DANG – Tom Brady. The swing of balance between the Brady and Manning debate swings firmly back towards Tom’s side as Peyton struggles for consistency in a team looking like they have “That Super Bowl hangover”. We already knew how good Brady is and I’m not going to waste time crowing to the masses about what everybody already knows. He could go out there in the Boston snow or Chicago gales, in Ugg boots and still win football matches, whilst probably still performing better than about most of the other starting quarterbacks in this league! He’s that good right now. How many other quarterbacks are that good that they can make Danny Woodhead into a legitimate threat? Notable mentions: Michael Vick, but his injury and games missed will cost him. He’s an absolute fantasy football stud. Philip Rivers has performed well above the rest of his team and every other player in California this year. If his teammates showed half of his ability this year then they would be leading the AFC West comfortably. Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Maurice Jones-Drew, Roddy White, Arian Foster, Brandon Lloyd, Trent Cole, Julius Peppers are all names that should feature in or around the top 10 players of the 2010 season, but Tom Brady stands Head and Shoulders (pun intended) above the rest, because he’s worth it!
DOC – I’m usually quite logical about this, so should say Brady, particularly given his record in the last nine games of no interceptions but actually after what he did on Sunday, it’s Michael Vick. He is lighting things up on a weekly basis with his feet and with his arm. He is sparking arguably the most dangerous offence in the league from what would likely have been mediocre under Kevin Kolb. And I accept I got it horribly wrong early in the season for thinking Kolb was the better answer. The story is sensational and I said last week that I think he’s going to roll this team into Atlanta and topple his old team on route to the Super Bowl. I like the rest of your shortlist, but you forgot a couple of names worthy of a shout. Firstly, Devin Hester. The Bears lean on him to provide a spark so much. The other is someone that no-one but Pro Football Focus talks about. That’s Kyle Williams who is hidden away in Buffalo, holed up on one of the worst defences but is playing out of his skin. Look at this article as proof of this. He’s sensational. But I’d vote for Vick, although I expect Brady is going to coast to victory.
As the NFC West winners will be .500 at best but will be assured a home playoff game, is it time to change the structure of the post-season?
DANG - I’m led to believe that this process is already being looked into, and it would not surprise me at all to see this change implemented as part of the new CBA, especially now that we have had to bear witness to the utter shambles that is the NFC West. I agree that they should change the structure. Put the emphasis on teams to win the division emphatically rather than accidentally tripping into winning it which is what’s happening right now. Nobody is taking the initiative. Nobody looks like a winner. Nobody really has the quality to deserve a home playoff game.
The Divisional winners, should still go to the playoffs, this isn’t even up for debate. You win your division, no matter how bad, you go to the playoffs. Should you then host a playoff game as a 6-10 or 7-9 team over a team who is a Wild Card team at 11-5? I don’t think so. The trouble with this is we have never seen this issue raise it’s very ugly head before, so I don’t think for any moment, that when these rules were laid out that somebody would ever win the division with a losing record. Do the St Louis Rams, San Francisco 49ers or even the Seattle Seahawks want the unenviable record of being the only team to make the playoffs with a losing record? I think that they will re-jig it where we see the 2 best records getting a bye as per the current format, but the incentive for the Divisional winners should be to win more games than a Wild Card team in order to host a playoff game.
If the 7-9 St Louis Rams host for example, the 11-5 Saints or the 10-6 Giants, it really does make a bit of a mockery of the system when somebody HAS to win a Division as opposed to a good team WINS the division by good play.
DOC – Can’t disagree with a single word you say. I’ve been dogging on the NFC West all season in various articles and with good reason. The Rams are the best of a bad bunch but the notion that they’ve earned a home game against a much superior team is ludicrous. Thankfully, reality will hit them hard in their single post-season game (assuming it is them) and we can focus on the good teams.
Are the Redskins in a worse state now under the Shanahans than they were a year ago under Jim Zorn?
DANG - Yes! Shanahan has lost the plot! Dan Snyder is possibly the worst owner in the whole league. This team is bad. Just a rudderless ship heading nowhere. People are going to start remembering Shanahan for his destruction of this once proud franchise, as opposed to his Super Bowl winning, Hall of Fame credentials in Denver. You trade away valuable draft picks that you never use season after season, seemingly willing to part with astonishing amounts of cash in wages for players who never then perform. They are a classic case of picking up guys who have just come off career years in contract year! The deal for McNabb and then benching for Rex Grossman was bizarre and just downright offensive for McNabb. If I’m McNabb I’m out of there come seasons end. Either put in for a trade, demand release, do anything to get out. He deserves better than he is currently getting in Washington. There are several franchises that will welcome him with open arms and ok, he’s past his best, but he still brings a lot to the table on Sunday’s and he’s a winner. You don’t treat winners with the disrespect that Washington has to McNabb. Anyone you speak to in the NFL has nothing other than copious amounts of praise for McNabb as to how much of a great person he is. Sometimes great people don’t make great players, the case in point, Alex Smith, you couldn’t ask to meet a nicer bloke, but the fact is, he stinks as a Quarterback in the NFL, but in McNabb’s case, it’s the opposite. Pick up the phone Jed York, make it happen.
I’m not buying Grossman’s performance in Dallas on Sunday either. Good Rex and Bad Rex was on full display, but that Dallas defence is a unit in need of direction and a new Coordinator, seeing out their final days of an insipid 2010 campaign. That did nothing other than solidify his backup position in DC for 2011.
The Redskins are in danger of becoming the new Raiders, until there is change at the top, a change of direction, a change of how the Franchise operates, then I don’t see the ‘Skins getting out of this mess anytime soon.
DOC – Yeah I agree with you. Shanahan Father and Son seems to have lost the plot, and been infected by the insanity that seems to swirl non-stop around this franchise. You’ve covered the McNabb situation exactly as I see it, but I would add that they made him go out there on Sunday as an offensive captain! How insane is that? That’s not a sign of respect for him, not when they’ve been disrespecting and undermining him ever since they benched him in Detroit. That smacks of classlessness from them. And why? Well, it seems because he suggested a few things to be worked into the offence. A high crime I’m sure. Now, I get a bit sick of Donovan but he’s been treat shabbily by the lunatics who seem to have taken over the asylum. And worse of all? They seem to have alienated themselves from a fair few players because of how they’ve gone about this. Long after McNabb has gone, these two will have to fare with this.
And there’s also the Albert Haynesworth situation. Now I will preface this by saying there is no sympathy from me for Albert, given his pedigree and some of his antics. But I will say this. Shanahan has deliberately got out of his way to spite, provoke and humiliate someone this franchise has given truckloads of money to. They had the chance to move him on and get something from the Titans earlier this season, but I get the feeling the Head Coach – out of spite, kept him around to embarrass him and assert his big-man syndrome some more and now they won’t get anything near what they could have. And they had the problem for longer. This is stupid, just stupid.
It’s a year on from the Jim Zorn fiasco, and there is more stability in Washington – just look at how no-one is talking about Shanahan being out of work, but they’re nowhere near being what many thought Shanahan would bring them back to be. And to be honest; I don’t think they’ll ever get there based on this year.
Who is the best team not likely to make the playoffs?
DANG – San Diego Chargers.
Kansas City Chiefs have 2 games left this season. Both are at home. Both are going to be against teams who are not in the playoffs. They have their Franchise Quarterback starting again after his operation, relatively unscathed. You have to believe they will win both of those two teams which are going to leave the Chargers on the outside looking in as we take a look at the other divisions.
AFC North: Pittsburgh and Baltimore both currently at 10-4 will be in, one as a divisional winner, one as a Wild Card.
AFC South: Indianapolis will win out, leaving Jacksonville out of the chase.
AFC East: New England wins the division; the Jets are in as the 2nd Wild Card.
AFC West: Chiefs win out; Chargers win out, but lose out to the Chiefs.
The Chargers are a very good team, but have been brought down by bad teams at crucial stages of the season. A loss in Seattle puts them at 1-2 after 3 games. 2 road defeats to St Louis and Oakland put them at 2-4 heading into New England instead of 3-3 or 4-2 and have spluttered all through the year when they really should have been winning games. Norv Turner might very well be out of a job for not getting this team into the post-season. Look for him to wind up as an Offensive Coordinator somewhere very quickly though. Here is why stats can be misleading in the NFL. The San Diego Chargers have the 2nd overall offence and the Number one overall defence, yet here we are, 15 weeks into the season and we have them as failing to make the playoffs as a 10-6 team.
Special mention (If you really want to call it that) to Green Bay, who could also miss out at this moment in time. If Aaron Rodgers completes the Lions game, they win. If Aaron Rodgers plays fully fit against the Patriots because he doesn’t take a concussion the week before (and has learnt to slide properly) then they have a better chance of beating the Patriots.
DOC – I’m going with your special mention; the Packers. But unlike San Diego who have been shooting themselves in the foot all season; it’s just not been as obvious of late. And it’s because their special teams early on in the season was beyond embarrassing. But the Packers have been hid so incredibly hard through injuries that it’s a shame they’re not looking like they can make the post-season. I think Rodgers has been brilliant, managing this team through the season; Clay Matthews has been an animal on defence and Mike McCarthy has done an excellent job coaching them. I think the Giants are going to pip them to the last wild card spot; and this game between the Packers and NYG on Sunday is going to be brilliant. But as much as I would like to see the Packers win and sneak in, I think it’s the Giants. This is a pity because the post-season is being robbed of a talented team even when decimated by injury, whilst a scrub team from the NFC West gets there.
Who should win the NFL’s MVP award?
As the NFC West winners will be .500 at best but will be assured a home playoff game, is it time to change the structure of the post-season?
Are the Redskins in a worse state now under the Shanahans than they were a year ago under Jim Zorn?
DANG - Yes! Shanahan has lost the plot! Dan Snyder is possibly the worst owner in the whole league. This team is bad. Just a rudderless ship heading nowhere. People are going to start remembering Shanahan for his destruction of this once proud franchise, as opposed to his Super Bowl winning, Hall of Fame credentials in Denver. You trade away valuable draft picks that you never use season after season, seemingly willing to part with astonishing amounts of cash in wages for players who never then perform. They are a classic case of picking up guys who have just come off career years in contract year! The deal for McNabb and then benching for Rex Grossman was bizarre and just downright offensive for McNabb. If I’m McNabb I’m out of there come seasons end. Either put in for a trade, demand release, do anything to get out. He deserves better than he is currently getting in Washington. There are several franchises that will welcome him with open arms and ok, he’s past his best, but he still brings a lot to the table on Sunday’s and he’s a winner. You don’t treat winners with the disrespect that Washington has to McNabb. Anyone you speak to in the NFL has nothing other than copious amounts of praise for McNabb as to how much of a great person he is. Sometimes great people don’t make great players, the case in point, Alex Smith, you couldn’t ask to meet a nicer bloke, but the fact is, he stinks as a Quarterback in the NFL, but in McNabb’s case, it’s the opposite. Pick up the phone Jed York, make it happen.
I’m not buying Grossman’s performance in Dallas on Sunday either. Good Rex and Bad Rex was on full display, but that Dallas defence is a unit in need of direction and a new Coordinator, seeing out their final days of an insipid 2010 campaign. That did nothing other than solidify his backup position in DC for 2011.
Who is the best team not likely to make the playoffs?