I also noticed that the teams that got their defensive playcalls in before the offense was set tended to play better defense.
glares at Dick Jauron
Before we all start rushing to praise Cam Newton, allow me to present the case from the other side.
The Cardinals defence was shit. Specifically in the secondary, they were terrible. The level of coverage was incredibly bad - they’ve had communication issues all through pre-season with players not knowing where to stand and who to cover. They did stop the run to a large extent - but when you’re gaining as many yards through the air as the Panthers did, you go into 3 and 4 receiver set and start throwing. Watching them, I sense that Arizona will struggle to win 6 games this year, as, on yesterday’s performance, any competent QB will torch them (thank God Tavaris Jackson and Alex Smith are in our division). About the only positive to come out of yesterday was that, with last year’s QB triple threat, they definitely would have lost.
Credit where due, Newton still had to make the throws but let’s wait until he actually plays a competent pass defence before we get the adulation out.
well at least we know that he’s better than tavaris jackson or alex smith. i think the kid has dante culpepper potential there if he works at it.
more concerning though, there seems to be a trend of teams with medicore passing attacks throwing all the live-long day even though there’s solid ground support available. colt mccoy threw it 40 times and hillis only got 17 touches. vick threw it 32 times and mccoy only rushed 15 times. Roethilsberger tossed it 42 times and mendenhal only got 12 carries. Indy, albeit trailing for the entire game, only ran the ball 15 times total. Seattle let tavaris jackson throw 37 times and only gave marshawn 13 carries. these are 66/33 or greater splits.
Well, I’ve had a buddy in from out of town for the weekend and we’ve been pretending that we’re 23 years old again. Last night capped the last, hopefully, of a series of really drunken nights. We were at the bar for Week 1 and got worked into a froth over the big Bears win. Unfortunately due to the drunkenness and the quality of the Bears win, I didn’t have much attention left for the other games on and things deteriorated quickly during the late games. Also, this distracted me from getting my Pick 'Em picks in for Sunday’s games, already screwed it up in week 1. :smack: Haven’t really had much time to delve into the Fantasy results either.
As I procrastinate on a pretty rough Monday morning I’ll toss out some thoughts from what I noticed during the day yesterday. Just shooting from the hip here.
The Bears defense was awfully impressive. I see the stats highlighted by Mince and I suppose this could prove to be a fluky performance against a unprepared Falcons team, but they passed the eyeball test. Urlacher looked like a Defensive POTY winner, he was flying around and making plays everywhere. The pass rush was as good as I’d expected it to be, Peppers, Melton and Akoye were all occasionally electric. The run defense’s stats are poor, but I didn’t get the impression at any point that we were getting pushed around. We appeared to control the line of scrimmage. If you take away Turner’s 53 yard run, he was 9 for 47 yards which is still over 5 yards a carry but it’s not quite as lopsided as it looks at first glance. This will require monitoring but the early results are excellent.
Jay Cutler was on. It appears that at least some of the preseason fluff out of the Bears locker room was warranted. Martz’s play calling was pretty solid and he often had Bears receivers wide open, and with one notable exception on the trick play at the goal line Cutler hit them all. Its just one game, so I need to be cautious, but maybe this offense will make a leap in year 2 as optimists had hoped. Cutler’s body language was better too, but I suppose that’s easy when you’re dominating the game in all phases.
Roy Williams wasn’t a total disaster, I don’t recall him dropping any passes.
Devin Hester looks like he’s planning on a monster year. The beat writers pretty much universally agreed that he came into camp in better shape and better prepared than anyone and had the best camp. That was confirmed yesterday. He seemed to always be just one step from breaking a kick return and the Falcons were kicking away from him like they were scared. That run on the bubble screen was as impressive as any. It’s still not clear to me why he was called out at the 1 though.
Gabe Carimi came back to earth a little bit. He was solid for a rookie and run blocked well, but he got beat pretty bad on a few pass rushes. No need to panic, but I think the Bears are right about him not being left tackle material.
The pass blocking on the whole was a mixed bag. There were times when it looked pretty darn good, and it’s clearly an improvement over last season. Cutler still took too many hits though and Lance Louis left the game hurt, no idea how serious it is. It’s a work in progress, but there’s positive progress at least. Hopefully Louis isn’t out long because we can’t afford to restart the shuffling.
Great day from the special teams. This has become a bit of a given for the Bears, but they were a little shaky in the preseason. Glad to see that they’ve ironed things out.
I liked the 9/11 stuff before the games. It could have been laid on too thick and been too cliche and jingoistic, but I thought it was balanced pretty well. It got a little worse during the Jets game but I suppose that’s to be expected for the NBC crew in NYC.
The Bears need to run the ball better. The line is built for it and they had a big lead most of the game, Martz is still Martz unfortunately. Hopefully getting Barber back helps that out a bit, he’s built more like a grind out the clock back than Forte or Bell.
That’s enough about the Bears. Hopefully I get a chance to see the replay on NFLN and sort out a few more details in a less obnoxious environment. I said last week that it would be crucial for the Bears to pick up a win in one of their first 2 home games against NFC rivals, and they did. If they can get 1 more on the road against the Saints or home against the Pack then we could really be set up for something.
Elsewhere around the league:
Cam Newton was a shocker. I only saw snippets and highlights, but every time I glanced at the TV he seemed to be stepping into a throw and getting it right on target. I have been really loud in my low expectations for the guy, it’s just one game but I am on notice. I might need to eat some crow and the Bucs had better watch out.
The Cowboys offense was pretty shaky. I was drunk and drifting in and out of sleep when I watched the game so my analysis is pretty thin, but there didn’t seem to be much confidence at all from anyone in that group. Bryant’s injury dragged them down and Felix Jones was pretty non-existent. Could just be that the Jets D is awfully good though.
Sam Bradford getting hurt really sucks. I’ve been driving his fantasy bandwagon and a lot of my teams are counting on him. Hopefully he doesn’t miss significant time. A friend who works with the NFL has met him several times and says that he’s an awesome kid. He has the potential to own St. Louis and eventually the league if he keeps progressing.
The Colts are the worst team in the league and will be drafting Andrew Luck. The drama around that is going to be extreme. No idea what Manning’s real prognosis is and I wonder what kind of insurance and protections are built into Manning’s contract if he can’t come back. This could become the story of next offseason.
In case anyone forgot, the new kickoff rule is fucking retarded.
Chris Johnson was nowhere to be seen. Kenny Britt had 2 TDs. Matt Hasselbeck was mediocre at best. I didn’t see a single snap or highlight from this game, but I’m pretty worried about my fantasy teams that have CJ2K. Hopefully the Britt explosion is the first of many this year though.
Nice win for Sexy Rexy. This is what happens when you get Good Rex. I wonder if he’s outgrown Bad Rex or if Shanny has coached it out of him. Then again, the Giants might just be terrible. The NFC East had better be prepared, the Skins might have been the most impressive team in the division in week 1.
Didn’t see much of the Eagles. Vick was apparently inconsistent. They might have been wielding billy clubs with the rate of Rams injuries in this game. We’ll see how much they affected the outcome of this one.
How about those Bills? Didn’t see much other than the highlight of Stevie Johnson’s big TD catch, but that is an ass kicking. There were two teams that everyone agreed would take a step backwards this year, the Bucs and Chiefs. After week 1 that’s looking like a rare correct prediction from the “crowd”. Though the Bucs may have just faced a really good Detroit team that’s healthy for the only time this year.
Didn’t see any of the Steelers-Ravens game but I loved watching that score tick. I’ll have to try and catch the replay of this one. Looks like Ray Rice and Joe Flacco are for real though. Big Ben, not so much.
Just glanced at the box score of the Niners-Seahawks game, this game didn’t even seem to warrant an in-game update since I had no clue who won it until just now. Looks like both offenses are dog shit. Ted Ginn had the game of his life. Go figure.
Julio Jones looks like he might be the real deal. Jury’s still out on Green and Little.
I noticed a lot more players running the kickoffs out from 5 yards deep than I thought would happen. and I noticed teams pretty successful with it. If you have a dynamic kick returner, giving him the running start like that seems to really create some opportunities. I think some coaches think the risk of ending up on the 15 yard line is worth it.
Pat kirwan at NFL.com:
The Bills’ win-loss record for last season makes them look worse than they really were. They were tied at the end of regulation in three games and lost each by a field goal in overtime. There were three other games they lost by three, five, and eight points. A few more field goals and they could have had a respectable 10-6 season. (That said, three of their four victories were equally close - a few less field goals and they could have been 1-15.)
Same thing in 2009 when they were 6-10. Five of the games they lost were within a touchdown (including three divisional games). With some luck, they could have been 11-5.
I only got to see the highlights and it was much more impressive than I thought he would do. The 26 yard TD to Smith was well placed, and his ability to buy time to get guys open was huge. He also didn’t seem to get too rattled by blitzs.
But I’m not sold on him yet either. (And my God the NFL Network announcers are so fucking annoying I want them dead). His 77 yard TD pass to Smith was underthrown (Smith had to wait on it), but he was so fucking wide open it didn’t matter. He had a pick called back on a roughing penalty and had a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct. And he made a couple ill advised throws.
Certainly a fine performance and much more than I expected, but I can’t wait to see how well he fairs against the Packers next week.
I didn’t get to see any highlights or replays, but he did most of his damage with his feet. Even ignoring his runs, it’s his ability to move out of the pocket and get a pass off that make him so dangerous. The Rams defense was completely ill prepared for him. But I wasn’t, as usual, impressed with some of his throws. A couple could have gone the other way, were the Rams secondary anything special, but kudos to him for getting it done.
I wouldn’t read too much into that for the time being. He was on the road against the top pass defense of 2010.
Carimi was going against John Abraham in his first NFL start. What did you expect? He’ll be fine.
There’s nothing wrong with the kickoff rule change. NFL coaches just can’t do math. Eventually the herd will realize it’s worth bringing them out of the endzone.
Which is exactly why the rule change is so dumb.
Not really. Not all kickoffs are worth bringing up; if the returner catches the ball at the back of the endzone or is backpedaling when he catches it, for example. Either way, the rule will do what it’s supposed to, which is reduce the number of returns and hence injuries.
Let’s shorten the games to 3 quarters. That’d really reduce the number of injuries.
Retarded. Fucking. Rule. It will always be thus.
Honestly, he didn’t do all that well. A playoff-caliber opponent would have beaten them yesterday. Speaking as an Eagles fan, they’re seriously overrated.
There are several stocks that rose yesterday that I’d like to short sell: I’d still be very surprised to see Cam Newton wind up as an effective NFL starter. And I’d happily still wager on both Cinncinnati and Buffalo winding up with losing records.
Fine, let’s go back to the very beginning of football and get rid of the forward pass and 7 players on the line of scrimmage. Those were also rules implemented to address player safety (including deaths).
The history of football is a long list of rule changes intended to balance player safety against exciting play. If it went too far in one direction, the rule can always be ditched next year.
At the very least, let’s see how the rule changes the game for more than the very first weekend after a lockout shortened offseason.
I think Cam can become an effective NFL starter, but just that…effective. I give the Bills a 50/50 shot of finishing at .500, the Bengals…10%.
Did they make some sort of rule change that makes passing easier? Tom Brady has 511 yards now with 3 minutes remaining, all time record is 554.
This year specifically? Nothing comes to mind. In general, nowadays pass rushers can’t touch the QB’s head, they can’t touch the QB’s legs; defensive backs can’t touch the receivers, they can’t hit receivers catching the ball, and in general can’t really play defense anymore.
I just watched the opening kickoff go out the back of the endzone in Denver. Think there will be a single returnable kickoff all season in Denver?
I’m up for as long as this game is on, as it’s probably the only Denver game I’ll get to see all year.
Total passing yards by both teams was 933. What’s the record there?
I’m surprised the Pats didn’t come out passing on their last drive to give Brady a chance at the record.
I believe they said that’s a record.