Puff’s Points, Pro Bowl

If no team steps forward and volunteers for next season, the NFL
will assign a team to participate in HBO's Hard Knocks next Summer.

No, I’m not going to write a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about the Pro Bowl. I’m excited for Sunday’s game because of the new set-up, but because I don’t know what to expect there really isn’t much to write about leading up to it.

This blog post is titled the way it is so that if I can come up with some more interesting topics and facts to address next week, I’ll have another title available.

So let’s get to what has piqued my interesting this week.

1. Battle of Ones

Super Bowl XLVIII will mark the 10^th time the top seeded teams from both conferences will meet with the Lombardi Trophy on the line.

The NFL implemented a seeding structure the playoffs following the 1975 regular season. In five of the first ten Super Bowls after that, the top seeded teams from both conferences made it all the way to the finish line.

But this year marks just the second time it has happened since 1993. The other was in 2009 when Peyton Manning’s Colts met the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV. Now Manning’s Broncos will look to avoid meeting the same fate against the Seattle Seahawks.

2. More New Rules Coming

Roger Goodell announced on Monday that the NFL may explore eliminating the PAT (point after touchdown) attempt, making touchdowns worth seven points and then possibly implementing a play from scrimmage that would give an eighth point if successful. You could elect not to attempt the extra play and keep the seven points or try for the eighth point and go back to six if you fail to convert it.

But I don’t understand why we need to change anything about the PAT. They are not really automatic. Sure there were only five misses this year and there were only five misses last year, but as recently as 2009 we had 20 missed PAT’s in a single regular season, and that followed a 2008 regular season in which only six PAT’s were missed.

There is some level of skill involved in these kicks. So the only reason that such a chance would be warranted, in my opinion, is if there are a lot of injuries occurring on these plays. I don’t have any official numbers, but I don’t believe there are many injuries on PAT or field goals attempts.

3. Review Changes On the Way

Even as Roger Goodell has me scratching my head on one possible rule change, he has me praising the league for considering another. Penalized hits may soon become reviewable. We have seen a number of legal hits draw penalty flags in the past couple seasons. One of the most memorable came when San Francisco visited Seattle during the 2012 regular season.

I haven’t complained too much about these flags. The speed of the game and the league’s emphasis on player safety forces referees to throw the flag for anything that could be considered a borderline illegal hit.

But now we may get the best of both worlds. The refs will still carry out the league’s safety initiative while coaches will be able to ask them to take a second look to confirm whether a given hit is legal or not.

It is important to continue to push player safety, but as defenders try to re-learn how to tackle in order to stay within the rules they should not be penalized for clean hits just because they can be heard from a mile away.

4. Denver Joins Elite Company

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots have each been to seven Super Bowls. The Steelers have six wins in eight trips, the Cowboys have five wins in eight trips and the Patriots have three victories in their seven Super Bowl appearances.

Denver’s win on Sunday vaulted them to the seventh appearance in their franchise’s history. The Broncos are 2-4 in the Super Bowl with their wins following the 1997 and 1998 regular seasons, John Elway’s last two seasons of his Hall of Fame career.

5. Hard Knocks

Some of you may remember that during the NFL’s fall meeting a rule was set in place that will allow the league to appoint a team to covered by HBO’s Hard Knocks if no team volunteers.

There are some rules concerning eligibility. If you have a first-year coach, have made the playoffs in the last two years, or have been a subject of the show in the past ten years, the NFL will not appoint you for the show. I am not sure if such teams are allowed to volunteer.

This year’s eligible teams are the Cardinals, Bills, Bears, Jaguars, Giants, Raiders, Steelers and Rams, according to NFL.com.

6. Super Injuries

The Denver Broncos got some good news on Monday when running back Knowshon Moreno’s X-rays came back negative. Moreno suffered a rib injury in Sunday’s game against New England and John Fox listed him as day-to-day this week. With two weeks to prepare and recover, there is no way Moreno will miss Super Bowl XLVIII.

Seattle hopes to have Percy Harvin for the Super Bowl. He did not pass concussion protocol last week and could not participate in the NFC Championship game against San Francisco. Seattle played without him all season and managed just fine without him on Sunday. But if they can clear him and get him working in practice this week he could be a key contributor to their offense next week.

7. Power Rankings

I don’t know how this will work with just two teams, and keep in mind that weather could completely screw with a lot of the components of these rankings. But since I’ve done it all postseason, I decided to go ahead and rank Denver and Seattle against each other in all the same categories that I have been comparing all the playoff teams to each other.

1. Seattle Seahawks (0.827)

2. Denver Broncos (1.024)

My guess is that adverse weather would swing this even more in Seattle’s favor, but there are other factors that will go into this game. Over the next week and a half I will be going back through game film of these two teams’ entire seasons. My official prediction, as usual, will come from Madden, but I will be supporting the outcome of my Madden game with the research I’ll be doing over the next several days.

Deion Sanders and Jerry Rice, along with the selected team captains, will be dividing up this year’s Pro Bowlers to their teams on Wednesday evening. I will write something up later this week about that game.

Puff’s Points, Wild Card

Five head coaches were fired on Monday in addition to the one
midseason firing we had. Other jobs remain in the balance.

An early Happy New Year to you all! Also, happy birthday to my mother!

It’s not quite 2014 yet, but the 2013 regular season is over and it’s time for the playoffs to begin.

I will spend the next two days previewing and predicting each wild card game. But before I do that, I would like to give you this week’s list of things you should know, as well as my current power rankings (based on my own mathematical equation) of the 12 teams still standings.

Let’s get to it!

1. New Faces

Nearly half of this year’s playoff participants are new since last year. In the AFC, San Diego and Kansas City are making their first appearances since 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Half of the NFC participants were not in last year’s tournament. The Saints missed the playoffs last year following three straight trips. Philadelphia last appeared when they won the NFC East in 2010. It’s been a little longer for the Panthers as their last trip came in 2008 when they won the NFC South with a 12-4 record and then went one-and-done, losing to Arizona in the divisional round.

2. AFC West

Denver, Kansas City and San Diego have all earned spots in this year’s playoffs. This marks the fourth time in the past decade that a single division has taken both wild card spots in their conference’s bracket. The AFC North did it in 2011, the AFC South did it in 2007 and the NFC East did it in 2006.

Fun fact, of the four divisions that have done it in the past 10 years, only the 2011 AFC South had three teams with at least 10 wins (the Colts had 13, the Jaguars had 11 and the Titans had 10).

3. Third’s Not the Charm

This is the second year in a row that a team has won 10 games but finished third in their division and missed the playoffs. The Chicago Bears did it last year and the Arizona Cardinals suffered the same fate this season. It’s one of the few arguments for expanding the playoffs by one team per conference.

4. Black Monday

Several head coaches got the axe on Monday. More may come over the next week or so. Those given their papers on the first day of their teams’ offseasons were:

Rob Chudzinski in Cleveland

Mike Shanahan in Washington

Leslie Frazier in Minnesota

Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay

Jim Schwartz in Detroit

Remember that Houston fired Gary Kubiak midseason and Wade Phillips took over. We’ll be looking to see what happens with him and also with Mike Munchak in Tennessee.

5. Tomlin Takes the High Road

Mike Tomlin could have bitched and moaned about the officiating error in San Diego that allowed the Chargers to take Kansas City into overtime and eventually beat them, eliminating the Steelers from the playoffs.

Instead, he chose to take a different path. Though he does feel that officiating is something that should be high on the NFL’s offseason agenda, namely working a deal to make at least some of them full-time NFL employees, he put the blame on himself and his team.

Pittsburgh started the season 0-4. The fact that they pulled their record to 8-8 and came just a tiebreaker away from the playoffs was incredible. But when you dig that deep a hole for yourself, it’s hard to get upset over one officiating mistake.

6. 2014 Regular Season

Though the week-by-week schedule has not been released, we now know which teams will play each other and where each game will be played for next season.

Peyton Manning will get to host his old team next year but will have to travel to Foxboro to see Tom Brady like he did this season. Brady will have a tough road matchup of his own, though, as his Patriots will visit Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau.

Focusing on our local teams, let’s look at Washington first. The Redskins will face the NFC West and AFC South. They’ll be hosting the Rams, Seahawks, Jaguars and Titans and visiting the Cardinals, 49ers, Texans and Colts. They will also host the Buccaneers and visit the Vikings, based on their places in their respective divisions.

The Ravens will get the AFC South and the NFC South next year. They will host the Jaguars, Titans, Falcons and Panthers and will visit the Texans, Colts, Saints and Bucs. Did any of you notice that their AFC South home and away schedule is the same as Washington’s? They’re other conference games will be at Miami and at home against San Diego.

7. Pro Bowl

Most of you by now are aware that this year’s Pro Bowl will not feature an AFC team playing against an NFC team. Instead, the players with the most votes by position, regardless of conference, are placed into a pool and will be drafted to two teams, led by Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders.

As an example of the players being picked regardless of conference, of the six running backs that will be placed in the pool Jamaal Charles is the only one from an AFC team.

The teams with the most players voted to the Pro Bowl are:

San Francisco – 9 players (4 offensive, 5 defensive)

Kansas City – 8 players (2 offensive, 5 defensive, 1 special teams)

Seattle – 6 players (3 offensive, 3 defensive)

Carolina – 5 players (3 offensive, 2 defensive)

Cleveland – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 defensive)

Denver – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 special teams)

New Orleans – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 defensive)

For our local teams, the Ravens will have four players in the Pro Bowl. Marshal Yanda made it on the offensive line, Haloti Ngata and Terrell Suggs made it on defense, and Justin Tucker will be one of the kickers. The only Redskin voted into the Pro Bowl is offensive tackle Trent Williams.

8. Injury Report

Official injury reports have not yet been released for the upcoming weekend. Don’t be surprised if most teams don’t make their public until Friday. But we do know the status of a few key players going into Saturday and Sunday.

Clay Mathews will not be active for Green Bay’s game against San Francisco on Sunday. With Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb both healthy, though, the Packers should still be able to put together a solid game and maybe even pull off an upset against the 49ers, who are currently favored by 2.5 points.

Terence Newman and Tyler Eifert were both inactive for Cincinnati on Sunday but are listed as questionable for their Sunday matchup with San Diego.

Kansas City lists Tamba Hali as questionable. If he can play alongside Justin Houston, don’t be so sure that Indy will pull off the same result of their meeting in Houston in Week 16.

Looking ahead to the divisional round, Wes Welker has been cleared to practice for Denver after suffering a concussion a few weeks ago and Percy Harvin (hip) will practice this week and Seattle hopes to have him available next week.

9. Preseason Predictions

Below are my predictions from before the preseason began of who would make this year’s playoffs. Correct picks are in bold (didn’t necessarily get the seeding right for those teams):

AFC

1. Denver Broncos

2. New England Patriots

3. Baltimore Ravens

4. Houston Texans

5. Miami Dolphins

6. Kansas City Chiefs

NFC

1. Chicago Bears

2. Atlanta Falcons

3. Washington Redskins

4. San Francisco 49ers

5. New Orleans Saints

6. Green Bay Packers

10. Power Rankings

Below is my list of power rankings, only taking the 12 playoff teams into consideration. Keep in mind that these do not take into account teams’ performances at home versus on the road. These consider the twelve teams’ entire seasons compared just to each other in several statistical categories.

1. SEA (2.287)	5. NO (3.397)	9. PHI (4.859)
2. CIN (2.524)	6. SF (3.792)	10. IND (5.014)
3. DEN (2.748)	7. NE (4.006)	11. SD (5.324)
4. CAR (3.256)	8. KC (4.532)	12. GB (5.446)

We’ll see how these rankings stand up this postseason. The way I would read it is that a higher ranked team should beat a lower ranked team when the higher ranked team is at home. For example, Denver should beat New England in Denver. But if the lower ranked team is at home, like when San Francisco plays at Green Bay this weekend, this may be less likely to correctly predict the winning team.

10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 14

Andrew Luck is having one of the best rookie seasons of
all time. He has brought a quick turnaround to a 'spoiled' city.
Photo credit to Bleacher Report.

‘Like’ The All-Sports Crew on Facebook to keep up with updates! The All-Sports Crew will NOT air on WMUC Sports tonight. We hope to put a podcast out sometime this week, so look for updates on that.

10.            Bear Problems

If the Bears weren’t already in trouble, they certainly are now. Brian Urlacher hopes to be back for the playoffs, but he will sit out the rest of the regular season with a hamstring injury.

As if that weren’t bad enough, a shoulder injury from the Seahawks game has Tim Jennings’ status uncertain, receiver Earl Bennett is expected to be out against the Vikings, and Devin Hester is trying to come back from a concussion while Alshon Jeffery is coming back from a knee issue.

9.            Playoff Hunt

Houston can clinch their division with a win and a loss or tie by the Colts. Baltimore can win the AFC North crown with a win and losses by both Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. New England and Denver have both clinched their divisions already.

In the NFC, Atlanta has clinched the NFC South. The other three divisions cannot be won this week, but San Francisco can clinch a playoff spot with a lot of help. They need a win, but they would also need Dallas, Minnesota, Tampa Bay and Washington to lose and St. Louis or Seattle to lose or tie.

The Bengals are the first team out in the AFC, with the Jets, Bills and Dolphins trailing them by two games. The Redskins are the first team out in the NFC with tiebreakers over Tampa Bay and Minnesota and the tiebreaker so far over Dallas, all of whom have the same 6-6 records as Washington.

8.            Fantasy Disappointments

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

• Tom Brady had his worst fantasy game of the season against Miami on Sunday, scoring just 12 points against a team he usually lights it up against.
• Drew Brees takes the cake, this week. Just 3 fantasy points in his five-interception, zero-touchdown performance against Atlanta. It was just his third sub-20 point game of the season, and his first with fewer than 16 points.

7.            Fantasy Surprises

• Donnie Avery hadn’t made much noise since the first two weeks of the season, but two touchdowns made for a nice 23.5 points in my fantasy league.
• Brady Quinn had not scored more than 4 points in a game this season. In fact, he only had 10 total fantasy points on the season. But the Chiefs played inspired on Sunday and Quinn was not immune has he threw his first two touchdowns of the season, topped 200 yards passing for the first time this season, and did not turn the ball over in a 19-point fantasy performance.
• Not really a surprise, but it is worth noting that Adrian Peterson had his second 30-point fantasy game of the season, his first game with 200 rushing yards this season, and his sixth consecutive game with 100 or more rushing yards.

6.            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 Washington Redskins (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• Dallas Cowboys at Cincinnati Bengals (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• New Orleans Saints at New York Giants (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Detroit Lions at Green Bay Packers (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Houston Texans at New England Patriots (Monday, 8:30 p.m.)

5.            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. Houston Texans	27. Carolina Panthers
2. Atlanta Falcons	28. Tennessee Titans
3. New England Patriots	29. Philadelphia Eagles
4. Denver Broncos	30. Jacksonville Jaguars
5. San Francisco 49ers	31. Kansas City Chiefs
6. Baltimore Ravens	32. Oakland Raiders

The Jets and Rams jumped four and five spots respectively while the Giants and Saints both fell four. Other than that the biggest difference is that Around The League now considers Oakland to be the worst in the NFL.

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

4.            Puff’s Rankings

I’ve taken the liberty of ranking every team in the NFL for myself. I ranked each team in a number of categories and then used a math formula to take each of them into consideration in my overall rankings of the teams. Here are my rankings heading into Week 14.

1. HOU (4.350)	9. SEA (7.735)	17. ARI (9.235)	25. IND (11.385)
2. SF (5.630)	10. CIN (8.330)	18. SD (9.580)	26. BUF (11.990)
3. DEN (6.200)	11. BAL (8.340)	19. CAR (9.735)	27. PHI (12.280)
4. NE (6.315)	12. WAS (8.445)	20. StL (9.985)	28. MIA (12.505)
5. CHI (6.370)	13. PIT (8.570)	21. CLE (10.450)	29. KC (12.705)
6. NYG (6.625)	14. DET (8.855)	22. NO (10.775)	30. OAK (12.900)
7. ATL (6.935)	15. DAL (9.000)	23. NYJ (10.795)	31. TEN (13.275)
8. GB (7.155)	16. TB (9.210)	24. MIN (10.980)	32. JAC (13.505)

Keep in mind this is essentially a ranking of where each team should be at this point in the season, based on various aspects of performance, with certain aspects weighted more heavily than others. Some teams have over- or under-achieved.

Feel free to ask about this, but please be clear that this is not necessarily how I would rank the teams, this is all math based.

3.            Atlanta Falcons

Well, the Falcons beat the Saints, so they have that going for them. They have already clinched the NFC South, but I don’t give that all that much merit. The defense is carrying the team, but the fact that they needed five takeaways to barely win against New Orleans tells me that this team is not one that is ready to perform in the playoffs against the best in the NFC.

2.            Houston Texans

The Texans are undoubtedly the best team in the NFL right now. They had a slip up against Green Bay that had everyone wondering if the Texans would collapse, especially with the loss of Brian Cushing. Wade Phillips has done a fantastic job with that defense and some of you may have even forgotten Cushing is out until I mentioned it just now. Their offense is no slouch, either. Unlike the Ravens, who also have an incredibly talented running back, the Texans use theirs. Also unlike the Ravens, the Texans actually have a quarterback that can drive them down the field consistently.

1.            MVP Race

I read an interesting piece by Adam Schein on NFL.com yesterday that really got me thinking. Schein has the honor of being one of the people who vote for who gets various AP Awards in the NFL, including MVP. His choice, right now, is Andrew Luck. It is easy to dismiss him right off the bat, for being a rookie if for no other reason, but he brings up a great point.

Of course, if we throw him into the mix we have to eliminate Peyton Manning – there is no guarantee that the Broncos couldn’t have a similar record since their three losses came against terrific competition and their wins haven’t really. You also have to eliminate Tom Brady – we’ve seen what a bad quarterback can do with that team with Belichick at the helm. And Adrian Peterson is also eliminated, for reasons other than the Vikings not likely being in the playoffs – Peterson hasn’t made a big impact on the Colts record, while Luck has.

Five game winning drives this season by the rookie, five of them. The Colts are almost certainly a top-10 draft pick team without Luck. With him, they are a very likely playoff team and only two games behind the Texans. If the rest of the voters can get over the fact that he’s a rookie, Andrew Luck is the obvious choice. Of course, maybe Robert Griffin III would then also have a case.