…well, as a Lions fan I reserve the right to get excited IF it happens…
Whither LaMichael? Over to the Eagles?
Why stop at making the playoffs? Anything short of winning the Super Bowl is substandard.
I’m hoping Bears, very nice compliment.
Eagles don’t seem to have needs at RB with McCoy and Sproles healthy. Ravens have an obvious need with Rice gone and Pierce sucking. Seahawks would be a good fit, and be able to take Earl Thomas off of return duty. Colts? Dump Richardson and split between James and Bradshaw?
Chris Polk is constantly hurt. Kelly wants to run more 2 back sets this year. He might be a fit as a #3 back.
He was a #3 back in San Francisco and couldn’t stop publically griping about it. I’m interested if anybody wants him.
OK, I need a TE to replace Jordan Cameron as it looks like he’s going to be out a while. Options include Antonio Gates, Delanie Walker, Marcedes Lewis, the usual waiver wire suspects. Dwayne Allen and Larry Donnell both looked really good this weekend, though. I feel like the right move is taking a chance on one of the latter, or picking up the formerly reliable but now riskier Gates. Thoughts?
The big difference is that Lions fans don’t get cocky after a win or two. It seems to be the default position for Bengals fans.
None of them are sure to be much better than the wire. Gates if I had to pick.
It is? Now, to be fair, if you were a Bengals fan during the dark decade before Marvin came along then yes, small victories become enlarged when you can’t even crack 8-8 every year…in fact, you’re significantly worse than that, generally at 3-13 through 7-9.
I understand that the BASELINE is just making the playoffs, and I sure would like to see the Bengals advance by actually WINNING a playoff game…but let’s not get too crazy here. PLENTY of Superbowl win teams have shit the bed not only as a SB hangover but in general.
It’s really HARD to even get to the championship game, let alone the SB.
Nice smackdown, but I find this selective filtering disingenuous. The Steelers were the mayors of shit-town for the first 40 (forty!) years they existed. That rivals the collective shittiness of the Bengals. (EDIT: Since that forty year stretch, it goes without saying that the Steelers are as good as it gets, with the most Superbowl wins of any franchise.)
I also view a “successful” season as one in which the last game you play is meaningful. As long as the last time my team (Giants) steps onto the field, they’re actually playing for something, then I consider that season a success. (Last season was not successful.) This was Wellington Mara’s benchmark, and I buy into it.
Oh, just remembered something from last Thursday’s season opener that bugged me, and I still have a few hours before week 2 gets started.
Richard Sherman boasts that he’s the best corner because he gets the fewest targets. He may very well be the best corner, but his reasoning is for shit. Sherman doesn’t move. He always lines up on the same side of the field, covering whoever is split out wide on that side. So logically, all you have to do is put WR3 out on Sherman’s side of the field and send him deep, and then you can completely ignore Sherman.
For me personally, part of the definition of the “best corner in the league” is that you cover the other team’s best receiver, all game long, on pretty much every play. Sherman spends most of the time not covering the best receiver, so to me he is not the best corner.
Well, that’s not really accurate. The Seahawks can choose to use him a couple different ways. One is, as you said, to lock him into one receiver and shut them down. So the Packers ignore that side and focus on the other. But then the Seahawks get to cheat their safetys over to the side that is getting throws, which lets them consistently get double coverage on Nelson and Cobb, which is exactly what happened. When the QB loses half the field, that is a huge, huge deal. Sherman’s reputation is what makes that possible, and well, you saw what happened Thursday night.
The Seahawks can (and indeed often do) mix it up and let Sherman cover different people. That just wasn’t the strategy they ran with against the Packers. Sherman isn’t the best corner because he gets the fewest targets, he gets the fewest targets because he’s the best (or, more realistically, one of the best) corner. The fact that QBs don’t throw to him, regardless of who he is covering, just proves his case.
If I’m an OC, I’d much, MUCH rather lose my top reciever than lose 1/3 of the field.
If you’re going to man up on my top WR, I can still work with that; send the WR on a fly pattern, then bring another reciever in underneath; likely as not a RB or TE working on a LB. I can keep the WR short and send the TE/slot on a smash route behind him. Knowing he’s in man, I can set up picks and rubs and screens a lot more easily. It makes it easier for my running game, as my WR can just run him off instead of having to block him on run plays.
If a CB is in zone, but just so good I don’t dare throw to the right side of the field at all, I the only “advantage” I can get is that now I can get my top WR matched on a nickelback (not directly, since they run zone on that side, too; and of course, teams can usually get that matchup anyway; lots of teams, like the Giants, routinely put their top WR in the slot), provided I’m willing to go slot left … IOW, if I let them dictate my formations to me.
Of course, all of that is IF the CB is so good in zone that I’m wise to never throw anywhere on his side of the hash. Sherman isn’t, nobody is. But to the extent that his presence make the offense very leery of going there, it’s every bit as powerful as a Revis/Sanders-type man blanket guy.
Sherman doesn’t take away 1/3 of the field. He takes away a guy. And not even the best guy.
Unless, of course, they do sometimes move him around to take out the best guy, like JSexton describes.
I don’t care if the CB is Darrell Green reincarnated, when you have a top WR involved like Megatron, AJ Green, etc they and the OC’s that coach them generally find a way to get them the ball at least a few times a game.
If they get limited by an outstanding DB then there’s always other options, if the QB finds the time to get the rock to them.
It just depends.