2013 Offseason Update, Week 19

Leach has moved quickly since being cut by the Ravens, visiting the
Miami Dolphins early in the week. He has also been linked to
Kansas City and Denver. Photo credit to ESPN.

We’re now seven weeks from Preseason. Also, Tebow-mania picked up a bit this week when he signed a two-year deal with New England, one that includes no guaranteed money.

Ravens Lose Major Piece

I’ve written about a possible opening for the Dolphins in the AFC East with the Patriots lack of experience at receiver, and about the important year Jake Locker and the Titans have in the AFC South.

Meanwhile, in the AFC North, the release of Vonta Leach could give the Bengals an even better chance to win the division than I already thought. These days, we rarely see impact players at fullback who have the ability to influence the outcome of games.

Leach is the exception to the rule. He can run the ball in more than just short-yardage situations, the can catch it out of the backfield, and he’s a solid blocker on both run and pass plays. With an offensive lines that already can be suspect at times, letting go of Leach is going to come back to bite Baltimore. I can it costing the Ravens up to two games this season, which should allow Cincinnati to win the division comfortably.

Austin Collie Working Out

After more concussions than even I can remember, Austin Collie, the former Indianapolis Colt, is trying to keep his NFL career afloat. He worked out for the Patriots on Wednesday and the 49ers on Thursday. Both teams are in dire need of experienced receivers. The Patriots only have a couple active receivers with solid NFL experience and the 49ers are looking someone to offset the loss of Michael Crabtree. San Francisco signed another receiver recently, Brandon Carswell, but he suffered a torn ACL.

Lombardi Turns 100

Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest coaches in NFL history and also one of the most quoted sports figures, would have turned 100 last Tuesday. To honor him, I’d like to share my Top 10 favorite Lombardi quotes.

10. “Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will all be judged on one thing: the result.”

9. “Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.”

8. “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”

7. “The difference between a successful person an others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

6. “Winning is not everything – but making the effort to win is.”

5a. “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”

5b. “Once your learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

4. “The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.”

3. “Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time.”

2. “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

1. “Watch your thoughts, they become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. What your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.”

If I am missing anything important, or if you just want to hear my thoughts on any other offseason news from the past week, feel free to contact me via my Twitter account, @cpuffnfl.

2013 Offseason Update, Week 12

The Jaguars showed off three of their four new uniforms last week. From left to right,
Eugene Monroe, Uche Nwaneri, Mercedes Lewis. Photo credit to NY Daily News.

Thursday marked the start of the 2013 NFL Draft. There wasn’t too much to get excited about at the top end, but there was plenty of depth and a few steals along the way. But the draft wasn’t the only news of the week, so let’s get into everything.

Jaguars New Uniforms

The Jacksonville Jaguars unveiled their new look, which you can see in the cover photo for this post. Changing uniform looks has worked for some teams in the past (e.g., the Tampa Bay Rays and the Seattle Seahawks). But I have a feeling Jacksonville will need more than a new look if they want the taste of success that has eluded them since Tom Coughlin left.

That said, I really like the new uniforms. The coolest part is the helmet. The matte black in the front fades into gold in the back of the helmet. I’m always a fan of taking chances in uniform fashion. Well, almost always. The Pittsburgh Steelers striped uniforms may be the ugliest I’ve ever seen in any sport.

NFL Draft

Eric Fisher (OT, Central Michigan) and Luke Joeckel (OT, Texas A&M) were taken first and second overall by the Chiefs and Jaguars, respectively. Both teams are in dire need of help on the offensive line. Still, it isn’t common for O-Linemen to go so high, especially two of them.

The first quarterback taken off the board was EJ Manuel of Florida State. The Bills selected him in the middle of the first round, and he remained the only quarterback taken on day one. The Jets used the 38^th overall pick on West Virginia QB Geno Smith, who was considered a Heisman frontrunner early last season after throwing for 656 yards and 8 touchdowns against Baylor. He completed 45 of 51 passes in that game, showing that he can be very accurate. He faded down the stretch last season though, which is why he fell out of the first round.

The Chargers traded up in the second round to draft Manti Te’o, the subject of a girlfriend hoax. The Chargers have been looking for a signature linebacker since Shawne Merriman’s career flamed out. Manti had a rough combine, but he has a great work ethic and could be a perfect fit in San Diego.

Former Oregon coach Chip Kelly selected Matt Barkley, rival USC’s quarterback, with the Eagles’ 4^th round pick.  Barkley was a pretty accurate quarterback in college but likely fell to the 98^th pick because of other USC quarterbacks who have not faired so well in the NFL. He has the potential to be considered the steal of the 2013 draft.

Another guy with that potential is Marcus Lattimore, the South Carolina running back who fell to the 131^st overall pick (a compensatory pick in the 4^th round). He injured his right knee against Tennessee and Dr. James Andrews performed his surgery. He is expected to be able to play again, but we don’t know when. James Andrews performed Adrian Peterson’s surgery and he came back as good as ever. We are also waiting to see how Robert Griffin III comes back after Andrews performed his knee surgery.

Carter to try out for Minnesota, Montana for 49ers

Two young men who were not drafted have been invited to try out for their fathers’ teams. Duron Carter, a wide receiver from Florida Atlantic, is the son of Cris Carter, who will be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this August. He was invited, after the draft ended, to try out for the Minnesota Vikings. There were some early reports that the Vikings were going to sign Carter, but for now it is nothing more than a tryout.

Nate Montana flamed out at Notre Dame and moved around a bit, finishing up with a year at Division II West Virginia Wesleyan. He’s more than a long shot to make an NFL roster. If Carter’s tryout with Minnesota is more than just a favor to an old superstar, there’s no way the same can be said for Nate Montana. His dad was the greatest quarterback in NFL history by the time he retired, and is still widely regarded as such.

Still, I hope both kids perform well enough to make it.

Tebow Released

Once again, the Jets get the last story in my weekly update. Last week, they had just completed a trade sending their best player to Tampa Bay. This time, they released Tim Tebow after a very bizarre year. Following the draft, New York found themselves overstocked on quarterbacks, with six of them. So they released Tim Tebow so he can, hopefully, find a home with a team that will actually use him. Geno Smith and Mark Sanchez are going to be competing for the starting job; the Jets would be fools to not have Smith starting by Week 1.

Right now, I’m not sure there is an optimal home for Tim Tebow. Jacksonville would still be a good spot for him, but he would have to switch positions with just about any other team.

If I’m missing anything important, or if you just want to hear my thoughts on any other offseason news from the past week, feel free to contact me via my Twitter account, @cpuffnfl.

10 Things You Need to Know: NFL Regular Season Week 11

Aaron Glenn has since retired, but was a big part of building
the Texans into the playoff contender they are today.
(Photo credit to Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

‘Like’ The All-Sports Crew on Facebook to keep up with updates! The All-Sports Crew will air on WMUC Sports, live, tonight from 6-8, yes, we have a special two-hour show for you today!

10.            Bigger Problems than Defense in New York

Last week I said the Giants defense is a problem. In my defense, I was right about that. But I also thought the offense would bounce back after some severely sub-par games and beat the Bengals. That didn’t happen. I am still holding out hope that they can get things back on track after this bye week, but this isn’t a ‘typical Giants November slump.’ They’ve never looked this bad before getting on track in the playoffs. Eli needs to find his mojo.

9.            Quarterback Injuries

This week in the NFL really hit home for me, what with all the injuries at the quarterback position we’ve suffered here at Maryland. We’ve had so many quarterbacks go down this season I can’t remember if it’s four with three ACL tears or five with four ACL tears.

The 49ers are in the best position to play well if Alex Smith misses time because Colin Kaepernick has been great when he’s played this season. But, as fortune would have it, Smith is also the least likely to miss time. In fact, both Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger have been ruled out this week, Big Ben with the only non-head injury of the group, and doctors are very worried about his ribs. Jay Cutler is the only one besides Smith whose status is still up in the air. The Bears and 49ers play on Monday Night in Week 11.

8.            Tim Tebow

This morning an article was released in which Tebow’s teammates with the Jets said the quarterback ‘stinks.’ I call foul on that one. Last year it was well documented that Tebow performed very poorly in practice, but in clutch time he always seemed to come threw somehow, some way. The Jets haven’t even gotten to see much of him in-game.

7.            If the Season Ended Today

Much of the playoff picture has not changed, but here’s something interesting: the Chargers are the first team out in the AFC right now. If they can beat the Broncos this weekend… Hahaha, I kill myself. At this point, the Bengals, and possibly the Titans, are the only AFC teams not already in the playoffs that could possibly sneak in.

On the NFC side, there’s still plenty available to shake up. The Saints are on a roll and who knows what they might be able to pull off down the stretch. The Vikings are still sticking around and the Buccaneers have made a strong case for themselves, too. The Giants are in serious danger of falling out – a mid-season collapse that extends into the latter part of the season will not give them a playoff birth this year, and I’m labeling the Seahawks ‘pretenders’ until further notice.

6.            Fantasy Disappointments

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

• Nate Washington has been a pretty solid target this year in Tennessee. He doesn’t get the most receptions but he tends to get good yards and then this week he ended up with just 0.5 points (no points for those of you in non-PPR leagues).
• Steve Smith has been in the double digits every game this season except in Weeks 4 and 5 against solid Falcons and Seahawks defenses, so maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised he didn’t do well against the Broncos, but for the first time all year he caught fewer than three passes.
• Of course, the easy guy to lean on as dud of the week is Eli Manning. He has scored 10 fantasy points in the past three weeks combined, with just 2 in my league this past week.

5.            Fantasy Surprises

• The Broncos defense came through with 39 fantasy points this week (in my league). Manning played a solid game but it truly was the Broncos defense that carried the team. That said, 6 of those points never should have happened because of a fumble out of the end zone that was never called.
• Joe Flacco hadn’t scored 20+ fantasy points since Week 4 against the Browns. He finally got back there, and more, with a 34-point performance against the Raiders in which Baltimore set the franchise record for points and Flacco threw for over 300 yards, tossed three touchdowns and ran for another score.
• Dallas had gotten double-digit fantasy points for their defense just once all season before putting up 32 big ones against Philadelphia. They scored three touchdowns on defense and special teams.

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.

• Miami Dolphins at Buffalo Bills (Thursday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Philadelphia Eagles at Washington Redskins (Sunday, 1:00 p.m.)
• San Diego Chargers at Denver Broncos (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (Sunday, 4:25 p.m.)
• Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers (Sunday, 8:20 p.m.)
• Chicago Bears at San Francisco 49ers (Monday, 8:30 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. Houston Texans	27. Carolina Panthers
2. Atlanta Falcons	28. New York Jets
3. Green Bay Packers	29. Oakland Raiders
4. Chicago Bears	30. Cleveland Browns
5. Baltimore Ravens	31. Kansas City Chiefs
6. San Francisco 49ers	32. Jacksonville Jaguars

The Giants, Lions and Chargers suffered the biggest drops this week while the Titans and Saints saw solid rises in the Rankings.

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

2.            Baltimore Ravens

The Texans aren’t feeling quite so lonely now with another AFC team to keep them company in the top 6 of the Power Rankings. The Ravens had a fantastic game on Sunday, but how much can we really read into it, considering it came against the team ranked #29. The Ravens won’t have to deal with Big Ben this week either.

1.            Houston Texans

Several weeks ago I questioned whether the Texans would stick around when Brian Cushing went down. Not only have they stuck around but they’ve beaten some good teams to get here and are almost undeniably a better 8-1 than the Falcons are. Houston will stay here another week, too, because the #1 team in the NFL gets to play the worst team in the league this weekend when the Jaguars play in Houston. Forget flex scheduling, how about flex matchups mid-season?

2011 Season in Review

Unfortunately, I became too busy during the semester to keep my blog up to date during this past semester. With the winter break here, I have time to get this going again, just in time for the postseason, no less.

This has been a very exciting season, and a surprising one, too. Of my preseason predictions of end-of-season records, I got just three teams correct: the Giants (9-7), the Redskins (5-11), and the Texans (10-6). I was close on several others. As for my playoff predictions, I was way off on a few, but I am pleased that I correctly predicted the top three seeds for the AFC playoffs; New England, Baltimore, and Houston, respectively.

2011 saw many let downs, breakout performances, and, of course, Tebow Time. The Eagles, or the ‘Dream Team’ as Vince Young famously titled them, stumbled out of the gate. It was too late for them, but they got on a roll at the end of the season, and with Reid returning next year they have some good momentum heading into offseason workouts.

The 49ers may have been the biggest surprise of the 2011 season. With no offseason to work with his team, Jim Harbaugh let San Francisco to not only their first playoff appearance, but also their first winning season since 2002. Alex Smith finally looked like a quarterback worth the first overall pick that he was back in 2005, and Ted Ginn, Jr. helped them start of the season with a win, returning a kickoff and a punt for touchdowns in the 4th quarter of their week one game against Seattle.

The Packers season got off to a hot start. But a recently Todd Haley-less Chiefs team outsmarted the Jennings-less Packers in week 15 to give Green Bay their first, and only, loss of the season. Not only that, but the winning quarterback was Kyle Orton, who led the Broncos to a 49-23 loss against the Packers eleven weeks earlier.

Meanwhile, the Broncos, after starting 1-4 with Kyle Orton starting, switched to Tim Tebow and won seven of their next eight games before losing their last three. But it was just enough to win the AFC West and their first playoff appearance since 2005.

The Colts never did get Peyton Manning back this season and went from being considered a Super Bowl contender before the season to a 2-14 season and owners of the #1 pick in the 2012 college draft.

Last year’s #1 pick, Cam Newton, made a strong case for rookie of the year, breaking all kinds of rookie records, including a few of Manning’s. He also set the all-time record for touchdown rushes by a quarterback in a single season.

His main competition comes from Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, who had a pretty fantastic rookie season himself and has his team in the playoffs.

Von Miller, the rookie linebacker for Denver is almost certain to be the defensive rookie of the year, and is the one other individual who could give Newton a run for overall ROY in 2011. He was a major contributor to Denver’s excellent defensive efforts during the regular season and has already been awarded with a ticket to play in the Pro Bowl.

And, of course, there was one other major occurrence I would never live down not including in this post. On the day after Christmas, Dan Marino's 27-year-old passing record was finally broken by Drew Brees, who is now my favorite for league MVP, with Aaron Rodgers a close 2nd and Tom Brady a distant 3rd.

The postseason begins this Saturday. Interestingly enough, I am already excited for next season. In the meantime, I will do as I did last year and post predictions the day before each day of playoff games, so my next post will be on Friday.

First Impressions

Since it is only the preseason, I am not going to bother making predictions or giving in-depth recaps of any of the games (though weekly predictions is something I am adding this season).

However, I do want to give some of my first impressions on some potentially key quarterbacks in the NFL based on their performances in the first week of the season.

Neither Tom Brady nor Peyton Manning played in their teams’ preseason openers. Manning’s appearance without a jersey on the Colts’ sideline was to be expected, and he likely will not play at all this preseason as he continues to let his neck recover from corrective surgery). Brady’s absence from the playing field was very surprising, even to him, who did not even know until the team had arrived at the stadium that he and a small handful of other starters would not play against the Jaguars.

I got to watch the first few drives of the Browns/Packers game. Aaron Rodgers looked good, like he picked up nearly where he left off in the Super Bowl, with that lost step being attributed to it being preseason and having a shortened camp. Colt McCoy’s performance is what really impressed me. He might some very crisp passes into tight spots and everything was on the money. He left the game having gone 9/10 for 135 yards and a touchdown pass. Most notably, he threw no picks (he finished last season with 6 touchdowns to 9 interceptions).

Despite what many experts seemed to be saying, I thought Tim Tebow’s performance was pretty respectable against the Cowboys. He was not necessarily one of the standouts, but the contrast between my view and the views of most analysts on ESPN and NFL Network make me feel that his performance is worth mentioning. He was 6/7 for 91 yards. He did not look exceptionally comfortable, but he sure looked better than the projected Broncos starter, Kyle Orton, who was just 2/6 for 37 yards.

Staying on that game, Tony Romo, as usual, looked decent but did not impress, which I expected. However, Jon Kitna did not particularly impress me either, something I had not expected. Stephen McGee looked fine, and led the ‘Boys to a win, but he was playing against backups, so I would not dream of saying he should be the starter in Dallas. I will, however, say that I think Dallas has a tough decision ahead of them on who the starter would be. They will need to give both Romo and Kinta more than five passes in their game against the Chargers on Sunday.

It certainly looked like Kevin Kolb and Larry Fitzgerald were on the same page against the Raiders, but he did not look particularly sharp throwing the ball elsewhere. It will take some time to adjust to his new team, so nobody should be too concerned. If anything, it is a positive that Kolb has already apparently developed a bit of a rapport with the Cardinals’ best receiver.

Rex Grossman really stood out to me. The Redskins need a good quarterback if they want to have any shot at competing this year. I am still not convinced that he is the one, but he definitely made big strides toward be considered such in my mind. Granted he played the entire first half, and only the first drive against the Steelers starting defense, but on that drive he took the ‘Skins from their own 1-yard line to the Steelers’ 10-yard line, resulting in a missed 27-yard field goal attempt. Soon after he led an 82-yard drive for a touchdown, though against a second-string defense. Tim Hightower was the main attraction for Washington on the first drive, but Grossman made some nice passes. He made great passes later on, too, ones that I have no doubt would have been great against a first-string defense and a small handful that could have been big mistakes against a better defense. All in all, it was not a perfect outing, but a huge improvement from the final few games of the 2010 season.

Of course, I cannot close this out without mentioning the #1 overall draft pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, Cam Newton. He got plenty of playing time and went 8/19 for 134 yards. I cannot really speak too much on this subject, as I have not had the opportunity to see more than a couple of his good plays from their game against the Giants. However, those numbers do not particularly impress me. Though there is more to football than stats, and if you make the plays in key spots and do not in other times, you can still come away with a win. But, by and large, players who make plays have better stats than those posted by Cam Newton. He is a rookie, so he has to be given time to adjust, but he better not think that he is locked in as their starter in Carolina. Clausen wants a shot, and Anderson has been a starter before, granted in a terrible Browns offense, but he knows how good it feels to start and you better believe he will fight for that right again.

I will be back next week with a short recap of players who stood out to me in week 2 of the preseason.