Wild-Card Afterword: Ravens vs Colts

Anquan Boldin had 5 receptions for 145 yards and this
touchdown in Baltimore's Wild-Card matchup with Indy.
Photo credit to USA Today.

The Colts got out to a terrible start and never recovered. They had multiple opportunities to steal this game from the Ravens, and they never took them.

Joe Flacco didn’t look very good in the first half. He wasn’t protected well, he made poor decisions and often even poorer passes. But his receivers came to play, Anquan Boldin more than anyone else.

A pair of very impressive receptions by Boldin in the first half went a long way to settle down his quarterback. Flacco looked like a completely different player in the second half, putting great touch on balls thrown down the field and trusting his receivers to keep making plays. Boy, did they.

The game had a closer feel than the 24-9 final score would suggest, but Baltimore’s offense played like they were never threatened.

On the other side of the ball, Ray Lewis was a bigger factor than I expected. I knew he would provide a huge emotional boost, but to have 13 tackles in his first game since Week 6? He was everywhere on the field. That wouldn’t have surprised me much, but even before his injury he didn’t appear as involved as he was Sunday.

What impressed me most was the overall play by Baltimore’s defense. Indianapolis ran roughly 23 plays in the first quarter. Baltimore was in the single-digits. Even though Baltimore kept Indy from scoring, that is a lot more time spent on the field than they would like to have spent. Remember that the Colts have come up with explosive plays throughout the season, so to play so tired but keep Indy out of the end zone all game impressed me very much.

An emotional season for the Colts ends in Chuck Pagano’s old home, and the coach shared an emotional moment with a Baltimore defensive player as time expired, which was very touching.

Baltimore will play in Denver next week, a tough task for anyone. It will be a much bigger challenge to take on Peyton Manning and his receiving corps, as well as to face a much more talented defense, but Baltimore’s performance today certainly did not hurt their outlook for that game. It should be a good one, and I will preview it Thursday.

Sunday Football Afterword: Week 17 Early Games

There wasn't too much positive news for teams in yesterday's
early games, but Super Bowl winning head coach Sean Payton
will return to the Saints' sideline in 2013.
Photo credit to NY Daily News.

It was a long Sunday with all sixteen games played yesterday. The Buccaneers snapped a five-game losing streak by winning their season finale. After being in playoff contention in early December, they dropped way out but really knocked around the Falcons in Week 17. With the NFC South clinched, Atlanta still played their starters and suffered injuries to two defensive leaders. Hopefully neither is significant.

Buffalo crushed the New York Jets at home, 28-9 to end their season. It was not enough, however, to save Chan Gailey’s job as head coach. On the Jets’ side, General Manager Mike Tannenbaum is out. Rex Ryan, however, will return to coach the Jets in 2013.

Baltimore only played their starters early in the game, and Cincinnati followed suit shortly after, but Cincinnati proved to have a slightly better second team than the Ravens. Both teams will play next weekend and I will preview their games later in the week.

Houston struggled in consecutive weeks, first to the Vikings and then to the Colts, who they beat two weeks ago. This time, Chuck Pagano was on the sideline and it was in Indianapolis, where the Texans are 0-11 all-time. People try to keep from reading into that stuff, but come on; the Colts beat the Texans in Indy last year when they won two games and Houston won the AFC South. There’s something to that stat.

In New Orleans, the Saints looked to be headed to a .500 record but a poor defense – New Orleans set the NFL record for yards allowed in a season – and a Drew Brees pick-6 allowed Carolina to take a significant lead. The Saints’ offense came back firing, but their defense could not keep the Panthers from scoring more and Carolina ended up winning the game.

In New York, Tom Coughlin wants answers. The Giants have been the most inconsistent team in the past six or so weeks of any team I can ever remember seeing in the NFL. They closed the season with a 35-point victory over the Eagles, spurred on by the fact that they could still get a playoff spot with some help, but they would need the win. Michael Vick got the start for Philly but looked no better than he did early in the season. However, the celebration for the win was short-lived, only about five-minutes long, in fact.

Chicago’s defense kept Calvin Johnson from eclipsing 2,000 receiving yards, but nearly let the Lions come all the way back from a 20-3 deficit late in the second quarter. The win gave the Bears a playoff spot if the Packers could beat the Vikings in a later game. It also eliminated the Giants from the playoffs just a few minutes after they concluded their defeat of the Eagles. The Bears were ultimately knocked out of the postseason (I will get into that in my later post) and Lovie Smith was fired this morning.

With Ben Roethlisberger starting this time around, the Steelers avoided turning the ball over eight time, and in doing so beat AFC North rival Cleveland in both teams’ season finales. The Browns’ head coach Pat Shurmur and GM Tom Heckert were both fired this morning.

The Titans let Jacksonville stay in it early but ended up rolling to a 38-20 victory over Jacksonville, mostly due to three interceptions by Chad Henne, two of which were returned for touchdowns by rookie Zach Brown, and two punt return TDs by Darius Reynaud. Jacksonville GM Gene Smith was fired today after the Jaguars suffered their worst record since the franchise was created in 1995.

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

10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 17

ESPN ranks the Broncos #1 and they'll enter the playoff
red hot and likely with a first-round bye.

Merry Christmas everyone!! ‘Like’ The All-Sports Crew on Facebook to keep up with updates! The All-Sports Crew will air on WMUC Sports, live, tomorrow from 7-8 p.m.

10.            Chuck Pagano Back to Work

Coach Pagano returned to work as the Colts’ head coach on Monday. I never thought I would see a more emotional press conference than when Jim Irsay and Peyton Manning announced his release from the Colts. I was wrong, and Chuck’s press conference is one worth watching.

9.            NBC gets Sunday Night Playoff Game

I know, I know, technically it’s not the playoffs. But if Dallas loses, their season is over. If Washington loses, it’s almost certain their season would be over. So for both teams, it is almost definitely going to be a win-and-in, loser-go-home situation. Makes for great football, and NBC will get such a game from the NFC East once again (they’ve gotten NFC East games with similar circumstances each of the past three years (NYG vs Philly in ’10, NYG vs Dallas in ’11, and now Dallas vs Washington in ’12)). Let’s see what Troy Aikman has to say this time around.

8.            Playoff Implications: AFC

Houston Texans – A win against the Colts would clinch home-field advantage, otherwise they need New England and Denver to lose. If only one of them lose, they would at least get a first-round bye.

Denver Broncos – With a win or a New England loss, Denver clinches a first-round bye. With a win and a Houston loss, Denver clinches home-field advantage.

New England Patriots – A win and either a Denver or Houston loss clinches a first round bye. A win plus loses from Denver and Houston would net New England home-field advantage.

7.            Playoff Implications: NFC

Green Bay Packers – Already in the postseason, this week’s matchup with Minnesota is still important. A win secures a first round bye. If they tie the Vikings, they need San Francisco to lose or tie the Cardinals, and if Green Bay loses, they need San Francisco to lose and Seattle to lose or tie the Rams.

San Francisco 49ers – A win or tie or a Seattle loss or tie clinches the NFC West. A win and a Green Bay loss would clinch a first-round bye.

Washington Redskins – A win over Dallas clinches the NFC East. If they lose, they’ll need Chicago to lose to Detroit and Minnesota to lose to Green Bay to still get in.

Dallas Cowboys – Dallas wins the NFC East with a victory in Washington. They have no other playoff scenarios.

New York Giants – They need to beat Philly (Michael Vick is starting) and they need Dallas to lose or tie, Chicago to lose and Minnesota to lose.

Minnesota Vikings – A win gets them into the playoffs, otherwise things rest on Chicago, Dallas and the Giants.

Chicago Bears – They can clinch a playoff spot with a win and a Minnesota loss.

6.            Fantasy Disappointments

Not many leagues continue this late into the season, but mine uses all 17 (this is the last year of that nonsense). There were plenty of fantasy disappointments this week, so I’ll just list a few that stood out to me.

• BenJarvus Green-Ellis has been on a tear this season, especially during the second half, but just 14 yards on 15 carries yesterday and 1.5 fantasy points had to be disappointing.
• Frank Gore has been a rock in fantasy football all season long, like BJGE, but he only managed 2-points against Seattle in a rough day for the entire San Francisco team.
• Atlanta won without Tony Gonzalez? Not exactly, but it isn’t far from the truth as he had one catch for less than 10 yards, netting him 0.5 points in my PPR league.

5.            Fantasy Surprises

• How about Dez Bryant, who had 42.5 fantasy point in my league on the strength of nine catches for 224 yards and a pair of 58-yard touchdown catches.
• Roddy White topped 30 fantasy points for the second time this season with a 33-point performance against Detroit on Saturday night.
• After being relatively quiet since his Week 2, 34.5-point performance, Reggie Bush emerged again with 30 points against Buffalo on Sunday, with one rushing touchdown and two receiving touchdowns.

4.            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.

• Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Dallas Cowboys at Washington Redskins (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)

3.            Power Rankings

Because Around the League does their rankings later on Tuesday Afternoons, I instead used a different set of Expert Rankings on ESPN. You can see the rest of the list, but I will, as usually, only list the top and bottom six here.

1. Denver Broncos	27. Tennessee Titans
2. Atlanta Falcons	28. Detroit Lions
3. San Francisco 49ers	29. Philadelphia Eagles
4. Green Bay Packers	30. Oakland Raiders
5. New England Patriots	31. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Seattle Seahawks	32. Kansas City Chiefs

The Redskins are in there at #9 and the Ravens are #10. The Cowboys and Giants are in the 14 and 15 spots, respectively on the ESPN list. This actually looks like a more accurate list than what ATL publishes on NFL.com. They put a little too much emphasis on record in my opinion.

2.            Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta seems to be peaking around the right time. I don’t give too much credence to their wins over New York and Detroit, but they did end Drew Brees’ touchdown pass record and bounced back after a loss they shouldn’t have suffered against Carolina. This week’s game against Tampa Bay will give us an indication of whether they have any chance of ending their playoff woes.

1.            Denver Broncos

I know Denver’s second-half schedule has been among the easiest in the league (maybe the easiest), but 10 consecutive wins, likely to be 11 if they don’t stumble against Kansas City, still make a team hot and confident. The fact they haven’t lost to a team they were supposed to beat, and that their three losses all came to good teams and when Peyton was still new to the team, spells good things for this team in the playoffs. I predicted them to lose six of their first seven and then win nine straight after that, so this season has gone better than expected.

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

The 49ers are overcoming every obstacle and are again
considered Super Bowl contenders.

‘Like’ The All-Sports Crew on Facebook to keep up with updates! The All-Sports Crew will air on WMUC Sports, live, tonight from 7-8.

10.            Sean Payton

By now you all have undoubtedly heard about Sean Payton’s contract situation. Just to clarify for people who may not realize, this is something that happened shortly after Payton and the Saints had agreed on an extension. It did not just happen this week; news of it only surfaced this week.

People are saying that the Cowboys can lure Payton away, which technically is true but I don’t see it happening. The Saints should have their coaching icon back next year after his suspension ends.

9.            Jerry Jones

Jones said a few days ago that by now he would’ve fired himself as General Manager of the Dallas Cowboys. Now he says he doesn’t see himself hiring someone else to perform GM responsibilities, saying that he will maintain his role of Owner, President and General Manager of the Cowboys. This guy seems to get more senile each year.

8.            ‘Giant’ Defensive Issues?

Tom Coughlin said his defensive unit was soft against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I saw a soft defense against the Dallas Cowboys a week earlier. New York was having a lot of issues on defense early in the season as members of their secondary dropped like flies. They seemed to have covered the holes, miraculously considering the personnel they had to replace the usual starters. It seems those holes are flaring up. The Giants are always better in the postseason, and the NFC East is particularly weak this year, so they shouldn’t be too concerned, yet. Still, Giants fans are starting to feel antsy.

7.            Going Bald, in a good way

If you read my Sunday Football Afterword for the early games, you may have clicked the link I provided to Chuck Pagano’s postgame locker room speech. Yesterday, several players on the Indianapolis Colts’ roster shaved their heads in honor of Coach Pagano, who is undergoing treatment for leukemia.

I don’t believe Andrew Luck was one of those who shaved his head, but I imagine he’d look pretty silly if he did that but didn’t shave his caveman beard.

UPDATE (11:20am EST): According to Adam Schefter, Andrew Luck has, in fact, shaved his head. No word on the status of his facial hair.

6.            Fantasy Disappointments

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

• The number one player to jump out at me was Percy Harvin. He hadn’t scored fewer than 10.5 points in my league all season, but he put up just two against Seattle. Granted his ankle is bothering him, and because of that he didn’t play this week, still, it’s a fantasy disappointment.
• Titus Young went nuts against Seattle, one of the best secondaries in the league. Everybody scrambled to grab him off the waiver wire, but for what? He scored just three points against a terrible Jaguars team. Hope you didn’t give up anyone important for him.
• The biggest fantasy disappointment of them all? Eli Manning. He has been a disappointment for fantasy owners and has failed to touch 20 points in the past four weeks. But Week 9 was the worst yet. He scored just three points as he threw for no touchdowns and one pick for the second consecutive week. At this rate, Eric, it might be better to start Sam Bradford, and he’s on bye!

5.            Fantasy Surprises

• The obvious starter to this list is Doug Martin. Sure it was his fourth consecutive double-digit week in fantasy, and sure he scored 35.5 points in Week 8. But if anything, that was all the more reason to bench him. Nobody scores that many in consecutive weeks. Nobody, that is, except Doug Martin, who put up 59 points in my fantasy league this past week.
• Brandon Marshall had caught three touchdown passes over four games before hauling in three on Sunday against Tennessee. For his efforts, his owner was awarded 34.5 points in my fantasy league.
• The Saints defense scored 25 points this week. Funny, then, that they are projected to finish this week five points in the red.

4.            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.

• Tennessee Titans at Miami Dolphins (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Atlanta Falcons at New Orleans Saints (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• St. Louis Rams at San Francisco 49ers (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Houston Texans at Chicago Bears (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)

3.            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. Oakland Raiders
2. Houston Texans	28. Tennessee Titans
3. Chicago Bears	29. Buffalo Bills
4. San Francisco 49ers	30. Cleveland Browns
5. Green Bay Packers	31. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Baltimore Ravens	32. Kansas City Chiefs

The Saints and Panthers made fairly significant jumps after winning their third and second games, respectively. Other than that, several teams jumped or fell a couple of spots but by and large the landscape looks much the same in the NFL.com Power Rankings.

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

2.            Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons are the near-unanimous number one team in the NFL according to NFL.com’s Power Poll. They are still undefeated after run-ins with the Eagles and Cowboys in consecutive weeks. Now they face a New Orleans team with a level of confidence few thought they would have at this point in the season. Oh yeah, and the game is in the Superdome. If they win this, they might not lose the rest of the way.

1.            San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers are the one team that stole away a first-place vote from the Atlanta Falcons on the NFL.com Power Poll. They’ve lost a couple of games, but they continue to fight back and not let those losses change their attitude heading into the following week. In a stacked NFC, the 49ers are here to stay in 2012.

Sunday Football Afterword: Week 5 Early Games

The Colts earned an emotional win just a week after learning
head coach Chuck Pagano is fighting leukemia.

There were plenty of headlines to make Sunday’s games exciting, even when the games themselves weren’t so much.

Baltimore played to a 9-6 win in Kansas City, hardly a must-watch game. Baltimore gave up 140 rushing yards to Jamaal Charles, but Kansas City turned the ball over four times. It was possibly the most boring game of the day, despite several blowouts during the later games. Matt Cassel went down with a head injury, and the crowd began cheering. It is still not apparent if the cheering was for Cassel getting injured, for Brady Quinn entering the game, or for Cassell when he got up and was leaving the field, but it was enough to send one Chiefs player on a tirade about football players not being gladiators.

I fully expected Cincinnati to beat Miami, but not only did Andy Dalton continue his streak of consecutive games to start a season with at least one interception (don’t worry Redskins fans, he’s nowhere near your record), he threw two picks on the game, the second one on Cincinnati’s last drive of the game. Miami won 17-13.

Cleveland forced an early Ahmad Bradshaw fumble and turned it into seven points on a powerful Trent Richardson run. A few minutes later a big touchdown pass gave Cleveland a 14-0 lead and suddenly everyone in America was put on upset alert. It was all for naught as Eli Manning kept his cool and led his team to a 41-27 rout of the still-winless Browns.

Michael Vick’s turnover issues seemed gone after Philadelphia’s best game of the young season, a legitimate victory over the Giants in Week 4. They came back in full force yesterday as he fumbled twice and Pittsburgh won on a game-winning field goal by Shaun Suisham.

Atlanta and Washington played one of the more exciting games of the day. Washington had their best defensive game of the season, and it came against one of the best offenses in the NFC. For once it was their offense that struggled at times, especially on third down. Robert Griffin III went down in the third quarter with a concussion (the Redskins could be in trouble about how they reported it, though) and Kirk Cousins came in and threw a 77-yard touchdown pass for his first career touchdown. He struggled afterwards, mostly due to a worn-out offensive line not giving him time to set, and threw two interceptions that kept a possible comeback from forming. Atlanta is now 5-0 for the first time in franchise history and the Redskins have lost 8 consecutive home games. They play Minnesota at home next week.

The biggest story line from the early games came out of Indianapolis. In a storybook ending, the Colts overcame several lead changes to beat the Packers and secure a game ball for hospitalized head coach Chuck Pagano, who was diagnosed with a treatable form of Leukemia last weekend. Reggie Wayne, who had ties to Pagano from his college days and accepted a smaller contract than he deserved in order to stay in Indianapolis and play for Pagano, has a career-high 212 receiving yards, including several key plays in the fourth quarter while battling cramps.

Keep Coach Pagano in your prayers. The form of leukemia he is battling is one that many adults have been known to recover from, but there is no telling how late he may have been in getting it diagnosed. To show your support, include the hashtag #CHUCKSTRONG on tweets.

Check back a few hours for my recap of the later games. Tomorrow I will publish my recap of tonight’s Monday Night Football matchup between the unbeaten Houston Texans and the reeling New York Jets, who have said they plan to make more use of Tim Tebow in the game.