NFL 2011 Week 13

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A fun time was had by all this week...except the losers in more ways than one:

Packers 27 - Lions 15: Way closer than it should have been. More on that in a sec. As for Ndamukong Suh, lost in all this talk about whether or not he's a dirty player is the simple fact that in this case the transgression happened after the whistle was blown. Hell even his own teammates are starting to think he's becoming a liability.

Dolphins 19 - Cowboys 20: Don't look now, but Dallas is back in the conversation as a playoff team.

49ers 6 - Ravens 16: My take away from this game and the first one above is that there is not a single team in the NFC that can stop Green Bay. San Francisco may be the closest to it, but I can't see their defense stopping the Packers' offense enough times to win. Now, I'm sure teams like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Houston, or even New England can beat them, but that'll have to wait until the Super Bowl.

Vikings 14 - Falcons 24: I'm trying to think of a take-away from this game that would provide more insight into these teams, but I can't. To quote a famous coach, they are who we thought they were.

Browns 20 - Bengals 23: Again, Andy Dalton and AJ Green are definitely proving that if Cam Newton wins the offensive rookie of the year award, it won't be a unanimous decision. And Cleveland continues to be a factory of sadness.

Buccaneers 17 - Titans 23: Yes, you did indeed see Matt Hasslebeck throw left handed.

Panthers 27 - Colts 19:

IMAGE(http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/2509/caldwellap.jpg)

"We could be going 0 and 16?"

Cardinals 23 - Rams 20: Hard to believe that this was more entertaining than it had any right to be.

Bills 24 - Jets 28: So to commemorate the anniversary of Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg, Stevie Johnson pantomimed shooting himself in the leg as a touchdown celebration...then shot his team in the foot repeatedly. Classy.

Texans 20 - Jaguars 13: At this rate, Owen Daniels better start taking some warm-up throws for Houston. And at this rate...you might have to start calling them the Los Angeles Jaguars.

Bears 20 - Raaaaaaaaaaaiders 25: Who would have thought watching Oakland punt to Chicago would be this exciting? Or that said punter and Oakland's kicker would be the difference makers?

Redskins 23 - Seahawks 17: I was treated to the surprise of seeing the vaunted 12th Man leaving the stadium in Seattle in droves before the game was over. Seems the fans in Washington State have about as much faith in their team as the fans in Washington D.C.

Patriots 38 - Eagles 20: Tell you what, just assign every DB and LB to Welker and Gronkowski. That ought to take 21 points per game off the board.

Tebows 16 - Chargers 13: Yep, not only did Nick Novak piss away a win, he...took a piss, too.

Steelers 13 - Chiefs 9: Kansas City fans are probably wondering what might have been had Kyle Orton been thrown to the wolves so soon, though I get the impression it'd probably be a lot like Carson Palmer's debut as an Oakland Raider.

Giants 24 - Saints 49: Even the Packers are saying to the Saints, "Dude, that's harsh."

Week 13 Pick 'Em: Clearly there was a feast to be had this past week, judging by the rise in occupancy on Perfection Island and the number of time shares being rented on Isthmus del Near-Perfection. Have a look:

My record: 4-1

Your records:

oldmanscene24: 5-0
boogle: 5-0
Nightmare: 5-0
LeapingGnome: 5-0

Enix: 4-1
MilkmanDanimal: 4-1
garion333: 4-1
bighoppa: 4-1
TheGameguru: 4-1
iaintgotnopants: 4-1
Minase: 4-1
Xeknos: 4-1
Gumbie: 4-1

Elliottx: 3-2

Jayhawker: 2-3*

Kush15: 1-4+

*Legion*: 0-5#

* = Stealthy, Jay. Least you're semi-honest.

+ = Grats, Kush. The baby, not slipping the last pick in before the lock.

# = Dude, what up? Least Kush had a good reason to be distracted this week. And no, spending your week complaining about Guy Whimperer doesn't count.

And here are the year to date totals:

My record: 42-18

Your guys' record:

Nightmare: 45-15

TheGameguru: 44-16
Minase: 44-16

boogle: 43-17

MilkmanDanimal: 41-19

garion333: 40-20
Xeknos: 40-20

Gumbie: 39-21
iaintgotnopants: 39-21
Enix: 39-21
oldmanscene24: 39-21

bighoppa: 38-22
LeapingGnome: 38-22

Kush15: 37-23

Jayhawker: 35-25

*Legion*: 34-26

Elliotx: 33-27

Starting to see a little separation at the top of the board from the bottom, but one lucky week and things could get interesting. Here's what we have on tap:

Eagles at Seahawks: An interesting Thursday night match-up featuring Vince Young, perhaps? True, Seattle's a tough place to grind out a win, but if Washington can do it, I suppose Philly might. Even with Young starting in place of Michael Vick, there's always LeSean McCoy if Andy Reid is inclined to, I don't know, give him the ball? Eagles.

Titans at Bills: Used to be that these were the two surprise teams in the AFC, now only one is. Don't ask me where Matt Hasslebeck got his second wind or where Tennessee's defense has come from or where both from Buffalo has gone. Titans.

Bengals at Steelers: It should easily be Pittsburgh, but on the other hand Andy Dalton is no Tyler Paalko. Steelers.

Falcons at Texans: For the moment it looks like TJ Yates is the guy for Houston, but what should really be worrying Atlanta is the Texans' defense. They faced a fairly good one in Minnesota this past week and I think they're going to have problems in Houston. Texans.

For my wild card, I'm taking New England over Indianapolis as I'm sure the majority of you are about to do below.

Enjoy the week, folks.

Rat Boy wrote:

# = Dude, what up? Least Kush had a good reason to be distracted this week. And no, spending your week complaining about Guy Whimperer doesn't count.

The holiday weeks screw me up. I barely got fantasy lineups in in time for Sunday's games, and I was stuck with my Thursday players.

Eagles at Seahawks: If you lose to the Redskins, I'm probably picking against you the rest of the year. Unless you play in the NFC West. Wait, never mind.

Titans at Bills: "Matt Hasselbeck Second Wind" means Rat Boy did not watch last week's game against Tampa. Hasselbeck was absolutely awful. Chris Johnson was not. Also, Steve Johnson is still a moron.

Bengals at Steelers: When the Bengals actually beat a good team, I will pick them to beat a good team after that.

Falcons at Texans: I have no idea who T.J. Yates is, really, but I'm willing to bet he has the capacity to do something really, really dumb at a bad time.

Wild card: Carolina at Tampa: I pick Bucs games, it's my thing. While Carolina's running game is worrisome and Steve Smith always seems to play well against the Bucs, I'm pretty sure whichever CFL third-stringers who are now suiting up at LB for Carolina are going to be susceptible to . . . pretty much anything. That is one seriously, seriously injured defense. Also, I'm a homer.

Seahawks
Titans
Bengals
Falcons

Vikings over Tebows

Are you guys allowed easy picks for your bonus games? I'd take the 49ers over the Rams, bouncing back, with the extra days off too.

Eagles at Seahawks: Watching Tarvaris try and play with his injury is getting painful. He's throwing up ducks by the second quarter until he gets his halftime painkiller injection. I understand that he's trying to show how tough he is, but it's becoming a liability.

Titans at Bills

Bengals at Steelers

Falcons at Texans

Wild Card: Rams at 49ers

Stele wrote:

Are you guys allowed easy picks for your bonus games? I'd take the 49ers over the Rams, bouncing back, with the extra days off too. ;)

What are you talking about easy picks?

NE vs Indy is always a tough game between two elite quarterbacks.

IMAGE(http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/what-year-is-it-robin-williams.jpg)

Packers 27 - Lions 15: Way closer than it should have been. More on that in a sec. As for Ndamukong Suh, lost in all this talk about whether or not he's a dirty player is the simple fact that in this case the transgression happened after the whistle was blown. Hell even his own teammates are starting to think he's becoming a liability.

Actually, I disagree with the assessment that it shouldn't have been as close. Suh was the justified scapegoat in that game. When he went berserk, the score was 7-0 pack and the lions had stopped the pack on a 3rd and goal. So it should have been 10-0. But numb nuts went animal and gifted the pack a fresh set of downs. The pack score a TD and its all pack from there.

As for Suh, he needs to get nailed for every infraction: the 4 head jams (hey guess what? you can end someone's career that way!) and the 1 and a half stomps.

Dallas, playoff contender? Please... Miami should have won that game. Unless being more lucky than good merits a playoff spot? There were at least 3 key instances where Romo blindly flings a pass (worse than Tebow-style) into Witten's (Oh look what I found?!) hands. Seriously, Romo had a better shot at completing those passes blindfolded. I'm pretty sure one of them his arm was hit as he threw...

I am completely biased but I am now a firm believer in Romo being a complete hack. It should be no surprise why Dallas exits the playoffs early.

PFT brought this wonderful news:

Dan Orlovsky to start for Colts. No big deal. But then there's this:

He can be the man that helps the Colts avoid 0-16. Or he can be the man who gets stuck as the starting quarterback on two different 0-16 teams.

What a bad fate to have.

The Texans don't NEED a quarterback, do you hear me?!?!?

My macabre prediction for this week is that Owen Daniels gets our latest season-ending injury, slyly adding more panic to the quarterback situation in a backdoor way while seriously hurting our TE play.

Also, please welcome the San Antonio Jaguars!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Also, please welcome the San Antonio Jaguars!

They won't be the Jaguars anymore if they move.

So, their new name will be... ?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

The Texans don't NEED a quarterback, do you hear me?!?!?

I wonder where Owen Daniels is on the QB depth chart. He was a backup QB at UW before he switched to TE.

Phishposer wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

The Texans don't NEED a quarterback, do you hear me?!?!?

I wonder where Owen Daniels is on the QB depth chart. He was a backup QB at UW before he switched to TE.

He was the backup to Yates last week.

Gumbie wrote:
Phishposer wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

The Texans don't NEED a quarterback, do you hear me?!?!?

I wonder where Owen Daniels is on the QB depth chart. He was a backup QB at UW before he switched to TE.

He was the backup to Yates last week.

Seriously? That's one f-ed up situation. Not like Daniels is known for his durability.

sheared wrote:

Tebow: he really does just win.

Kerry Byrne--he's like Football Outsiders, coming out of my a$$.

I'm not sure I've ever read anything of his that vaguely made sense. It all reads like he's come up with some intentionally shocking and different conclusion to drive page views, and then figures out ways to justify it with some numbers he threw together. It's the whole "shock" factor that makes me not put the vaguest stock in anything the guy says.

The idiotic thing is that by his rating, the league's leading running backs would have higher realqb ratings than a lot of top QB's...

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
sheared wrote:

Tebow: he really does just win.

Kerry Byrne--he's like Football Outsiders, coming out of my a$$.

I'm not sure I've ever read anything of his that vaguely made sense. It all reads like he's come up with some intentionally shocking and different conclusion to drive page views, and then figures out ways to justify it with some numbers he threw together. It's the whole "shock" factor that makes me not put the vaguest stock in anything the guy says.

wow.. are you ever right.... just look at this drivel

There are two underlying reasons why Tebow is so effective, two reasons that explain his impressive Real Quarterback Rating week after week.
1. He gets the ball in the end zone more often than any QB in football today
2. He protects the football better than any QB in football today
The Broncos clearly have not scored a lot of points with Tebow at quarterback. In fact, Denver has averaged just 19.3 points per game in Tebow's six starts and has scored 18 points or fewer in five of those games. And clearly, the defense has improved dramatically in recent weeks, either purely as coincidence or as a by-product of the fact that Tebow has helped the team improve in all areas by protecting the football.
But Tebow himself has been deadly with the ball in his hands. He produces touchdowns at an amazing clip, better than any quarterback in football in his brief career. Here's a comparison of Tebow vs. some of the more prolific quarterbacks in recent history.
Career percentage of touches that result in a TD:
Tim Tebow -- 6.0 percent
Aaron Rodgers -- 5.7 percent
Peyton Manning -- 5.5 percent
Tom Brady -- 5.1 percent
Drew Brees -- 4.7 percent
John Elway -- 3.9 percent
Wow. Tebow may not pass the ball effectively. But he's produced an incredible 22 touchdowns (13 passing, nine rushing) in just 368 touches (225 pass attempts, 121 rush attempts, 22 sacks). Nobody in football gets the ball in the end zone more often.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...

just flat out nonsense... I mean.. its so rife with bullsh*t that its almost laughable..

The correlation with wins is too high, and also its f*cking bullsh*t. I want to find that man and slap him in the name of Archimedes, Euler and Erdos.

That was the best thing I've seen all day.

What's funny about this and other prospective hires is that they are flat out calling them back-ups to Yates. So we are looking to hire someone we have less confidence in than our 3rd string rookie. You either laugh or you cry.

It's also a ridiculously small sample size. Take 9 starts from either of Brady or Manning's 10-0 or better starts and I bet their % kicks the sh*t out of that.

Statistics lie!

Elliottx wrote:

That was the best thing I've seen all day.

I'm pretty sure I'm finding it way more entertaining than I actually should, given the length. It keeps making me laugh though. So I keep pressing play.

You know, if you take Tebow's record as a starter, subtract the loss and add the wins when he didn't play, the Broncos are undefeated! Its shocking I know, but that must be the reason for his success.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

What's funny about this and other prospective hires is that they are flat out calling them back-ups to Yates. So we are looking to hire someone we have less confidence in than our 3rd string rookie. You either laugh or you cry. :lol:

I have lived through starting QBs of Chris Simms, rookie Bruce Gradkowski, Tim Rattay, Luke McCown, Rob Johnson, Byron Leftwich, Josh Johnson, and Brian Griese on TWO different occasions; I weep for no one's QB situation. You have Arian Foster, Andre Johnson, and a good defense; that's enough to still make a little bit of a run.

Edit: Speaking of Bucs QBs, Joooooosh Freeman apparently needed five stitches on the thumb of his throwing hand when he held a gun wrong at a firing range. On Halloween.

TRY AND TELL ME THIS YEAR IS NOT CURSED AND I WILL NOT BELIEVE IT.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

What's funny about this and other prospective hires is that they are flat out calling them back-ups to Yates. So we are looking to hire someone we have less confidence in than our 3rd string rookie. You either laugh or you cry. :lol:

Well, these are guys who have not even seen the inside of a Houston Texans playbook yet. By that alone, they're going to be backups to the rookie that at least knows the offense.

It's not like a wide receiver that you can have just memorize a package of route assignments. The QB's gotta know every play in the gameplan.

Thin_J wrote:
Elliottx wrote:

That was the best thing I've seen all day.

I'm pretty sure I'm finding it way more entertaining than I actually should, given the length. It keeps making me laugh though. So I keep pressing play.

They absolutely have to play this over the PA system in Denver.

Well like I said earlier, Dan, we don't really NEED a QB to win! Wildcat it up with Arian and Daniels. Go crazy. Yaaaargh! /HowardDean

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Edit: Speaking of Bucs QBs, Joooooosh Freeman apparently needed five stitches on the thumb of his throwing hand when he held a gun wrong at a firing range. On Halloween.

As long as he's not armed Sunday, it's all good.

Then again, to hit the Panthers' pass rushers, he'll need a rifle with a scope, not a pistol.

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