes of the game, the second time coming on a 41-yard field goal on the last play of the game to give them a 23-22 victory. The Bears were honestly lucky to win, but win they did.

Cleveland knocked off San Diego in an outcome that I predicted, but I didn’t get to see much footage from the game so I’ll just say it was a 7-6 victory, the second win for the Browns this season.

Matt Stafford finally had a good game and he barely used Calvin Johnson. He threw three touchdowns, his first multi-touchdown game of the season. Seattle’s secondary finally had a poor game. I won’t discredit them for it yet; after all, they did shut down Tom Brady’s passing game and I can’t truly fault them for overlooking Matt Stafford who had been the second most disappointing quarterback in the league until yesterday.

Jacksonville was in the game for a while, but without Maurice Jones-Drew I didn’t expect it to last, and it didn’t. Green Bay won 24-15 at home to keep pace in the NFC North.

I expected Miami to beat the Jets, but I didn’t expect them to blow New York out of MetLife Stadium, and I certainly did not expect them to do so with Ryan Tannehill hurt. He went down in the first quarter after throwing for just 18 yards and Matt Moore came in and played pretty well. The Jets, a week after a very close loss to the Patriots, were crushed 30-9 in one of their poorer defensive showings of the season.

The Patriots came off the close win with their first win over an NFC West opponent this season. After losses to Arizona and Seattle, they scored touchdowns on each of their first five drives and rode that to a 45-7 victory over the Rams, who were playing as the home team in this year’s edition of the NFL’s Europe series.

One streak had to end, and it was not Atlanta’s run at an unbeaten season. Andy Reid is now 13-1 coming off a bye after the Falcons trounced his Eagles in Philadelphia. The 30-17 score is much closer than the game itself was. But people calling for Michael Vick’s head, STOP! Philadelphia’s defense did not get a stop until the 4^th quarter. That’s not something you can overcome.

Pittsburgh played a fantastic game. Their offense took advantage of Washington’s ineptness on defense and the Steelers defense did what no other team has been able to this season – shut down Robert Griffin III. Now, for anyone thinking that this is a sign that RGIII is in danger or having a Cam Newton-like season next year, don’t jump the gun. Keep in mind that the Redskins receivers dropped at least eight passes, several on third down plays that would have gone for first downs. We could have had a completely different ball game. But we can’t take anything away from Pittsburgh, who used everything to their advantage as a good team has to.

The final game of the early afternoon was in Tennessee where Andrew Luck gave Indianapolis fans something they haven’t been treated to in a couple of seasons; a fourth quarter comeback. Luck led an 80-yard drive to end regulation, capped with a touchdown, to send the game into overtime. Then he let another 80-yard touchdown drive to steal the win from Tennessee.

Check back later for my Sunday Football Afterword for the three late games. Thanks for reading everyone!

Thursday Night Football Afterword: Vikings vs Buccaneers

The Buccaneers won 36-17 in Minnesota, handing
the Vikings their first home loss of the season.

So often these days, teams like to look back at a game and say, “we lost it,” rather than “the other team won it.” If the Vikings try to pull that one this week, we can call B.S. The Vikings didn’t beat themselves; the Bucs played a terrific game.

Did the Vikings turn the ball over a couple times? Yes. But the Buccaneers scored just ten points off those turnovers. They won by 19. I don’t think you can attribute the Tampa Bay victory to just the turnovers.

Plenty of us knew the Buccaneers had a special young player in their backfield, but I had no idea that there would be serious competition for runner-up in the race for NFC offensive rookie of the year – I don’t think Robert Griffin III will be caught, but I figured Alfred Morris would easily be the number two pick.

Doug Martin had a spectacular game. He scored twice and had over 200 total yards from scrimmage. I don’t know how many fantasy leagues he is owned in, but the team in my league that has him was lucky enough to have put him in at flex and now has over 30 points heading into the weekend.

Josh Freeman had the fewest passing yards of any game since Tampa Bay’s bye week, but threw three touchdown passes for the third consecutive week. Another quick fantasy look-in, the team in my league with Josh Freeman has him on the bench for Aaron Rodgers. Of course I won’t argue with that, considering Minnesota was solid defensively at home until last night and Green Bay is playing Jacksonville, but I know the league member will be upset if Rodgers doesn’t top 27 points on Sunday.

Jared Allen became a hero to the Minnesota crowd
over this two-play sequence.

On the other side, Christian Ponder didn’t have a bad game. In fact, he had a pretty terrific game. A glance at the stat line won’t tell you that, but Ponder was under heavy pressure all day. Some of his best passes came while being drilled in the face, in the back, and while rolling out.

Adrian Peterson also had a pretty good day on the ground, but a costly fumble seemed to have an effect on him for the rest of the game. He didn’t run quite as hard as he did before the fumble.

Multiple times, the Vikings worked to get back in the game, but they couldn’t put back-to-back drives together and let the Bucs get away in Minnesota’s first home loss of the season.

The Vikings are not in trouble yet, and I view this more as a statement game for Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers have been playing in close games, and Josh Freeman is playing more like he did two years ago when he nearly led his team to a playoff birth, when he threw only five interceptions all year. He has already matched that number this season, but four of them came in the first four weeks.

Minnesota will get an extra few days to prepare for their next game, which is good because they have to face the Seahawks and the 12^th Man in Seattle next Sunday. Tampa Bay’s next game will be next week in Oakland.

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Thanks for reading everyone and enjoy the rest of Week 8. I’ll be back Monday with my Sunday Afterwords!

2012 NFL Predictions: Regular Season Week 8

After a weird Week 6, Week 7 was a little more predictable; too much so, in fact. Of the four picks I got wrong, all four were upset picks. We’ll see if Week 8 leans toward the unpredictability that made Week 6 so strange but so fun, or toward Week 7, which was…different.

Week 8 Byes: Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, Houston Texans

	Game	Puff’s Pick
Thurs., 8:20 pm	Tampa Bay @ Minnesota	Minnesota Vikings
Sun., 1:00 pm	Miami @ NY Jets	Miami Dolphins
	San Diego @ Cleveland	Cleveland Browns
	Indianapolis @ Tennessee	Tennessee Titans
	New England @ St. Louis	St. Louis Rams
	Jacksonville @ Green Bay	Green Bay Packers
	Atlanta @ Philadelphia	Philadelphia Eagles
	Washington @ Pittsburgh	Washington Redskins
	Seattle @ Detroit	Seattle Seahawks
	Carolina @ Chicago	Chicago Bears
Sun., 4:05 pm	Oakland @ Kansas City	Oakland Raiders
Sun., 4:25 pm	NY Giants @ Dallas	New York Giants
Sun., 8:20 pm	New Orleans @ Denver	Denver Broncos
Mon., 8:30 pm	San Francisco @ Arizona	Arizona Cardinals

	Puff on the NFL
Week 8 Record	7-7
Current Season Record	66-52

Games to Watch (Predicted winners in Bold)

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, 1:00pm – San Diego Chargers @ Cleveland Browns

The Chargers are clearly not the contender people expected them to be. However, they also are not without talent. Going up 24-0 against Denver’s defense – well, 17-0 against the defense and 7-0 against the offense – in one half takes a good team. But I consider the second half to be a more accurate definition of this team. The Browns are a much better team than their record shows, which could be trouble for the Chargers considering their tendency to play to other teams’ levels.

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, 1:00pm – Atlanta Falcons @ Philadelphia Eagles

Both teams are coming off a bye, but the game is in Philly. Atlanta won’t relinquish their undefeated status easily, but the Eagles have several things going for them that make it tough to pick against them.

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, 1:00pm – Washington Redskins @ Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers will be wearing their bumblebee costumes – er, uniforms – on Sunday. The Redskins have been playing very well the past few weeks. They competed against the Falcons, beat a strong Vikings team, and nearly pulled one out in New York if it wasn’t for Eli Manning and Victor Cruz. Despite the 77-yard score for the Giants, Washington’s pass defense has been improving every week. The Steelers will be toast if they have to deal with multiple drops from Mike Wallace this week.

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, 4:25pm – New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys

The Giants became the first defending Super Bowl champion to lose in the NFL Kickoff Game, losing at home against the Cowboys in Week 1. Neither team has looked the same since, in a way that heavily favors the Giants. It’s still a tough pick, though, because NFC East matchups are never predictable.

Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, 8:20pm – New Orleans Saints @ Denver Broncos

The Saints are on a two-game win streak (they beat the Chargers in Week 5, were off the following week, and are coming off a win against the Buccaneers). The Broncos are still one of the top five teams in the AFC despite a 3-3 record. Coming off the bye and playing at home heavily favors the Broncos, and Tracy Porter will be looking to pick off the quarterback who he made a Super Bowl champion just a few short years ago. Brees never goes down without a fight, though, so it should still be a fun game to watch.

Stay tuned for recaps of this week’s games. Thanks for reading and enjoy the eighth week of the season!

10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 8

Make the gold a bit brighter and this ought to be
the Redskins' permanent helmet.

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10.            Trade Deadline

Next Tuesday marks the NFL trade deadline and we usually expect to hear some talk leading up to the date. So far, things have been fairly quiet, and so several NFL.com analysts decided to make some guesses at what big names might be traded.

Some of them are absurd in my mind, such as Mr. Rosenthal’s suggestion that the Chiefs might deal Dwayne Bowe.

Mr. Charley Casserly, meanwhile, brought up an interesting idea of the Jets sending Tim Tebow out west to the Seahawks. Though the headline originally made me laugh – Seattle has Russell Wilson and Matt Flynn – he raised a very good point. Seattle has not been putting the ball into the end zone once they reach the end zone. The Jets haven’t used Tebow, but Seattle certainly could. Whether they would is another story. Tebow is such a polarizing figure it is hard to imagine which team would want him on their roster.

9.            Thursday Night Football

Tampa Bay faces Minnesota on Thursday night in a matchup I am not including in my Games to Watch list, but is intriguing nonetheless. It is a winnable game for Tampa Bay, but the Vikings are 5-2 and making a strong case for their legitimacy as a contender within the NFC. Is this the team to bring Minnesota its first Lombardi Trophy after four empty Super Bowl appearances? I doubt it. But this is a roster that, if most of the pieces stay in place, could be in a few years. Believe it or not, I think Christian Ponder will be considered an elite quarterback within three years.

Tampa Bay, meanwhile, is resting near the bottom of the league. But their aggressive style of play could keep them in the game. As it was, they nearly beat New Orleans and I don’t think the Vikings will rush out to such a large first half lead.

8.            Monday Night Football

Another game I didn’t include in my Games to Watch list, yet also a game that could be very good. San Francisco’s offense has really been exposing itself the past few weeks. Last Thursday night we were treated to a defensive battle between the 49ers and the Seahawks. This Monday, it’s the Cardinals who will face San Francisco, and the game will be in Arizona, which is very much in the Cardinals’ favor. Expect another defensive battle, but don’t expect the Cardinals to fall so easily.

7.            Fantasy Disappointments

There were plenty of fantasy disappointments this week, so I’ll just list a few that stood out to me.

• New Orleans won their game, but the lack of takeaways and just one sack left them two points in the red.
• After four straight weeks of 13+ points, it was a bit disappointing to see Larry Fitzgerald score just 4 points this week.
• A.J. Green scored 6.5 points in my fantasy league this week. Not bad, right? Well, the last time he scored fewer than 14.5 points was Week 1’s 9.5-point performance. In fact, in that time he’s scored 20 points once and 30+ twice. So I’ll buy a disappointing Week 7 performance from Green.

6.            Fantasy Surprises

• Chris Johnson has been coming on stronger the past four weeks, but I don’t think even he expected to score more than 30 fantasy points this week.
• After a slow start, Josh Freeman has been solid after Tampa Bay’s bye week, recording 28 fantasy points in Week 6 and 31 more this past week.

5.            Games to Watch

Like last week, I’ll be more specific on why these are the biggest games to watch in my predictions post tomorrow.

• San Diego Chargers at Cleveland Browns (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Atlanta Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Washington Redskins at Pittsburgh Steelers (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• New Orleans Saints at Denver Broncos (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)

4.            Power Rankings

For the sake of space, I will list just the top 6 and the bottom 6 here. You can see the rest on NFL.com.

1. Atlanta Falcons	27. Buffalo Bills
2. Houston Texans	28. Carolina Panthers
3. Chicago Bears	29. Cleveland Browns
4. New York Giants	30. Oakland Raiders
5. San Francisco 49ers	31. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Green Bay Packers	32. Kansas City Chiefs

The Texans are the only AFC team in the top six, you may have noticed. In fact, after Houston at number 2 you have to look all the way down at numbers 8 and 9 to find the Ravens and the Patriots respectively. Meanwhile, the Panthers are the only NFC team in the bottom six. Is the NFC really more competitive this year? I tend to agree with the rankings as they are. We might even see a 7-9 team win an AFC division this year, though I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that.

The Power Poll is a better representation of where the teams stack up, in my opinion. Check that out here.

3.            Chicago Bears

I wrote about the Bears yesterday on my Monday Night Football Afterword. I said then that I’m not buying the Bears, but NFL.com analysts don’t agree with me. The Bears are #3 on the Power Rankings and they were voted to #4 on the Power Poll.

To any of my readers who are fans of the Bears, don’t think that I don’t consider Chicago deserving of their 5-1 record. But I also will restate that I need to see them beat some good teams before I give them a true vote of confidence. So far they’ve played the Packers, who were not at their best, and they lost that game. In the mean time, I’m still keeping myself away from that bandwagon.

2.            Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons maintained the top ranking over their bye week, but will they keep it after Week 8? The Philadelphia Eagles are next to unbeatable after a bye week. Even in their poor years they manage to win the game following a bye. But Atlanta is also coming off a bye. A quick sneak peak into my Week 8 picks, I give the edge to Philly on account of it being at home, but Atlanta won’t give up their unbeaten record without a solid fight.

1.            Throwback Uniforms

Oh, throwbacks. Each one is like the New York Yankees. You either love it or you hate it; there is no in-between. Last week we saw the Patriots and Buccaneers don their throwbacks, ones that I love! I know some people can’t stand the powder orange uniforms from Tampa Bay’s early days, but I love them.

This week, we get to see the Redskins take on the Pittsburgh Bumble Bees Steelers. I’m not so much a fan of those jerseys. But the Redskins could take the hint and get their throwbacks out, too. I’m not talking about the white jersey and gold pants. I love those and they should wear those full-time. I’m talking about the gold helmet with the red ‘R’ – I love that helmet and the Redskins need to bring that back permanently, just like the Pats (and maybe the Bucs) should do with theirs.