One thing that’s always bugged me is the NFL practice of basically throwing games late in the season, like Indy did today. It seems to cheat the fans and play fuck-all with the playoff picture, but everybody just shrugs it off. In other sports throwing games – maybe not “trying to lose,” but certainly not trying to win – is scandalous. Yes, yes, I know all the blah blah blah about resting the starters and avoiding injuries, and I don’t blame a team that’s locked things up for doing it, since it’s allowed, but sometimes I wonder WHY it’s allowed or why nobody gives a shit.
But that’s just it…he won’t start next time!
Anyway, I sorta agree.
Re: Palmer…yeah, he’s certainly not as sharp as I’d like. A few things to clear the air:
Our offensive line sucks, especially at pass-blocking. Palmer doesn’t have the time luxury he once had when Willie Anderson and Levi Jones were anchoring the line from 2004-2006. We cover our TE deficiencies blocking-wise by bringing in a third OT that we motion around a lot, especially on running plays.
Our WR situation is a little off. Henry up and being injured then dying has exposed the lack of height amongst the rest of our WR’s. Nobody on the Bengals had that combo of height and speed, and hardly anyone else in the NFL does, either. It hurts us downfield, other defenses know it, double and triple cover Chad, and force us to use our other options and they are mostly unproven or not as talented. Coles was supposed to help in this area but has been pretty inconsistent, although he had a good game today. He’s making 10 million this season, though.
Palmer also has a torn ligament in his non-throwing left hand. He wears a special glove to keep his fingers together to help grip the ball, and he hands off with his right hand. Its funky. There hasn’t been a fumble on a handoff exchange that I can recall, but it has to affect him. He will have surgery in the offseason to rectify it. Nobody is really talking about it, but its true.
Marvin Lewis is staying true to his word from the outset of last offseason, saying he was going to “blow things up” and get back to a “power running game”. Well, we’ve done that. Problem is, it seems to have cost us some rhythm/timing in the passing game. We also don’t score a lot of points in the redzone anymore, which is troubling.
Thank goodness we have a good defensive coordinator and some talent on defense, although I heard Rey Maualuga broke his ankle today and is done.
Fuck.
But that’s the dealio on the Bengals. They might make some hay in the playoffs, or they’ll bow out in the first game. A box of chocolates team.
A season is not really “perfect” unless every offensive play is a touchdown and the other team never scores.
It’s a shame for to lose a game that NY seemed determined to give away. How do you fail to block Dwight Freeney twice in one game. He was completely unblocked. Way to protect your rookie QB.
So what do the Cardinals do now? They’re likely to play Green Bay in back to back games. First game is meaningless, second game is the first round of the playoffs.
I’d say go for the win next week. No, I don’t want to see any injuries, but the home field advantage the Cards will have won’t be much of an advantage. There’s quite a few Wisconsin transplants here in Phoenix so the stadium will be at least 25% Packer fans. The Cardinals should go into the playoffs on a roll with 3 wins in a row.
Interestingly enough, the Cardinals also played the Packers during the preseason in Phoenix. 3 home games against the same team in the NFL? Not very common, although it may have happened before.
The Colts throwing the game had significant playoff implications due to all the teams bunched up around 7-7. How would you like it if your team only got in because someone got to play against the next Jim Sorgi, or if you get kicked out because someone got a free win? Disgusting.
The Colts did this to the Browns in 2007 - granted, the Browns could’ve won more and forced their way in, but the Colts, in addition to playing Sorgi & Friends, DID NOT EVEN TRY TO WIN. They were down by like 4, with 2 minutes left on the clock and 3 timeouts and the other team had the ball and they decided to not even use their timeouts, they just let the clock run out. The other team started kneeling with like over a minute left with the Colts sitting there with time outs. In a very blatant way, they let the other team win - not even a matter of resting your starters, but not even letting the second string guys who are in there have a shot at winning anyway.
Fuck that franchise.
About the only interesting thing to come out of today’s Patriots game is that the typography on the Jaguars’ jerseys makes it look at first glance like their quarterback is named GRRRRRD.
I only take issue with your statement to point out that had Cleveland never racked up that insane yardage total against the Bengals in a crazy-assed game, then Anderson doesn’t make the Probowl, the Browns don’t make the postseason, etc, Romeo looks slimmer, etc.
I like the Colts. Didn’t they win a Superbowl recently by resting starters?
I don’t see how what you said is relevant to what I said.
And no, their only superbowl came from a year where they had to fight through the end of the season for their playoff spot and then play wildcard weekend. The only time in recent history they didn’t rest their starters, they won the superbowl.
Fine. So in other words, the Colts need to stop resting their starters?
OK, I keed, I keed! I may like the Colts a little, but fuck them anyway. As long as they don’t interfere with the Bengals winning the Bowl, then they can do whatever they like…
You’re planning to lose in the early rounds? That’ll show 'em! 
I like the Colts and thought this was a stupid choice. I hope it doesn’t bite them in the ass like it has every other time. :smack:
Is there a worse place in the nation to watch the NFL (without having the NFL network) than the Bay Area? Two shitty teams, and you have to watch both of their games, with no competition.
If i had been at home in San Diego today, i could have watched the Ravens-Steelers game at 10am, with occasional flicking over to see the Panthers crush the Giants, and then the Broncos-Eagles game at 1.00. Instead, i get to see the Raiders-Browns, followed by the Lions-49ers. Three and a half shitty teams (SF is at least half a decent team), playing two completely meaningless games. And both games were as boring as all fuck.
If i hadn’t still been feeling under the weather after a bout of mild food poisoning, i would have dragged my ass downtown to a sports bar.
The Freezer Bowl legacy is haunting you.
I don’t think the vitriol is warranted. I, too, would prefer to see the Colts play hard the whole way through (for a couple of reasons), but resting starters in games which are meaningless to you is 99% standard operating procedure for every team. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is Pats-Giants in '07, and those were special circumstances. For whatever reason, the idea of a 16-0 regular season just wasn’t considered such a big deal this time around.
I find it distasteful as well, but unless you’re taking a “fuck that franchise” position with just about every team that’s had a chance to rest starters over the past however many years, I don’t get why you’re so pissed about the 2009 Colts.
A few compounding factors. Being a game and a half away from a perfect regular season is such a rare opportunity that it seems absurd to me to just give it up. If you sit your starters because you’re 13-2 and have the #1 seed locked up that’s fairly different. I don’t like it usually, but it doesn’t piss me off massively, especially if the game doesn’t have other implications.
In my mind, a 16-0 season is more impressive than a superbowl win - and imagine how you’d feel if Peyton Manning sat out for half the superbowl for no good reason.
And for what? How much risk is there? He gets sacked less than once a game and he never gets hurt.
Additionally, the Colts do this shit all the time, and never learn for it. They sit their starters for 2+ weeks (often including a bye), come out rusty, and get bounced out early in the playoffs. The one time they had to play the whole way was the time they won the superbowl. It’s somewhat puzzling why they don’t learn this lesson, and it’s even more aggravating that they don’t seem to realize that playing for 16-0 is both a chance at a historic achievement, and based on their history, a better chance at winning in the playoffs anyway. So you are both thumbing your nose at making history and at what your historical results show what works best for your team.
That and we’ve got like 6 seeds competing for the wildcard slot, and a big factor in determining who gets to go to the playoffs is who gets to play Indy late in the season after they’ve packed it in. Teams should not be able to get into the playoffs or knocked out of them based on who’s lucky enough to need the Colts to lose late in the season. It’s not fair to the teams who have to play 16 opponents who are actually trying to beat them and make a playoff record off that compared to teams who don’t need to play a full schedule because the Colts aren’t really trying to win against them.
I’m also not feeling the hate for sitting players down. This also comes from someone that thinks that kneel-downs to kill the clock are pretty cowardly.
I dunno. I know that an undefeated season is a special occasion, but I can’t help thinking that teams that are in that position, and also wrap up home field advantage, would be better served by sitting folks and keeping them fresh for the postseason.
It doesn’t mean as much (I guess) if you go undefeated and don’t win the Super Bowl. Give me the Super Bowl over an undefeated season any day of the week. Additionally, it’s not like the Colts are automatically going to be an awesome team every year. Nobody saw how flat the Titans would come out this year, and I’m sure people looked at their schedules before the season started and thought the same thing. Same with the Steelers.
Keeping their starters “fresh” has failed for the Colts over and over again anyway. They’re going to get a first week bye - that’s enough to get some rest without getting rusty. If they start tanking it in week 16, that’s almost a month since they played a serious football game.
It’s not an either/or choice. They’re not choosing superbowl vs 16-0. They can have both. And given their history of doing better when they don’t rest their starters, it seems like going for both increases the likelihood of a superbowl win.
Everyone knows the '72 Dolphins. Do you know who won the super bowl in '68 or '81 or most years? I personally think the 2007 Pats season is probably the greatest season ever played by an NFL team even though they didn’t end up winning the superbowl, given their circumstances, strength of schedule, and margin of victory.
It doesn’t matter whether the Colts are good or not or what teams think of them. A team that plays 16 teams that are trying their best to beat them is not on equal footing with a team that has one team take a game off against them. Let’s take this to an extreme to demonstrate my point - let’s say the Colts didn’t want any wear and tear on any of their players, and they forfeitted their next 2 games and they weren’t even played. The Jets might get in the playoffs strictly on the basis of being lucky enough to catch the Colts during the forfeit, and whatever team they replace in the playoffs gets shafted.
I should add… there’s no way everyone on that team is happy with this. To get near perfection, to have a shot at the greatest season any NFL team has ever had (16-0 and a superbowl win beats the '72 Dolphins and the '07 Patriots, at least in win total). This is going to brew trouble in the locker room. Instead of having a team that came into the playoffs at 16-0, unified and energized with a sense of purpose and unity, now they’re going to have disgruntled players in disharmony who will also be rusty when the playoffs start. This decision is bad from pretty much every direction you want to look at it.
I hope it breeds resentment in the locker room, I hope it makes them rusty, I hope they lose their first playoff game 63-0. Fuck them.
A stupid decison by the Colts in my opinion. I kept hearing the talk about the “big picture” but I think they lost sight of the bigger picture. Is winning the Super Bowl important? Obviously yes. But they’ve done that. Forty three teams have done that. And the week after the Super Bowl everything is reset to zero and you start a thinking about the new season.
But an undefeated season is a historical event in professional football. It’s not an opportunity to be lightly tossed away as not worth the effort. You ask a group of fans which team had an undefeated season and which team won last year’s Super Bowl and I’ll bet more people can tell you the former rather than the latter.
I was looking at Manning and the other Colts on the sideline and I saw a team that was being broken. They were being told that an undefeated season is unimportant and this was just another football game. How are the coaches and managers going to be able to turn around in a couple of weeks and convince them that this week’s game is somehow more important than the one they threw away?