Wheres’ the fluky win?? Beat the Cowboys in Dallas.. Tony Romo was their.. Dez even had a return.. that overrated tight end who got alligator arms was their.. the entire defense was present for that game.
Minnesota last week.. Mr Farve was their.. looked healthy than in several weeks.. Vikes came off a great come from behind win against the Cardinals.. had some momemtum.. That loud mouth DE of theirs was present.. wasn’t on the injury list.. Moss wasn’t their cause chilly cut him.. Adian P was their.and got shut down..
Dolphins.. injured oline.. well. perhaps they should have RUN one of their two stud running backs.. Brandon quit on them. Thats a Tony S issue to deal with. Henne had already got benched for a Chad who can’t throw a twenty yard out pattern. so this poor Miami stuff is bullshit.. their wagon wheels had already begun falling off..
Seattle.. tough loss to a below average team.. bears in the game all the way to the end..
Lions.. won the game on a league technacality much like Bellichick did with the tuck rule..if they change the rule.. fine..Bears were leading at the time..
Beat the Pack on MNF.. close game.. Pack had like 50 penalties.. i guess the zebras conspired with the McCaskey’s for that one..
Beat a bad Panthers team.. Beat a not as bad but still bad Buffalo team..
Lost to a average to below Redskins game when Jay Cutler found a new best friend in Meangelo ..
Whats the fluky win?? Whats the aberration?? Good special teams.. helluva kicker.. best return guy in the history of football. Quarterback with a five dollar arm and frequently a 25cent head.. Good all purpose back.. Solid dline.. great linebackers.. and a secondary playing its best in several years..
A head coach willing to go all out because this is his last stand.. an o coordinator who knows this is his last shot in the league.. D coordinator trying to erase a bad record in detroit..
Whats fluky. Just because its sports doesn’t mean we throw logic and facts out of the window..
If Team A hits the opposing quarterback very frequently - something which is part of actually being good at football and is certainly not “dirty” - they will, in the grand scheme of things, knock out the quarterback more often than Team B, who hits the quarterback less frequently.
It’s not luck or dirty play; it’s the likely outcome of an effective pass rush.
If you’re looking to take the Browns in any kind of Pick’em contest or suicide pool, you should be aware that they’re pretty banged up. Scott Fujita is out, Cribbs looks to be out, and they’ve got some O-linemen who will be questionable. That Jets game was extremely physical.
You’re right, thanks. I actually didn’t get them confused… I committed the much less understandable error of relying on old information. As in, weeks old. I thought Smith was still hurt. Then again, he’s been playing as if he’s been inactive, so there you go. Thanks though!
Likely? Are you sure? Nine teams have had more sacks on the quarterback than the Giants, have those other nine teams knocked out three or four starters this season? If you hit a quarterback, yes, you have a better chance of knocking him out than if you didn’t hit the quarterback. But that’s not really the point here.
My point wasn’t, at all, that the Giants were dirty. The point was that it doesn’t fit to say it’s skill to injure a quarterback (again, nine other teams have sacked the QB more than the Giants, but they haven’t knocked out three or four starters each). Saying so indicates it’s done on purpose, and purposefully injuring players is dirty. Hence, you’d probably rather claim to be lucky than dirty. And even if you say it’s skill to hit a quarterback and they weren’t trying to injure him, but did so anyway, that’s back to being lucky. It’s a small argument for a relatively insignificant point anyway.
No, thank you! That made the entire thing worth it.
Thanks! It’s not heavily researched, it’s kinda just for fun. I’m certain to disagree with a lot of it myself as soon as Monday, but it’s fun to do. I really appreciate your post, though!
I never said it was a skill. My argument is the characterization that it’s luck. It isn’t luck, it’s earned. You earn it by mounting an effective pass rush.
I mean, come on, Jay Cutler getting his bell rung after a half of the Giants crushing him isn’t luck by any stretch of the imagination. That’s called pass rush.
Luck is the team who faced the Bears the week after that game, when Cutler was out through no action of their own. Or to go back a while, luck was Vinny Testaverde rupturing his achilles during a routine dropback when no defender was anywhere near him for the Jets back in, in think, '99. That’s what luck looks like.
Emphasizing the pass rush in your team philosophy, executing it properly, and then having opposing quarterbacks banged up because of it, is not luck and is not in any way dirty.
(Note that your sack stats are meaningless. QB hits would be more meaningful, but even then there would be small sample size issues. I would wager that in a full statistical analysis covering many seasons, teams with more hits on the QB knock more QBs out of the game than teams with fewer.)
Jules, that was an impressive rundown. Props from a fellow Iggles fan.
Now speaking of Eagles-Giants, let us have some further discussion on this. My take is…I have no friggin clue. I thought the Giants were a solid team (on both sides of the ball) from my somewhat limited viewing of their games. Solid enough to be the class of the weakened NFC, but still the class. However, last week put a bit of a monkey wrench into that thought process. Eli is a capable QB. Good enough to win most weeks with a decent supporting cast, but not a guy who’s going to singlehandedly win you games every week. Nicks and Manningham are dangerous weapons and I don’t have all that much faith in the Eagles DB’s to be able to cover two capable wideouts. I haven’t checked but is Nate Allen back this week for the Birds? At any rate, if Eli is on and the ground game for the Giants is producing positive yards, I expect NY to put up some points.
Now to the flip side: Vick. The man, the myth, the convicted felon. At some point, he has to come back to earth a little bit, right? I believe I heard he’s pretty much had one of the most productive half-seasons ever for QB. 15 total TD’s/No TO’s. And frankly, I was against him starting over Kolb because I had always thought he was overrated in Atlanta. Whoops, guess thats why my career as a football scout will never be realized. Anyway, **if **Vick is on. Like really on. I can’t see the Giants(or any team) being able to contain him. He has too many weapons at his disposal (Jackson, Maclin, Avant, Mccoy on the screens). Not to mention his scrambling ability. He’s the Perfect Weapon. (Patent Pending)
If he’s off though, McCoy and Jerome Harrison need to be able to get 4-5 ypc and control the clock for the Eagles to keep the game manageable and winnable. The Eagles D is exploitable to an extent, but they can force turnovers and thats what they’ll need if the offense sputters.
Any thoughts from the Giants side?
When Vick was in Atlanta, the Falcons and Giants usually played every year. In that series, the away team had a perfect record, so, uh, I guess Giants?
In the Atlanta games, the Giants would sack him a half dozen times per game. In the New Jersey games, Vick would run wild. Could go either way, I suppose.
Quarterbacks generally get hit in every game. They generally do not get hurt. Knocking an inordinately high number of quarterbacks out of games is an unintended bonus of the Giants’ hard work. It’s fortunate for them. It wouldn’t be fortunate if the Giants were actually intending to injure quarterbacks. I can’t say if they are or not. My own feeling is that it’s dirty to purposefully try to injure someone in sport. Even physical sport.
They aren’t meaningless at all actually. I agree that QB hits is probably a more effective stat for the topic, but you can’t have a sack without a hit. And it’s certain the teams that surrender the most sacks also surrender the most hits. It stands to reason then that sacks are somewhat a measure of hits anyway.
“We make our own luck.” I think that phrase bridges the disconnect between our two points. But again, unless the Giants are going out intending to injure the opposing QB, the fact they have done so, so often, has been very lucky for them. If they are intending to, I personally find that dirty. You may not.
Thank you very much. I’ll definitely do what I can to keep them up if people enjoy them. I appreciate that.
I’ll be picking the Giants to win the game, for a few reasons (and probably none of them good ones). First, the Giants always play the Eagles tougher in Philly, I made that point in the rundown. Second, they’ll be extra motivated after an embarrassing loss against Dallas. And third, after the 'Skins game, the Eagles are probably due for a let down. Finally, far too many people are riding high on the Eagles. There;s too much talk of them in the Super Bowl. That’s never good. This is all gut feeling stuff though. And having a pessimistic gut is a requisite part of being an Eagles fan.
I’m not sold on the Giants being the best in the NFC until they beat someone significant. To date, their best win is against Chicago at home, and I’m not at all sold on Chicago. But on the flip side, even though the Eagles have extremely impressive wins against Atlanta and Indy… they don’t strike me as a dominant team. They don’t strike me as a “best in the NFC” caliber team. They still have a flawed defense. Yes it makes big plays (leads the NFL in INTs) but gives up too many points and yards.
Fortunately, Eli has been pretty “loosey goosey” with the football this season, and the Eagles are the perfect team to take advantage of that. And the Giants are missing a couple key pieces that could make the difference.
Allen is probable.
I was in the same boat, but for a different reason. After watching McNabb sabotage the west coast offense for so many years with his inaccurate short game, I thought Vick was more of the same. I wasn’t entirely prepared for the offense to turn into a big play machine that is gunning for the end zone on every snap.
Hillis and MJD are so fun to watch. One of my favorite plays ever was either last season or two season ago, when Jacksonville was playing San Diego and MJD absolutely trucked Shawn Merriman coming off the edge on a pass play, knocking him on his ass. It was like he punched him in the mouth.