Why the Cheatriots Couldn't Win

Here are some great stats I saw about this past weekend's superbowl, many of which are in this article about the effect of luck on the game, and which I really think highlight well my lasting impressions of this game, these teams, and the 2011-2012 NFL season.

For starters, some stats to give an idea of just how amazing the Giants' feat this year is. For example, did you know that Eli Manning and the Giants finished 3-0 on the road in this postseason, while all other teams in the NFL finished 0-9 on the road? So in a year where nobody seemed to be able to rise up and win a game against a better team in the playoffs, the Giants stepped up and beat the Falcons at home, followed by the 15-1 Packers at Lambeau, and then the 13-3 49ers in San Fran, and then they followed it up by winning the Superbowl in Indianapolis against the 13-3 Cheatriots.

Moving to their performance in the Superbowl itself, in their Super Bowl 42 meeting, the Giants held New England to 14 points, which was 23 fewer points than its regular-season average in that season of incredible offensive outbursts for the Cheats. In their second Super Bowl meeting this past Sunday night, the Giants held New England to 17 points, again 15 fewer points than its regular-season average. The Giants defense simply stepped up big time against the Cheatriots, both times they have met in recent memory in the superbowl. At more than two touchdowns below the Cheatriots' season averages, it is really worth mentioning.

And regarding Eli Manning, I did not realize this but Eli Manning is now 7-0 as a starter on the road in the playoffs, with 12 touchdown passes versus two interceptions. That right there might be one of the sickest stats you will ever see about the NFL postseason. Forget Mark Sanchez and his four road playoff wins, Eli Manning at 7-0 on the road in the playoffs, with 12 tds and just 2 picks? Mark Sanchez doesn't even dream of being that good in the clutch. What a stud Eli turned himself into this year. Much as I hate to admit it.

Some interesting stats comparing this year's Giants run to that of last year's Green Bay Packers, and the general mediocrity of the teams in this year's championship, during the regular season:

The Packers and Giants, the last two Super Bowl champions, were a combined 19-13 during the regular season followed by a combined 8-0 in the postseason over the past two years. If you recall, the Packers were all but done after an embarrassing loss at home to the Lions in Week 14 back in 2011, and then they backed into the playoffs anyways and the rest was history. And this season, the Giants' Week 15 debacle loss at home to the hapless Redskins in a game that wasn't even as close as the 23-10 score would indicate seemed to all but ensure that they would miss the playoffs as well, but then wins at the Jets and against the Cowgirls in the last two weeks of the season catapulted them in anyways, and once again, the rest has since become the stuff of NFL legend.

Also, the Giants and Cheatriots finished the 2011-2012 season with a combined record of just 6-6 against teams that had winning seasons, and that includes all the playoff games. The Giants beat only New England this year during the regular season among its 9 wins, 8 of which were against teams who ended the year 8-8 or worse. Meanwhile, the Cheats did not win a single game against an over-.500 regular season team despite winning 13 games overall this year. Think about that -- the Cheatriots played only two games against winning teams in 2011 -- the Steelers and the Giants in Weeks 8 and 9 this year -- and they lost them both, by an average of 6 points. Neither of these teams faced particularly strong schedules this year, nor did either team perform particularly well against the few good teams they did face, but just like last year's Packers, they got hot at the right time and rode their big players to victory.

There are also some good stats that I think give some solid insight into how the Cheatriots managed to lose this game:

Tom Brady completed 25 of his first 31 pass attempts in Superbowl XLVI, but then ended the game completing only 2 of his final 10 attempts as he desperately tried to lead his team on a late-game comeback. Eli Manning, however, completed 25 of his first 34 pass attempts much like Tom Brady did, but then he finished the game completing five of his final six attempts, including the amazing pass to Mario Manningham (see below) that will go down as the biggest and most amazing play of this year's superbowl.

Which really illustrates the larger point here, to those of you who are big football fans and have watched a lot of these big games over the past decade or so: Tom Brady is simply not as good as he used to be. This should not surprise anyone, as he is now in his 12th year playing in a league where the vast majority of players don't ever survive half that long. By NFL standards, Brady is getting up there in age, and the simple fact is that, when his team was recording signs and stealing plays and winning superbowls back in the early 2000s, Tom Brady was at the time one of the absolutely most accurate, best decision-making quarterbacks in the league. Nowadays, Brady's accuracy is just not up there with the Rodgers's and the Brees's, and it really showed in this year's superbowl.

For starters, let's take a look at the play everyone (including Brady's wife) is talking about, Wes Welker's huge drop late in the 4th quarter which would have sustained a key Cheatriots drive and gone a long way towards ensuring a New England victory in the superbowl:



If you take a look at the play above and you're capable of some objectivity that so many people lack when it comes to their favorite sports team, this really isn't about Welker missing the catch, even a little bit. It's a bad throw. Period. Not only is this ball about four feet straight over Welker's head, when it had no need to be given that Welker is completely wide, wide open, but it'a also at his back shoulder, making this a very,very difficult catch. Now, don't get me wrong -- Wes Welker is the most productive receiver in the NFL for the past several years, and he does quite often find a way to make this catch. And I can certainly feel for Tom Brady when I see his top receiver get both hands on a thrown ball in a situation where he was not otherwise touched by any defenders. But at the end of the day, the inescapable conclusion from watching this play is that Tom Brady made a bad throw. The precision accuracy that used to be such a hallmark of Brady's success back in the early days of his Cheatriots career, is now gone, at least in any consistent aspect. In this case, Brady had his #1 target wide open on an absolutely crucial, nearly superbowl-winning play, but Brady's throw ended up in an extremely difficult spot to catch it, even for Wes Welker. Gisele, Tom and anyone else can say what they want, but this one is probably 85% on Brady, and 15% on Welker in my view.

Similarly, let's look at the next biggest play in the game, from the Cheatriots' perspective -- the Chase Blackburn interception:



Once again, here is Tom Brady given all the time in the world behind the line, but when none of his wideouts are open, Brady opts to go with his ever-trusty tight end Rob Gronkowski and heaves one up there, at a time when Gronk had clearly beaten his defender and was a good five yards open downfield and counting. Unfortunately, just look at that pass. Brady throws it a little off his back foot, a little tentatively, and the result is just what one might expect -- this ball is at least ten feet short. And really, it's even shorter than that, because Gronk had his guy beat when the ball left Brady's hands, so Brady should have led Gronk even deeper with his throw, but this toss ends up about 10 feet short of where Gronk was when Brady threw the ball. There's just not even close to enough juice on this throw, and this is the one and only reason why Chase Blackburn was able to make what was admittedly a nice catch on his part. But if this ball is thrown well, there's no chance for Blackburn to even make a play, and given Gronkowski's performance this year, it seems a pretty safe bet he takes this one into the end zone for a huge score that almost certainly changes the outcome of this game. Instead, however, Brady launches a duck well short of its intended target, and this gives Blackburn -- who was already behind the play right from when Brady threw the ball -- the opportunity to be in better position that Gronkowski to make the huge interception and take away one of the Cheatriots' last good opportunities to score in this game. The simple fact is, Tom Brady did not used to miss this badly on his longballs in superbowls past, but now his accuracy is just not what it used to be, and it shows in his results.

Before anyone says I'm just nitpicking here, let's take a look at the Giants' biggest play of the superbowl, which was this amazing catch by Mario Manningham down the left sideline late in the 4th quarter with his team needing a score in the final minutes to take the lead from the Cheatriots:



I mean, just look at that play. Where Tom Brady stepped down in his team's biggest throws of the day, making questionable decisions and missing his spots as detailed above, Eli Manning shows us what Brady used to do in the superbowl back in the day -- he absolutely nails it. Nails it! As amazing of a job catching that ball as Manningham did -- hauling it in, feet both in bounds, retaining possession while being hit and tackled out of bounds -- I just can't get away from the fact that Eli Manning's throw is even better. Play that vid over again and just look at where that ball landed. And this was with Eli also off his back foot and under pressure to boot, but just look at what Eli did there. He lofted this one and landed it in a spot where absolutely, unequivocally, the only player who could make any play on the ball whatsoever is his guy. Those defenders -- though Manningham seemed like he was draped with coverage when this play happened in real time -- but those defenders literally had no shot to even touch this ball. Manning put this throw perfectly where only Manningham could make a play, and yet just close enough to him to enable him to actually be able to make that play.

This is what winning superbowl quarterbacks do, and this is exactly what Tom Brady used to do back in the day when his Cheatriots were winning superbowls themselves. But not anymore. Now, impeccable, almost impossibly perfect throws like this are what Eli Manning does to Tom Brady's team. While Brady, on the other hand, basically, well, Brady's himself. You thought Tebowing was big, but Bradying might be I think the Next Big Thing.

I'll leave this post with a couple of final thoughts about the superbowl, and the Cheatriots's cheating past.

Before Spygate, Bill Belicheat's Cheatriots were 12-2 overall in the playoffs, and 3-0 in superbowls. But since the team was caught cheating in the middle of the 2007 NFL season, the Cheatriots are now 4-4 overall in the postseason, and 0-2 in the superbowl. If you choose not to see a connection there, then that's your prerogative. But then it's my prerogative to laugh at you, which I will most definitely do.

Also, I saw pointed out in that article interestingly that the Giants are 4-0 in the superbowl when Bill Belicheat is on the sidelines. That of course is 2-0 with Bellicheat as an assistant under Bill Parcells, and now 2-0 against Bellicheat's Cheatriots team. Maybe they can hire him as a strategic consultant or something if they ever make it back to the big game again, since it seems unlikely to this writer that the Cheatiots will make a return trip to the superbowl anytime soon.

Superbowl

Lest anyone have any doubts or be at all unclear about exactly what the problem is in Philadelphia with Eagles coach Andy Reid, one has only to look at this past weekend's superbowl to have it all clearly laid out. Unlike Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- make that two-time Superbowl winning Giants' coach Tom Coughlin -- Andy Reid could never be a part of what the Giants just did, not only once, but twice within the span of five years. Andy Reid sleeps well at night knowing that he has won what, five NFC Easts in 12 years as Eagles head man, but he is simply unable to lead his team on a post-season run like we have been treated to watching Tom Coughlin do twice in very recent memory. And I dare say that Reid has had more talent come through the halls of the Linc over the past half a decade than Coughlin has had in New Jerseyork.

You want to know what we Philadelphians want, if "all" of Andy Reid's success here in Philly just isn't enough? I wish I had Tom Coughlin as my coach. Period. Sure, we would have to deal with the late-season collapses, and the disciplinary issues, and the too-tough mentality, etc. But Andy Reid gets all the complaints anyways, thanks to his consistently embarrassing defense, his highly questionable assistant coaching decisions, his ineptitude on game-day and countless other very noticeable weaknesses, all of which seem to be magnified with the bigger the game is, again the total opposite of Tom Coughlin and the Giants.

But enough about the Eagles. Let's talk about them Cheatriots. Another good showing, huh? It really is amazing how mediocre this team looks in big games when they don't know every single play the opposition is going to run, one after the next after the next. It really is amazing. And despite what many New Englanders out there will be screaming from the rooftops all this week ever since about 10pm local time on Sunday night, make no mistake about it: the Cheatriots needed this win. They needed it. They still need it. This team absolutely, positively needs to win another superbowl, to show the world that they actually have it in them to win one when they play by the rules. Right now, the legacy of the Cheatriots is more than merely questionable. That legacy is in downright mutiny right now. These guys won three superbowls in four years, each one by merely a field goal, and it turns out after the fact that they knew every single play their opponents were running all game long. And they were only winning by field goals? Now, since getting caught cheating and being forced to play by the same rules as everyone else does in their big games, the Cheatriots have found their way to two more superbowls -- both of which they were favored in, as they were playing each year a Giants squad that had had by all rights not nearly as good of a regular season as the Cheatriots had. For crying out loud, this year's Giants team became the first team in NFL history to win a superbowl after going just 9-7 in the regular season. Said another way, this Giants squad was the worst team ever to win a superbowl in the NFL. And what did the Cheatriots do against them when it all mattered most, after Gisele had sent her email and gotten everyone close to her to pray for her man to win his fourth championship?

Absolutely nothing. Yes, Tom Brady led his Cheatriots on an awesome, long drive to end the first half with a touchdown, and another similar drive to start the second half with another score and build his team an 8-point lead early in the third quarter. But take those just two drives away, and the vaunted Cheatiots offense didn't do shiat in this game. I mean, look at the facts -- the Cheats scored just 17 points total in the entire game, after scoring just 20 points when the two teams matched up earlier this season in Week 9 (and only 14 points in the 2007-2008 superbowl). The Cheats just did not click well on offense in the Superbowl, and in general they simply cannot do and have not done much in general against the Giants, one of the few good teams the Cheatriots played all this year.

Unlike the Eli Manning of old, Eli stepped up big time in this superbowl as he looked every bit the part of grizzled, consistent veteran. If you watched the game then you know that Eli didn't get rattled once, not even a little bit, and it was in fact Tom Brady and not Eli who threw the one dumb, off-balance, back-foot pass of the night, leading to an interception on a crucial drive where the Cheats needed to score to get the game back in control. But make no mistake about it -- and I don't care about dropped passes, liberal intentional grounding calls, as none of that changes this conclusion -- but Eli Manning outplayed Tom Brady in this superbowl, plain and simple. In fact, he did so twice this year. And if you watch this game, then you know that the game simply wasn't nearly as close as the score would indicate. The Giants utterly dominated in the first half, somehow going into the locker room with a 1-point deficit despite having held the ball nearly twice as long as the Cheatriots did during the first half of play. And then in the second half, Brady started off with that beautiful long scoring drive to put his team up 17-9 in the game, but after that point, Brady didn't have one highlight in the rest of the game, and the New England defense simply could not stop Eli Manning and the Giants backs and receivers from more or less moving up and down the field at will.

So there it is in a nutshell. The Cheatriots cheated for years and even then were only barely able to squeak out wins in their biggest games some years ago. Nowadays with their ability to steal their opponents' every play taken away from them, the Cheats are still obviously a good team, full of players with much talent on the offense. But the loss of guys like Teddy Bruschi, Willie McGinest, Mike Vrabel, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, Richard Seymour and others have left this team with what can barely even be called a defense, and while knowing every play ahead of time might have been enough to make them look passable on Sunday, having to face every play without foreknowledge showed the Cheatriots for what they really are:

A second-rate team, in a second-rate conference, with a hideous excuse for a defense, and an offense with a number of strong pieces but one that simply did not -- and does not any longer -- get it done in the biggest of spots. It's pretty obvious at this point that the teams the Cheatriots beat in the superbowl in the early 2000s deserve restitution. February 3, 2002: New England 20, St. Louis 17. That Rams team was obviously far better than the Cheatriots, when you consider that the Cheats were observed filming the Rams' signs during the pregame walkthrough, tapes which NFL Commissioner Roger Gooddell immediately destroyed rather than admit specifically what the Cheatriots had stolen from the Rams. As far as I'm concerned, that 3-point win for the Cheats is more like a two-touchdown loss to a clearly better team, and the Rams should be recognized as having won two superbowls in three years with The Greatest Show on Turf. February 1, 2004 New England 32, Carolina 29. Here is another 3-point victory against a team with a superior defense and a thought-to-be inferior offense, but who surely would beaten the Cheatriots in a fair fight. And then of course there was February 6, 2005 New England 24, Philadelphia 21. Still another mere field goal margin of victory against a team that was obviously better than them, with the Cheats once again using foreknowledge of every single play run to build up a lead that the Eagles just ran out of time trying to come back from. Take the cheating out of that game, and one can only assume that the superior Eagles squad from that year would have overcome their coach's inability to prepare for game day to put in a double-digit victory and Philadelphia's only superbowl.

At 59 years old, Bill Belicheat still has the opportunity to coach a great many more years, even going to another team or starting over with a whole new nucleus of players, if he sees fit. But I got news for you, Cheatriots fans -- the window on the career of Tom Brady is almost all the way shut after this past weekend's debacle. Although the AFC is as weak as it's been in years, and there may not be any team in the Cheats' conference that is as good as the Packers, the Saints or the Giants over the next several years, the odds of this Cheatriots squad finding their way back to the superbowl are seeming slim to none in my eyes. And, like mostly everyone else out there living west of Route 91 in Connecticut, the thought of that good riddance of unscrupulous, conniving cheaters from the upper ranks of the NFL is enough to make almost all of us smile.

I'll always hate the Giants with nearly every fiber of my being, but it is clear as day that the right team won on Sunday. Congratulations to the 2011-2012 New York Giants, the only true champions to play in the superbowl this year.

Interesting Football Tidbits

If the NFL playoffs go with the chalk the rest of the way, we will have the New England Cheatriots facing off against the Green Bay Packers in Superbowl XLVI in Indianapolis on February 5. And that will be the first time in NFL history that the two statistically worst defenses in the NFL will match up in the Superbowl. Those two teams each gave up over 411 yards of total offense per game through the 2011 regular season, and while the rush defenses on both teams are more middle-of-the-pack, the Cheats and the Packers are also the two worst teams against the pass in the entire league -- a good 20% worse than even the next-worst pass defending team -- which should be interesting because the passing game is far and away the strength of the other team. If the chalk takes it the rest of the way, we'll be looking at the #2 and #3 offense and the #2 and #2 passing offense, playing against the #31 and #32 teams both in total defense and in passing defense. That game could be just crazy.

Speaking of the playoffs, all the buzz in New York City this week is word that a bunch of Jets teammates have anonymously ripped Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez in the press this week, saying among other things that he has no legitimate fear of being replaced by head coach Rex Ryan, and several players questioning his work ethic. Of course, if you watched "Hard Knocks" this preseason, you already saw shades of that lack of work ethic, and the beginnings of a potential attitude problem, as I think it would be hard for mostly anyone to have been exactly "impressed" with Sanchez's personality if you sat through all the episodes of that series earlier in 2011. In this case, you've got the usual complement of talking heads, former players especially, who are ripshit about this move, questioning any player who would dare take such shots anonymously instead of just coming out and assigning a name to the comment. Because, the thinking goes, the next time Sanchez walks into that locker room, he's going to be wondering "Was it you who said that bad stuff about me?", "Was it you?", "Or you?". But that doesn't really seem to be the case here, does it? In this case, I count at least four different players specifically cited in that story -- at least some of whom are apparently leaders on the team in one capacity or another, so not insignificant players like the story from the third-string quarterback that broke last week. The bottom line for Sanchez is, it's not just one player here or one player there. It's most of his entire team who think these things about him. So focusing on who said it and how we find out who said what is, in my view, completely missing the point in this case. Mark Sanchez's team has a problem with his lack of preparation, his poor work ethic and his entitled attitude, and of course with the results that has led to for the entire team now here, three years in to the Sanchez / Rex Ryan experiment. At this point, the Jets can either waste time chasing down who said what and why they said it, or they can start moving on by beginning to work on fixing those problems. And nothing short of that is going to get the Jets team with this nucleus of players back where they want to be.

And before I go, did anyone else out there see this story? That Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow is Americans' favorite active athlete today? Seems crazy, doesn't it? But "Tebow was recognized by 3 percent of Americans surveyed as their favorite active pro athlete, placing him above Kobe Bryant (2 percent), Aaron Rodgers (1.9 percent), Peyton Manning (1.8 percent) and Tom Brady (1.5 percent) in the Top 5." Above Tom Brady, above Aaron Rodgers, above Peyton Manning? I mean, Tebow is more beloved by sports fans in this country than those three titans who happen to play in the exact same sport, and the exact same position as him, already? That just seems crazy. As does the fact that Tebow takes this top spot much faster than any other athlete since the inception of the poll in 1994, attaining the vote before the end of his second season as a pro. It took LeBron James eight years to reach this status, and Kobe Bryant 11 years before he became America's favorite active pro athlete. I'm not sure I would describe Tim Tebow as my "favorite" pro athlete just now, but I don't have any problem admitting that I would like to watch Tebow play this weekend more than I want to watch any other single athlete in professional sports in the world today. So maybe there's really something to this after all.

NFL Playoffs -- Divisional Round

Another week, and yet again all anybody can talk about in the world of sports is Mr. Timothy Tebow. Man, you just cannot feel good going into a sudden-death, overtime type of situation against that guy, can you? The moment the Steelers lost the overtime coin toss and Denver elected to receive, pretty much everyone in that stadium -- the Steelers and Broncos players included -- knew the Broncs would be winning the game on that drive. Not sure we knew it would happen on the literal first play from scrimmage in overtime, but when you've got Tebow and just need one score to win, its ovah baybeee.

I'll tell you what -- anybody who saw value in the Pittsburgh Steelers this past weekend, giving nine points on the road at an upstart Denver team with something to prove, is out of their minds. Let alone, a Steelers team with a literally limping Ben Roethlisberger, and missing their top runningback, their center, and their leading tackler on defense? Giving nine points. On the road!

That had to have been the most obvious pick I've seen in the NFL playoffs in a few years. And this, from a guy who has had a long-standing rule never to bet against the fix-waiting-to-happen Pittsburgh Steelers. But with all those injuries, going on the road, and giving nine points in a game between two stingy defenses? That story just doesn't make any sense.

Denver's game this weekend at the Cheatriots is a different story, however. Unlike the Steelers, the Cheats are more or less totally healthy right now, and the full roster of key players on offense seem to be firing on all cylinders. New England is also at home this coming week, they have a much better offense than the Steelers even with both teams equally healthy, and Tim Tebow and the Broncos -- who just got beat pretty hard by the Cheatriots a few weeks back -- have that much less to prove this week after the home win against Pittsburgh last weekend. With the line on that game hovering right around two touchdowns, that one is a heck of a lot harder to pick than this past weekend's freest money around, but I'm thinking I would probably hold my knows and go with the Cheatriots as long as the number is under 14. I mean, they'll already know all of Denver's plays ahead of time by the time kickoff comes around next weekend, right?

Elsewhere in the NFL, there wasn't much surprise in the first round playoff games, as all four better seeds won in all four games, three of which (other than the Steelers) were favored by Vegas. The best game this weekend in my mind is the Saints playing at the 49ers, with the Saints installed as an early 5-point favorite on the road, across the country, at a team that was 13-3 in the regular season and which has the league's stingiest points-against defense. As much as I want to go with the home team and take the generous offer of five points, I'm just thinking that the Saints can find a way to eke out a touchdown or so margin of victory in this one.

Elsewhere, it's the Giants getting 8 points at the Packers, another line which intrigues me somewhat. I mean, didn't the Giants just take a late lead at Lambeau and end up losing in the final minutes by 3 points to these same Packers only a month ago thanks to a late Aaron Rodgers comeback drive? This same Giants team that today is clearly playing significantly better than it was a month ago, while the Packers have just as surely come back down to earth a little bit since losing the undefeated season to the Chiefs a couple of weeks later? I was expecting something a little smaller than 8 points, and I am inclined to think that the Giants are the better value on this pick as long as that number remains above a touchdown.

And in the final game of the conference semi-finals, it is the Houston Texans, in their first-ever playoff run as a franchise, traveling to Baltimore to play the Ravens. Houston is getting a lofty 8.5 points from the sharps in Vegas, and even though that is admittedly an awfully big number to give to a seemingly inconsistent team in the Ravens, something tells me that the Ravens will come through nicely at home, where they went 8-0 in the regular season. With Matt Schaub this could easily be an entirely different story, but me thinks that T. J. Yates is probably looking at his worst game as a starting quarterback in the NFL thus far for Houston. Given especially how poorly the Texans have performed against the spread this year, I'll take my chances and go with the Ravens and lay the 8.5 points in this one.

2011 NFL -- Parting Thoughts

Wow. Rex Ryan, what a clown (surpassed perhaps only by his brother and Cowboys' defensive coordinator Rob Ryan). As a regular sports radio listener for hours a day in New York City, I can tell you that Rex Ryan is getting killed up here right now. I mean, you can't go two callers without someone ranting like mad about all of Rex's bravado, his phony predictions, the way he has managed Mark Sanchez, and I could go on and on. I mean, imagine Waffles on one of his "off the meds" days, multiply the anger by maybe 50 or 60 times, and then imagine one such Waffles calling in after another, after another, and another, and another. It is just unbelievable the beating Rex Ryan has taken, and the depths to which he has fallen after his team predictably failed to even make the playoffs after coach Rex guaranteed another superbowl victory for this team in the preseason this year.

On the flip side, it is almost equally amazing to behold the way that both Tom Coughlin and Andy Reid managed to play their ways into saving their jobs for at least another year. I mean, these guys looked completely dead and buried just a few short weeks ago. After his Giants lost embarrassingly to the hapless Redskins at home in a crucial game in Week 15, the Giants' postseason hopes were significantly in doubt and Tom Coughlin's chances of returning as Giants' head coach in 2012 seemed virtually nonexistent. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and after steamrolling both Rex Ryan's Jets and then the Dallas Cowboys in the final two weeks of the regular season, the Giants are postseason-bound, division champs, and Coughlin is all but assured of returning to produce yet another late-season collapse for the G-Men. And make no mistake, you happy Giant fans this week: that's exactly what happened this year again. You just got into the playoffs anyways after another pathetic season because the Cowboys are so laughable late in the season, and the Eagles were so laughable for almost the entire season before rattling off four straight wins to finish up strong.

And yeah, the Eagles. I had already written Andy Reid's eulogy here in Philly -- posted it right here on the blog in fact less than a month ago -- and then what does he do? Immediately after everyone and their mother had written this team off entirely following a horrible Week 13 give-up loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night football to drop the Eagles' record to 4-8, Reid leads the team into Miami for a convincing 26-10 beating, a complete steamrolling of the playoff-hopeful Jets in Philly the in Week 15, and then into Dallas for another convicing beatdown in a suddenly completely meaningless game for both teams, and then a strong win over the Redskins at home to end the season on a four-game upswing. 8-8 still blows chunks for this team in 2011, but even though all four of those teams Philly beat in December ended up missing the playoffs, Andy Reid still comes out smelling like a rose, especially as Mike Vick's return from several games missed due to broken ribs coincided with the team's late-season resurgence. So, it seems Andy Reid, too, amazingly played his way right back into a job in Philly, which means, much like with the Giants above, another season coming up of struggle, of a total lack of defensive focus, complete and utter clock mismanagement, and probably a playoff berth but not much more than that to hope for for the fans in the city of brotherly shove. Oh well.

Tony Romo. Still the biggest choker this side of Greg Norman in a major. Romo's knack for stepping down in December is becoming legendary. Despite a 19-2 career record in November after going 4-0 in the month here in 2011, Romo adds a 1-3 record this year to his 7-10 lifetime December stats, just when it matters most. And Jerry Jones can say whatever he wants about not blaming Jason Garrett or Tony Romo for a lot of what went wrong this year, but the simple fact remains that the division was clearly the Cowboys' for the taking this year, but they simply could not step up and go and win the games that they had to win.

Did I mention enough times here how gutless and slimy the firing of Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano was late last year? After starting off the season 0-7 (against four teams in the top four seeds in this year's postseason, as well as the Chargers and the Jets who both missed the playoffs in the AFC but had formidable teams and were in it until the end), the Dolphins went on a tear, ending with a 6-3 push to finish at 6-10 for the season, tying the all-time NFL record for most wins by a team that started off 0-7 on the season. After Sparano had piloted that team to a 4-2 record following their 0-7 beginning, Sparano was summarily fired from the team following the Eagles' beatdown of the Fins in Week 14, and the team just went on completing with Sparano had clearly started, and what he had already proven he had the ability to do in his previous time in Miami. That team just never quit, and I give Tony Sparano about 95% of the credit for how they finished up this year. 6-3 in their final nine games. Even if that stretch did include only one game against s 2011 playoff team.

Speaking of new coaches who really did step in and change things around, doesn't it kinda seem that way with Romeo Crennell in Kansas City? I mean, in three games following the firing of Todd Haley, Crennell's Chiefs beat the Packers for their only loss of the entire 2011 regular season, lost an overtime game to playoff-hopeful Oakland, and then beat the division champion Broncos while laughably shutting down Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow. He's been involved with a lot of successful team endeavors in his career, so who's saying Romeo Crennell can't lead the Chiefs back to the top of the lowly AFC West next season? The Chargers will likely have a new head coach so who knows how that is going to go, the Raiders are kind of stuck with Carson Palmer, who fulfilled his destiny of throwing more picks than touchdowns again in 2011, and they've got the Broncos who look to be kind of stuck with Tim Tebow who simply cannot throw the football, period. This division is the definition of "up for grabs", and with Crennell the Chiefs might look as good as anyone else to compete for the title in 2012.

And speaking of Tim Tebow, no season in review post could ever be complete without some treatment of Tebow's overall performance this year. My take on the situation -- and this is not something I've heard anywhere else but I still think there is something to it -- is that Tim Tebow seemed to turn it on and on and on, higher and higher and higher, almost on a weekly basis there in the mid to late part of the regular season this year, and all the while Broncos EVP John Elway was there, on the sidelines with the fake smiles, on the radio giving out the backhanded compliments, etc. It was very clear that Elway had not yet bought in to the Tim Tebow madness, and I'm sure no one felt that more than Tim Tebow himself. But then, just after the Broncos' loss to the Cheatriots where Tebow played ok and led his team to an early lead and a first-quarter touchdown run, Elway came out and really spoke the praises of Tebow for the first time. Give the guy a little security, a little taste of a true compliment from the guy he had been fighting so hard for the affection of for the past couple of months, and it was just enough to get Tebow to take his foot off the magic gas just a little bit. The team then proceeded to get blown out by the given-up Buffalo Bills 40-14, and then followed it up in a win-and-you're-in game to end the season with a 7-3 loss to the divisional rival Chiefs, at home no less. Tebow threw for 185 yards in the Buffalo loss, but his team was behind the entire game and thus had to abandon its preferred style of running on 85% of offensive plays, and Tebow still connected on only 13 of 29 attempts and only 2 of 11 attempts of 11 or more yards downfield. And in the abysmal defeat by the Chiefs in Week 17, Tebow was almost unspeakably bad, going 6 of 22 for a 20.1 qb rating. Nice. Tim Tebow becomes only the fourth quarterback in NFL history to start a playoff game next weekend after completing less than 50% of his passes for the season, a feat not done since the mighty Scott Zolak and his 42.8 completion percentage back in 1998.

Keep an eye on Indianapolis for what I would guess is a seriously developing story. Colts' owner Jim Irsay's surprise firing of the Polians -- who have run his team since 1998 a week before the team drafted one Peyton Manning as their quarterback of the future -- on Monday I think speaks volumes about the team's focus going forward. Now that the team secured the right to pick Stanford's Andrew Luck with the #1 pick in the NFL draft coming up this spring, it looks to me like Irsay expects his team to give some very serious consideration to trading Manning and going with Luck as the team's next quarterback of the future. The Polians had been perfectly vocal that if Peyton is healthy, he is their quarterback for the next few years, and now the team wins the right to draft Luck, and a day later the Polians are fired? Strange things are afoot at the Indy offices these days, you just watch.

Coach of the Year honors go squarely to Jim Harbaugh in San Francisco this year. I was just getting on the John Fox bandwagon, but then the loss to the Cheatriots followed by the late-season collapse has taken him totally out of the running, despite a very impressive effort nonetheless in 2011. Even after going five games without starting Tim Tebow and while still playing the "currently" passing-heavy style of offense in the NFL, the Broncos ended the season with 2708 passing, and 2632 yards rushing, and compiling over 500 more yards rushing than yards passing in 11 games with Tebow at the starter. For Fox to have spearheaded this kind of change -- keep in mind that in Week 1, Kyle Orton threw for 304 yards for the Broncos while they rushed for only 38 -- and to have come from 1-4 to 8-8 and a division win, Fox really deserves an honorable mention here despite the three losses to end the season. Other coaches worth a mention in this category this year include Marvin Lewis, who led Andy Dalton and the Bungles Bengals back to the playoffs in an unlikely story, and Mike Munchak who led the Titans to a 9-7 record in a similarly surprising outcome. In the NFC, most of the great head coaching jobs were done in the NFC West, with Harbaugh leading the back of course, but even Ken Whisenhunt in Arizona and Pete Carroll in Seattle are probably worth at least noting, given how they led their teams to second-half success in the face of extreme adversity. But Jim Harbaugh -- no matter how quickly his team loses in the playoffs to the eventual superbowl winning Packers or Saints -- to go 13-3 with Alex Smith at qb and essentially the same personnel that Mike Singletary ran absolutely into the ground over the past couple of years, that is really something special.

And while I'm on the topic of postseason awards, not sure I've seen this much elsewhere either, but the performance of Packers' backup quarterback Matt Flynn on Sunday against a strong Lions defense in a must-win game for Detroit to protect their playoff seeding -- 480 yards on 31-for-44 passing, with a franchise record six touchdowns -- most definitely changes things for me in the MVP vote. I had already written previously about the Saints' Drew Brees playing his way into the MVP voting with his incredible, record-setting, among the best-ever individual seasons for an NFL quarterback this year by the numbers. But if the Packers' unknown and inexperienced backup can go in there on a dime against one of the league's tougher defenses and throw for five hundy and 6 scores, then it seems stunningly obvious that Aaron Rodgers is not at all the most valuable player to his team this year. Shiat, the Packers might better with Flynn in there for all we know, as long as he still has that incredible core of Jennings, Jones, Finley, Nelson and Driver in the receiving corps! But if you take away Drew Brees from the Saints, I don't get the feeling at all that Jimmy Graham, Marques Colston, Darren Sproles, Lance Moore and Robert Meachem are going to be treating the Saints' no-name backup to a five-spot and six touchdowns on the day. The Saints seem a heck of a lot more like the Indianapolis Colts to me than what the Packers obviously are. Give me the incredible record-setting season in passing yards, completions and completion percentages from Drew Brees and his 13-3 record this year, and after Matt Flynn's performance on Sunday, I'll take Brees for the league's MVP hands down.

I'll be back later in the week to take another look at my preseason NFL predictions and how badly I screwed them up this year. Hope everyone had a great new year and is ready to put 2012 all in.

NFL Thoughts -- Week 15

Cardinals' QB John Skelton: 5-1. Kevin Kolb: 2-5. 'Nuff said. Given the young man a chance.

Tony Sparano is gone, but the Dolphins just keep on playing every game like it's their Superbowl. Miami beat the formerly high-flying Buffalo Bills on Sunday 30-23, behind Matt Moore's best game of the season and Reggie Bush's first 200-yard rushing game in as long as I can ever remember in the pros.

Sticking with the newly-departed coaches' teams, it's hard to read too much into the Chiefs ending the Packers' bid at a perfect season. But, I have to say that as I watched Aaron Rodgers over the past few weeks and certainly in his post-game presser on Sunday afternoon, he seems to have had a lot more invested in this run at perfection than he is letting on. It will be interesting to see if there are any long-term effects for the Packers who might have just lost the #1 thing that they as a team were keying on for most of 2011.

It's hard to get excited as an Eagles fan when the team's limited playoff hopes are based on Philly winning at Dallas next Sunday in a must-win game for both teams, and then beating the Skins at home to close things out. With the way this team has played in the 2011 regular season, anyone who looks at that and sees 2-0 just hasn't been watching this team this year, in particular on defense.

Nnami Asomugha was called for yet another holding penalty late in the first half as the Jets were trying to mount a comeback against an early Eagles onslaught on Sunday. That makes at least half a dozen times this year that Asomugha has blatantly held a receiver who had beaten him and was about to make an easy touchdown score. As much as getting value for Kevin Kolb is proving to have been a steal of a trade this past offseason, the Asomugha signing is without a doubt the Eagles' brass's worst move of 2011.

The NBC Sunday night coverage continues to be the worst commentating available on any major sports network. Especially painful continues to be the in-studio guys, with Tony Dungy seeming more suited for missionary work or possibly religious oration than commenting on NFL games, the Rich Eisen-like banality of Dan Patrick, and the contrived too-cool-for-school attitude of Rodney Harrison. These guys even make Chris Collinsworth's one-sided commentary seem professional and riveting.

Lesean McCoy punched in his 15th, 16th and 17th rushing touchdowns of the season this weekend, solidifying his spot atop the list of best non-quarterback fantasy football players in the NFL in 2011. McCoy's 20 total touchdowns now puts him comfortably ahead of Patriots' breakout tight end Rob Gronkowski's 15 receiving plus one rushing td, and even with Calvin Johnson's huge performance this weekend against the Raiders, Megatron remains a distant third with 14 total touchdowns. To think that this team with McCoy, Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson on offense, plus Jason Babin and his 17 sacks on defense to go along with Asante Samuel and big-name additions Asomugha and Dominick Rodgers-Cromartie at corner, would be sitting at 6-8 and hoping for a mathematical miracle to sneak into the postseason with a .500 record in an uncharacteristically weak NFC East, this is just everything that makes the NFL so great for all of us.

Speaking of great offensive threats in the league today, I think it's fair to say that Aaron Rodgers officially has competition for the league's MVP. While I think Rodgers would have won it walking away if the team went undefeated for the season given the year he is having, now that the Packers have fallen back down to the realm of mortal NFL teams, I don't see how what Drew Brees is doing right now can be ignored any longer. While Rodgers has thrown for 4360 yards (4th in the NFL), an NFL second-best 68.1% completion percentage, and an eye-popping 40 touchdowns vs just 6 interceptions through 14 games in 2011, Brees has been up to the task, posting 4780 passing yards -- on pace next week to break Dan Marino's all-time single-season passing yards record with a full game to spare -- and a mind-numbing 71.5% completion percentage. Though not as amazing as Rodgers' here through Week 15, Brees' touchdown to INT ratio is also a very impressive 37 touchdowns to just 11 picks. Each player has some areas where they are clearly the best, and I guess I might lean ever so slightly towards Rodgers if I had to pick at this moment, but in my mind with the Packers' loss, this race just got officially up for grabs thanks to the Chiefs on Sunday afternoon.

I thought Tim Tebow played pretty well -- for Tim Tebow -- against the Cheatriots on Sunday. In the end it was a big double-digit loss for the Broncos, but Tebow ended the day a robust 11 for 22 for a 50% completion percentage (his highest of any game this year), and with 194 total passing yards -- also, amazingly, his highest for the year. I imagine that John Elway was fairly unsure of how he should be reacting to his quarterback's performance against the AFC's best-looking team at the moment, but Tebow did run the ball well, and Tebow started off very strong before his team got bit by the turnover bug and gave a great team in New England too many chances to build up a lead.

That New York Giants loss this weekend at home to the hapless Redskins has got to go down as the most gutless performance of the entire NFL season so far. I mean, the Giants are at home in New York Jersey and playing the Redskins who just gave up 34 points at home to the Cheatriots last week and 34 also at home to the NY Jets the week before, and they manage to put a straight-out bagel until the final minutes of a game that was already long since over? I betcha Bill Cowher is on a plane out to Westchester County right now to look for a new house to buy. What an utter collapse.

It's a shame that right now the Bengals and Jets would play down to the third tiebreaker if each team wins out over its last two efforts in the 2011 regular season. With identical records of 8-6 overall, and identical conference marks at 6-5, the decision would turn on better overall winning percentage over common opponents, with the two teams even having performed identically there, but with the Jets being 2-0 against the Bills while the Bengals are only 1-0. Though it certainly feels like the wrong team and the wrong quarterback in Mark Sanchez are ahead in that seemingly silly category, this one really should still be decided on the field as the Jets are fixing to face the crosstown rival Giants in a do-or-die game at home followed by traveling to the keyed-up Dolphins in Week 17 who you know would just love to ruin the Jets' season (again), while the Bungles have on top the beatable Cardinals at home, followed by an end-of-season home-game clash with the Ravens, who might not be playing for anything that week after Baltimore's crushing by the Chargers on Sunday night.

Even with all the shenanigans and mathematical possibilities in the NFC East, the AFC West might be the most interesting division race in all of football here as we enter the home stretch. With the Broncos' loss to the Pats this weekend, and the Raiders failing to capitalize on last-second drive against the Lions, while the Chargers stepped up and crushed the AFC-North leading Ravens, and even the Chiefs sneaking a win against the heretofore undefeated Packers, things just got a whole lot narrower over there with two games still to play. Denver is still one game up with 2 winnable games left to play -- at Buffalo and at home against Romeo Crennel's rejuvenated Chiefs -- while, just one game behind at 7-7, Oakland (at Kansas City, and home vs. the Chargers) can obviously take care of its two closest rivals head-to-head, and San Diego faces the toughest path (at Detroit, and at Oakland) to finish the season. Even the Chiefs bringing up the rear still have games left against the Raiders at home and then at Denver to finish the regular season off, so what happens in that division is very much up in the air, especially if the Tebow magic fails to come back next week against a finished Bills squad.

NFL Thoughts -- Past the 3/4 Point

Well as another NFL regular season winds down to a close, we're beginning to be pretty sure about most of the postseason teams for 2011, as well as the biggest stories of the year. As usual, the NFL has delivered with yet another stellar season, despite the attempts of the referees and commissioner Roger Gooddell to infuriate everybody by their silly-ly arbitrary and often unfair and deliberate application (or non-application) of the rules. Pass interference and late hits on the quarterback in particular have become the bane of every NFL fan's existence, as the league's referees have wielded their ability to call these infractions or to overlook them to have a major influence on a great many games this year. But despite all of that, as I mentioned it's been another fabulous year overall for the best sport in America today. Remember when you were a kid and you used to sit around waiting for the next Michael Jordan game on NBC, and how you made your appointments around the NBA schedule? Well, today that sport is the NFL, while the NBA has been relegated to a shell of its former self under the "leadership" of David Stern, and this season will only serve to increase the mystique and the popularity of the best sport on the planet today. Today I will give some random thoughts I have assembled over the past several weeks of NFL play.

For starters, Tim Tebow has quickly become the story of the 2011 NFL regular season. Bar none. Leave it to Tebow to be the only thing that could possibly outweigh the drama of the Green Bay Packers going undefeated this year, but it's happened. Did you even know the Packers are currently sitting at 13-0? Probably, but nobody really cares, and the biggest reason why is that Tim Tebow is now 7-1 as a starter for the Denver Broncos. The guy cannot throw the ball -- once again, Timmy T. has all of three completions heading into the final minutes of their game against the quickly-fading Chicago Bears this past Sunday -- but he came through when it counted late in the 4th quarter and in overtime, and thanks to yet another stunning collapse by an opponent and a couple of unbelievably boneheaded plays and a crucial late-game turnover, Tebow had another chance to lead his team to victory. And lead his team to victory he did. A 59-yard field goal as time expired and another 51-yarder in overtime from awesome Denver kicker Matt Prater didn't hurt either, as Tebow nabbed his 7th win in 8 starts as the Broncos' quarterback. As I said, with his Broncos now alone in first place in the AFC West following a 1-4 start before Tebow took over the helm at qb, Tim Tebow has already solidifed himself as the one mega story from the 2011 NFL regular season, and there's virtually nothing that could happen in these last few weeks that could change that at this point. Including the Packers finishing the season 16-0. That still sounds completely amazing to me, but it's also completely true.

While on the topic of Tim Tebow and the Broncos, what is going on with Broncos management between head coach John Fox and Executive VP of Football Operations John Elway deserves its own paragraph here if not its own post -- and maybe its own blog entirely. Basically, by the Broncos' offense focusing on the running game like no other team in NFL history and generally taking the ball out of Tebow's hands when it comes to throwing -- combined with Tebow's very noticeable lack of throwing accuracy when he is forced to put it in the air -- Elway and Fox continue to waver on whether or not Tebow is their quarterback of the future, even here after a 7-1 record as a starter and running the team from alone in last place to alone in first place over the span of less than two months. Said Elway on his weekly radio spot on KDSP-FM in Denver on Monday, when asked if he has ever seen a player like Tim Tebow:

"No, not to this point," Elway said. "If you look at where we've been just this season and look at the impact that he has had this season, not only athletically with him running around and throwing the football, but I think that his presence has been just huge and his confidence and his competitiveness that he has, especially if you look about when we’re coming off 4-12 last year."

And the above quote misses the most poignant part of what Elway actually said on the radio. You can listen to Elway's entire spot right here, which I encourage so you can hear Elway's own thoughts for yourself. Elway didn't actually say "not only athletically" -- on the air he actually said "not so much athletically", and then quickly corrected himself to say "not only athletically". Very telling of Elways' true thoughts me thinks.

What's more, when asked about Tebow's incredible ability to lead the Broncos to victory in the middle of the above-linked audio clip, Elway responded:

"I think when you look at it I guess I just believe everyone believes that something good is going to happen. Tim’s been the guy that has led that thinking and he’s just such a strong believer. He’s got everyone else believing that if you stay strong, stay positive, that something good is going to happen. It’s the power of the mind and the power of positive thinking. I think when those guys are thinking that way and it’s been led by Timmy with that positive attitude that all boats have been rising with that." (emphasis mine)

To me this is all just a bunch of backhanded compliments of Tebow, and more of the same as we've heard out of John Elway basically ever since this incredible 7-1 run with Tebow began. No, it's not the power of great quarterbacking, no it's not the power of great skill. It's the power of the mind and of positive thinking. It's almost like Elway is saying it's all smoke and mirrors with Tebow this year.

And when Broncos head coach John Fox was asked after the game on Sunday if Tim Tebow will be his quarterback next season, he similarly deflected the questions just as Elway has all season long, saying that he prefers not to think ahead and rather just to enjoy the present, the now.

Can anyone ever remember another situation where a guy came in at quarterback for a horrible, last-place team, won 7 out of 8 games and ran them into first place, clearly putting the team on his back and leading them all along the way, and did not have the support of his head coach or the team's management leader regarding the following season? I sure can't.

Oh, and by the way, John Fox inched ever closer to Coach of the Year honors this weekend, when Jim Harbaugh's 49ers posted an embarrassing loss to the Arizona Cardinals, and the Bungles' Marvin Lewis saw his team lose on a last-second touchdown to the NFC South champion Houston Texans, while Tim Tebow led another improbable, incredible comeback over the formerly playoff-bound Bears. What Fox has done to his team -- to the entire NFL, really -- is absolutely off the hook, and in my view at this point far trumps even Harbaugh's incredible season in San Francisco. Even with the 49ers allowing a league-low 182 points over 13 games so far this year, for John Fox to come in and after quickly ascertaining his new quarterback's strengths and weaknesses, to completely transform his team's offense into something that simply isn't supposed to work in today's NFL, it is legendary as far as I'm concerned. Through Tebow's eight starts as the Broncos' quarterback this year, the team has now thrown for a total of 947 yards (118 passing yards per game, the lowest in more than a decade for any NFL team), while running for 1557. No team in NFL history has ever rushed for over 50% more yards than they have passed for over a season, and even though Fox's team won't work their way into the recordbooks since this particular streak did not start until five games into the season, it is worth more than a little mention how amazing and truly revolutionary what Fox has done with his team this year, to play to his team's strengths and weaknesses, even when it flies squarely in the face of everything we all thought we knew about today's NFL. John Fox is still probably not quite the frontrunner for coach of the year, but if his Broncos can find a way to pick off the Cheatriots this weekend, I would guess that Fox will be right up there at the top of the list and that the award might be his to lose. Yes the 49ers have two fewer losses so far than the Broncos this season, but with Tim Tebow, Fox's team has two fewer losses than the 49ers, and he's doing it with -- amazingly -- even lesser personnel, and doing it in a way that is completely unheard-of and would have been entirely unimaginable by anybody involved in the league even more than a quarter of the way through this NFL season.

Switching gears a little bit from the only truly incredible story of the 2011 NFL season in Tim Tebow, I mentioned up there that the Cardinals somehow beat the 49ers this past weekend. This, after starting Arizona qb Kevin Kolb -- picked up in a hig-profile trade from the Eagles this past offseason -- left the game early in the first quarter with a head injury, to be replaced by 2nd year Fordam graduate John Skelton. Skelton has now started or played most the game in five games for the Cardinals this season, and the team has gone 4-1 in those games, while Kolb's record as the Cards' starting quarterback this year is an ugly 2-5. Even though Skelton's numbers in those five games don't look so great on paper (78 for 145 for a 53.8% completion percentage, 1032 yards, 7 tds, 9 INTs and a 66.8 rating), we've already seen a la Tim Tebow above that statistics on a paper can only tell so much of the story. In the eight games started by Kolb this season, his numbers aren't all that much better anyways (146 for 253 for a 57.7% completion percentage, 1955 yards, 9 tds and 8 INTs for an 81.1 QB rating), especially considering how many more snaps Kolb has gotten with the starters basically all season long, and in the end what matters more than wins and losses. Under Kevin Kolb, the Cardinals are a laughingstock at 2-5. Under Skelton, they're a playoff team at 4-1, including a win over the playoff-bound 49ers this weekend when Skelton posted a 106.5 QB rating, and a victory over the then-playoff-hopeful Eagles in Week 10 in which Skelton posted a respectable 82.8 QB rating as well. Face it guys -- John Skelton is probably a better NFL quarterback than Kevin Kolb. You heard it here first.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention what spineless, pussified weasels the ownership in both Kansas City and Miami are. With both teams playing much better after rough starts this year -- and with the Chiefs in particular beset by key injuries all through the early part of the season -- both teams fired their head coaches after losses this past Sunday. After starting 0-7, Tony Sparano's Dolphins were 4-1 in their last five games before losing at home to the highly talented Eagles 26-10 this past weekend. After trying to fire Sparano at the end of last season but then opting not to, and then after not firing him at 0-7 this year, the team was obviously pissed off to see him winning as much as he was in the second of the year this year, and had clearly resolved to dump him as soon as the team lost another game. What a bunch of pussies. Ask anyone in the league or anybody who watches all the football games every weekend -- this Dolphins squad had been playing every single game of the past several as if it was their last, their superbowl, and they had been getting results. With virtually no talent on either side of the ball to work with. And what does Tony Sparano get for taking this bunch of no-name, no-talent losers and going 4-1 with them after turning his 0-7 start around, one of the hardest things to do in sports? He gets fired after one bad loss to the Eagles, everybody's pick for the superbowl coming in to this season.

And it's a similar but not quite as bad of a story for the Chiefs and head coach Todd Haley, who was also unceremoniously fired on Monday after his team lost 37-10 on the road to the playoff-bound Jets on Sunday afternoon. Yes, Haley's team was 5-8 this season, but ask anybody who knows the league and they'll tell you that Haley was doing a pretty good job this year, after bursting out of nowhere and outright winning the AFC West last season. And both years, like Sparano who I mentioned above in Miami, doing it with almost no real talent whatsoever to speak of. The team gives this guy a no-name backup quarterback in Matt Cassell, who himself has missed about half the season now with injury, and a never-ending string of no-name runningbacks, and Haley has found a way to build a rushing powerhouse over the past couple of seasons. Todd Haley did a pretty decent job in Kansas City, and if that franchise believes that they could or somehow should (or will) do better next year with this same personnel, then they are kidding themselves and are in for a very rude awakening in 2012.

Oh, and watch out: if Todd Haley (5-8 with zero talent and a gillion injuries) and Tony Sparano (4-9 after an 0-7 start, and also absolutely zero talent) are getting fired, then you can basically write off Steve Spagnuolo, who as head coach of the Rams after last night's loss is now 10-35 in three seasons with the Rams. How does that guy keep his job, with unquestionably more talent brought in on offense than either the Dolphins or the Chiefs, and unquestionably worse results over now nearly three full seasons? Or what about Mike Shanahan in Washington, he of the 14-31 record over the past three seasons, while his owner spends money like it's going out of style? How does that guy keep his job this year? There are going to be a whole lot of NFL head coaches on the chopping block this offseason, if the criteria applied to Haley and Sparano this weekend are to be equally applied across the league, including a whole bunch of guys with a little bit less time served at their current teams, but every bit as bad of results.

Before I go, just a quick look at my preseason playoff predictions and how those are panning out so far. In the NFC, back on September 13 I picked the Eagles, Packers, Saints and Cardinals as the division winners, and the Cowboys and Bears as the wildcards. Those predictions, in a word, suck shizznit. The Bears were in the midst of making me look smart until Jay Cutler went down, and I can't kill myself for the Eagles pick as everybody in the universe went with them heading into this year, and seeing the laughable Giants and Cowboys battle it out for divisional supremacy at 7-6 right now only seems to strengthen that argument, but I completely messed up the NFC East and I like everyone else also did not at all foresee the incredible success of the 49ers out west. I am faring much better with my AFC predictions, which included the Cheatriots, Steelers, Texans and Chargers as the division winners, and the Jets and Ravens as the wildcards, picks that were almost exactly spot-on. Again, show me the person who predicted the Denver Broncos to take the AFC West, and I'll show you someone who not only should be committed but probably already is. And although a lot can chance in the last few weeks of the season, as of right now my pick of Packers over the Cheatriots in the 2011 superbowl is still looking very much alive.

Goodbye, Andy Reid

Goodbye, Andy Reid.

It's been a good run. A great run, in fact, in a lot of ways. Except the ones that *really* matter. But it really has been a fun 11 years here in Philly, especially compared to some of the schmike we had as head coaches during the 80s and 90s. And I truly have little doubt that at your next team (my money is on San Diego at the moment), you will have loads more regular season success.

I want to be clear about one thing as you leave this team following the unmitigated disaster that is the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles regular season. Obviously, a lot of the blame for this putrid year falls on the front office’s shoulders, for bringing in guys like Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Nnamdi Asomugha, neither one of which, it is now clear, can cover their way out of a paper bag. And for not paying speedy wideout DeSean Jackson what he deserved coming into this season, and bringing in a guy like Asomugha at 25 times DeSean’s salary instead. How the front office could have expected DeSean to react, other than exactly the way he has, under those circumstances, is patently ludicrous. Those were hideous moves, obvious wrong moves and I don’t see how people can much blame you, Andy, for that stuff.

But that said, everything else wrong with this team in 2011 pretty much falls squarely on your shoulders. Lets put aside for a minute the fact that you have never won the big game in your life, despite being the #1 seed in the NFC three times in your 11-year tenure, and despite losing the NFC Championship twice at home to inferior teams. On a week in, week out basis, your clock management is laughably bad, and always has been. The use of time outs on this team under your tenure has been enough to make anyone physically ill, and clearly, you have been the major contributor to that. The 2011 season has, sadly, been no exception to this rule.

Similarly, the way you manage unhappy players should be the stuff of legends by now. DeSean was 100% right to be pissed off coming into this season, and after not getting a deal as the season wore on while guys like Chris Johnson did finally get their money and get pizznaid. But come on, Andy, with the benching and the sitting DeSean out for drives, entire halves of games, etc. Andy, you are just too much of a hardass to be able to deal effectively with today’s modern day NFL player, especially the prima donnas that populate the wide receiver position in today's game. We’ve lost parts of like four separate seasons now during your 11-year regime as head coach because of disgruntled wideouts whom you simply have no clue how to handle, while most other coaches in the NFL seem to have figured out how to coexist so much better than you have. Why is it Philadelphia that always seems to have these huge throwdowns between you and the wide receivers, while almost nowhere else do things ever seem to spiral this badly out of control, and result in multi-game benchings, kickings off of the team entirely, etc.?

DeSean will probably still make his money when he signs with the Giants in a few months, albeit probably a little less than what he should have been paid this year by the Eagles after what has been a pretty well disastrous 2011 for him as well as for this team. The Eagles did DeSean wrong, over and over and over again this year. Including you, Coach Reid, not insisting that offensive coordinator Marty Mohrenweig integrate DeSean better into the offense this year. Over the past couple of seasons, DeSean was *constantly* being targeted downfield, at the beginning of games and all the way through to the end, and that strategy undeniably worked very well for the Eagles. This season, however, right from the getgo, all of sudden DeSean just hasn’t been targeted downfield even close to as much, and our offense has suffered greatly as a result. Who (other than the Denver Broncos, obviously) has a good offense in today's NFL without any real downfield threat in this league? It’s an absolute joke, and you, Andy Reid, are about 80% at fault for that. DeSean has literally been targeted around 33% as much as he was last season, all while the team's offense has downright sputtered in many of its games despite being the top 1 or 2 most prolific offense in the league in 2010. How you, as the head coach of this team, could just stand by while this has occurred week after week after week this year is beyond me, and beyond any of us.

And lets don’t even expound on what has happened to the team's defense under your watch, especially here in 2011. Promoting this idiot Luis Castillo -- our former offensive line coach -- to Defensive Coordinator this past offseason has got to be the single stupidest decision made in the NFL by any team or any head coach in at least a year, maybe as much as a decade. I mean, who ever promotes an o-line coach to be a defensive coordinator on a team that struggled mightily on defense in the past season, and then on top of that who also added a number of big-name personnel through free agent signings and trades in the offseason to boot? Who does that? Who else ever thinks that could work in this league? Completely foreseeably, Castillo has been an abject failure, a complete and total bomb, as D-Coordinator, and that one falls 100% on you as the head coach of this team. Not 66%, not 80%, but 100% squarely on you and you alone. And to compound things, you have just stood by and let Castillo suck it up worse and worse and worse all season long, doing nothing to change things up and nothing to get more involved in calling the plays on defense. And my god, could our corners other than Asante Samuel be any worse? Possibly??? Rodgers-Cromartie and Asomugha have been the single worst cornerback tandem in as long as I can remember in the NFL, just two totally worthless players who cannot cover anybody, ever. Asomugha himself has probably been among the bottom two or three starting players in the NFL this season, either getting beat, or committing a blatant hold or pass interference because hes about to give up a touchdown what, 10 different times this year? And yet you do nothing. And this isn't even mentioning the tackling in general on this team, which has been atrocious ever since the very first play from scrimmage against the Eagles this season, when the Rams' Steven Jackson ran for a 54-yard score from behind midfield. Who knew what a harbinger of things to come that one play would be for the 2011 Eagles defense? Well, Andy, your hand-picked guy has led the way with this defense, starting with a couple of the team's biggest offseason pickups, and it has just gone from unthinkable to hideous to putrid as the season has worn on. Last Thursday's 31 points given up to the laughable Seahawks with my dead grandma at quarterback was just the latest in a season full of embarrassments on the defensive side of the ball, and all the while, you have done nothing, nothing at all, to improve things or shake things up. You have simply stood by and fiddled while the Eagles' season burned to ashes.

And lastly, while we're on the topic of Week 13's Seahawks loss, the way this Eagles team has just given up here these past couple of weeks, it is just inexcusable and, once again, absolutely, positively all on your shoulders as the head coach. There is just nobody else to blame for the complete and total lack of heart on this team, none. As far as im concerned, we could take Mike Vick, LeSean Mccoy, Brent Celek and Alex Cooper on offense, and Trent Cole and Jason Babin along with Asante Samuel on defense, and throw every single other player on the team out and start over. At first it was just DeSean Jackson throwing in the towel on the season out of frustration and anger, but now, in a very similar story during your 11 years leading the team in Philadelphia, it has infected the whole team just like it did with TO –- the Eagles are all now a bunch of non-caring losers on this team, plain and simple.

In summary, I blame you as our head coach about 75% overall for the problems of this year’s Philadelphia Eagles. Which, after 11 years of consistently blowing clock management in-game and of rock-solid consistency in stepping down in the big spots, it is clearly time for you to move on. We need to bring in someone new to head this team in 2012, someone with a fresh face for these players, and for these fans who so clearly deserve better. Someone who will not get embarrassed in almost every game by letting the clock run out before we can kick field goals, someone whose players are not so ill-prepared that they are constantly wasting much-needed timeouts before the time when we actually need them. Someone who, while being a disciplinarian, understands far better than you do how to coexist with the ridiculous personas and out-of-control mindsets that, like it or not, now populate all professional sports in this country, with football being absolutely no exception whatsoever.

I want to say again that I truly am thankful for what has been a solid 11 year run in Philadelphia. Believe me when I say, I honestly do not expect to bring in another head coach who will find a way to win five NFC Easts in 11 years. That's never happened before here, and it probably never will again. But like mostly all other Philadelphia Eagles fans at this point in time, I am way beyond the point where I would trade five division titles in 11 years, all for just one Superbowl victory. In a split second. And although I have little doubt that you will take the Chargers, who have long suffered under the hand of the legal idiot known as Norv Turner in San Diego, or some other similar team, and in just a season or two turn them into an 10-6, 11-5 or better type of team. When it comes to regular seasons, you have proven yourself to me beyond a doubt, and I don't doubt that you will have many successes in the regular season to come, nor that you will walk right back into a head coaching job should you so desire within weeks of your firing by the Eagles after this disastrous regular season comes to a close. But the fans of Philadelphia, which despite the recent success of the Phillies, has always been a football town first and foremost, deserve better than you. We deserve better than to go into every season just waiting for the implosion between you and our star player, and always knowing that no matter how good we perform in the regular season, the playoffs are always looming right around the corner, where we know going in we are going to come up just short, and get out-coached when it counts the most.

Give me Bill Cowher. Give me Jeff Fisher. For Christ's sake, go and find a way to bring Jon Gruden back here where he was the O-Coordinator many years ago and got his start before finding his way to the Monday Night Football booth. But most of all, just give me some hope. At this point, now that this disastrous regular season is more than 3/4 gone, Eagles fans just want hope for a championship more than anything else, and you, Andy Reid, are simply not the guy who can bring us back that hope.

Happy Trails, Andy. I will always think fondly of your 11 years here. And when we do finally host that parade down Broad Street with the Superbowl trophy floating by with our name on it, I will think back to the moment of your firing, with a smile.

A Crazy NFL Oddity

Right now the Denver Broncos are averaging 153.1 passing yards per game, and 159.7 rushing yards per game through 11 games in the 2011 regular season. During the six games that Tim Tebow has started -- in which the Broncos have gone an astounding 5-1 -- the discrepancy is even crazier, as the team has averaged 112.5 yards passing, and 208 yards rushing, or almost twice as much yardage on the ground as through the air, in an NFL that is hopelessly weighted in favor of the passing game these days.

By contrast, looking at some of the league's most potent offenses this year, after last night's drubbing of the Giants, the New Orleans Saints are averaging 324 passing yards per game, and just 125 rushing. After wiping up the Eagles this past Sunday, the Cheatriots are gaining 319 yards through the air per game, and just 110 on the ground, for an almost 3-to-1 ratio in favor of passing. Even in the NFL's best rushing team behind the Broncos -- the aforementioned Eagles, who also have started the best running qb in the game for most of the season -- are looking at 260 yards passing, and 160 yards rushing per game.

Can someone tell me when was the last time a team averaged more yards rushing than passing for an entire season? How about a good team -- like the 5-1 record compiled by John Fox and the Broncos during the Tim Tebow era? Has this ever happened before?

I went back and looked at some of the worst-quarterbacked teams to ever win superbowls just for a quick check. For example, that Trent Dilfer-led Ravens team that won the superbowl in 2000 on the strength of basically a cripe offense and the best defense in a generation? 3101 yards passing, and 2199 yards rushing. Not even close. And that was in a league not nearly as weighted by rule changes and qb talent towards the passing game as today's NFL. And what about the Brad Johnson-led 2002 Tampa Bay superbowl squad? 3665 yards passing, and 1557 yards rushing. More than 2-1 in favor of the passing game.

Somebody please tell me if anything like this has ever happened before.

The Fix Was In

Man it is good seeing the Chiefs find a way to pull that game out of their asses on Monday night against the Chargers. I mean, I'm no kind of Chiefs fan, although I'll freely admit that I have no clue why there is so much animosity and lack of faith in relatively new head coach Todd Haley there, with whom I think the inescapable conclusion is that he has done a pretty damn good job with what I would not consider to be a plethora of talent or anything. But the reason I was so happy to see the Chiefs take that game down was not at all because I like the Chiefs.

It's because I like fucking fairness.

Did you watch that game? Let's see. First, the Chiefs guy intercepts Philip Rivers for the first of what, 15 times on the night, there in the first quarter? He makes a small return, gets tackled from behind, and after sitting squarely on the ground for a few seconds, taking some time to shave, say his daily prayers, and have a convo or two on his cell phone, the ball finally gets stripped out of his hands. Of course the refs ruled him down by contact on the field -- because it wasn't even close -- but then Norv Turner, raging idiot that he is, decides to challenge the ruling on the field even though there isn't any possible way in shit that any single human being could ever rule that a fumble. I mean, don't assholes like Norv have a guy sitting up in the booth somewhere, with access to the replay, a DVR, something? Just somebody who can tell him, "Don't waste your time, you boob, that play wasn't even fucking close to a fumble, you'll just look like a horse's ass if you waste a timeout challenging that very clear tackle." Is it possible that they don't?

So while the network takes a commercial break, both before and after the break they're showing the replay, and even the dickhead announcers -- who generally speaking interpret what they see incorrectly in terms of missed calls at least 66% of the time, much to the fans' enragement -- had already dismissed this as the worst challenge ever, that even if the call on the field had been a fumble, you would have to reverse it based on this very, very, plainly obvious replay. And then of course what happens, since this is the NFL, Roger Goodell's minions the refs walk out from under "the box" and announce that the call on the field is being reversed, it's a fumble and the ball goes back to the Chargers, instead of to the Chiefs who already had a 7-0 lead and would have been very close to making it 14-0 in gaining possession there deep in Chargers territory. It was without a doubt the single worst blown replay call I can ever recall -- and this is the NFL, where there are inexplicably obvious missed calls with a regularity greater than my daily bowel movements, and to think that anybody on the fucking earth had seen the clear and convincing evidence needed to overturn the call on the field, there are just no words, and just like that, boom the NFL darling Chargers were gifted pretty much a 10-point swing in the score early on.

But it didn't stop there. Later in the second quarter, Chief's quarterback Matt Cassel is hit as he goes to throw the ball, and this time the call on the field is that he threw an incomplete pass, that his arm was just starting to move forward when he got hit and lost the ball, so thus not a fumble and thus it is still Chiefs ball (the Chargers had picked up the incompletion on the field). The Chargers challenge again -- they shouldn't even have had another challenge to call there, but thanks to the early blowjob for the Chargers, they still had that challenge left in the first half -- and this time, lo and behold, this time the moron refs saw clear and convincing evidence needed to overturn and -- shocker of shockers -- give the ball back to the Chargers. Again. Personally, unlike the first fumble play which was the worst call I've ever seen in any professional sport in the history of mankind, this one was very close, and I could have seen it going either way. Give me an unbiased, even choice and I would probably have called it in an incompletion, but his arm was very close to either about to start moving forward or just started moving forward, and I can handle that call going either way. But what there clear evidence to overturn there? Not on your shitkicking life there was not. But hey, the decision got the easily-sellable Chargers offense the ball again, so Roger Goodell got to keep his boner for another few minutes there and that's all that matters.

Fast forward to the second half, as the game is really coming down to the wire, and the Chargers have to score two late touchdowns, including a 2-point conversion on one of them, just to tie the game up at the end, and first the refs award a touchdown to the Chargers after reviewing a play where the Charger player basically got the ball just barely over the end line before having it stripped out of his hands for a fumble that would have -- for the third or fourth time on the night now -- all but won the game for the Chiefs. On that one I tend to agree with the call that it was a Chargers touchdown, but lord knows I've seen that call go the opposite way at least 5000 times over the past five years in the NFL. And then came yet another stunning F-off to the Chiefs, when the Chargers player attempts to run in the 2-point conversion after catching a pass around the 2 yard line, where he was nailed by a fabulous defensive play by the Chiefs' gritty defense, and the fucking refs motherfucking again awarded the Chargers the score -- a crucial score to tie up the game with just a few minutes left to play -- based on a replay that maybe, possibly just showed the nose of the ball accidentally graze the plane of the end line as the receiver was unthinkably running sideways instead of just trying to punch it in there. I mean, this Chargers guy did everything in his power to give the refs a reason not to award him a touchdown, and I still cannot believe as I look at the replay that the Chargers got that call in their favor as well, but they did.

Suddenly it is 20-20, and after a short possession by the Chiefs, the Chargers march down the field, and they're just lining up on the Chiefs' 16-yard line when Rivers unimaginably muffs the snap, and the Chiefs clearly recover the fumble. I could just picture Goodell's tiny little limpy dick shriveling up like a prune when it happened too, because there was simply no fucking way they could find to award that ball back to the Chargers. And I'm sure they tried to, too, don't get me wrong. I bet you Goodell had every guy he knows rifling through the rulebook to try to find some reason why a fumbled snap by the road team in a tie game does not lead to a change in possession if in the final minute of a regular season game, you name it, the stupider and less substantiable the better. But they couldn't, and we went to overtime, where the Chiefs won it in "amazing comeback" fashion.

The only thing amazing about the Chiefs win last night is how badly they outplayed the Chargers from the first whistle to the last, and yet how close the game was because, if the referees are willing to be big enough assholes, it can be almost impossible to overcome a fix like the one that was clearly in last night.

Go ahead, I dare anyone reading this to tell me in the comments that I am mischaracterizing what happened with the calls last night. The first person to comment that I am mischaracterizing what happened has no penis. Sure I've included some factual inaccuracies in this post to give the tinydicks something to complain about in the comments, but I triple dog dare anyone out there to tell me the Chargers did not get the most ridiculous dicksucking treatment by the refs last night anywhere this side of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Fuck you, Roger Goodell. Karma's a bitch, ain't it, you piece of shit.

NFL -- Second Quarter Update

Although we're technically not quite through the halfway point for many of the teams in the NFL due to bye weeks, I figure we are close enough for me to get my thoughts about the state of the league down "on paper" here now. Of course a lot has gone on as usual in the No Fun League, but here are some of my thoughts that maybe go just beyond the normal stuff you'll hear about and read about at all the usual sites.

Lions wideout Calvin Johnson has the same pompous streak in him as the Eagles' DeSean Jackson. This is pomp and circumstance drives these guys to be among the best performers and the greatest deliverers of big plays at their positions. But it is also the same pomp and circumstance that leads Calvin Johnson to repeatedly "pull a DeSean" and taunt the opposing team on many of his big touchdown plays. Calvin, if you keep stopping at the 1-yard line and waiting for your opponents to nearly tag you before taking it into the paint, you're eventually going to blow a big score in a huge spot. Just ask DeSean how that feels, and how his coach reacts when it happens.

Tim Tebow sucks. This was already obvious, but I just don't understand what his supporters are looking at after this most recent effort in Week 8. You can give the guy credit for last week's sick comeback win over the hapless Dolphins, but to do so you have to flat ignore the fact that Tebow was 4 for 14 for 40 total yards passing through 56 minutes of that game, and the needed an unbelievable fumble by Dolphins qb Matt Moore to even have a chance to come back like they did. Against the single worst team in the NFL. You may love God, you may love the Florida Gators, but you can't do shiat to change the fact that Tim Tebow is an abject waste of space behind center. After Week 8's 18-for-39 performance for 172 yards, one touchdown, one pick-6, and a fumble leading to a score as well, plus 7 sacks, we're now looking at a guy whose accuracy (47% thus far this year) is among the worst you'll ever see of any player allowed to start in this league. I know it looked a couple of weeks ago like John Fox had no choice but to give Tebow the rest of the 2011 regular season to prove himself one way or the other, but this guy is so foul at the quarterback position that I just don't see how Fox can feel secure in his own job if he keeps putting Tebow out there much longer.

And speaking of dicksuckitty quarterbacks, how the hell is nobody even talking about how awful Kevin Kolb has been so far this year for the Cardinals? After being traded to the Cardinals by the Eagles in the 2010-2011 offseason in exchange for cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie plus a 2nd-round pick in 2012, and heading to a team with former NFL best wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald perennially highly productive tight end Todd Heap among his targets, Kolb has put up a paltry 57% completion percentage so far in 2011, to go along with 7 touchdowns, 7 interceptions, and five fumbles to boot. So far Kolb has done more to justify a benching than he has to explain why he was worth even a single late-round draft pick, let alone a 2nd-rounder plus an established NFL player. And pretty soon people aren't going to be able to ignore it any longer -- and I don't care how white Kolb's skin is.

Jacksonville Jaguars rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert is also probably worth mentioning while we're on the topic of hapless hurlers in the NFL. I know he is a rookie so I don't want to write his ass off after just six games, but in addition to perhaps the league's worst mullet, Gabbert has posted a 69-for-143 throw record for a putrid completion percentage of 48% -- including two games this month with an under 40% figure -- with just four touchdowns and two picks for a qb rating of 69.4. And believe me, if you've actually sat and watched him play over his six real chances so far this year, Gabbert hasn't even been close to that good. This league is full of quarterbacks who were flat-out hideous in their rookie seasons but who ended up being great NFL stars, but even most of those qbs were more productive than this right from the getgo, so there might be some cause for concern here.

The Cincinnati Bungles might actually be not-horrible this year! After this weekend's blowout of the shitty Seahawks, the Bungles are 3-1 on the road, and the GM made the best move in the past decade-plus for this franchise by duping the crap out of the Raiders into getting a 1st- and a 2nd-round draft pick in exchange for interception machine Carson Palmer earlier this month. The Bungles certainly do not hold a candle to the class teams in the AFC this year, but at 5-2 as we near the halfway point of the season, it may be time to stop discussing this team like we have every other year of the past, what? 15? 20?

The San Francisco 49ers are 6-1, despite ranking in 31st place out of 32 teams in passing, and despite giving up passing yards to opposing quarterbacks more readily or worse than three-quarters of the teams in the league today. What's the 49ers' secret? Fabulous coaching from rookie head coach Jim Harbaugh, playing in without a doubt the worst division of my entire lifetime, and, most of all, controlling the run on both sides of the ball. Rejuvenated back Frank Gore headlines the NFL's 6th-best rushing attack through seven games here in 2011, and meanwhile the team is allowing the 2nd-fewest rush yards per game at just under 75 yards on the ground. Like the Bungles in the AFC, the Niners have no prayer whatsoever of holding up against the truly great teams in the NFC -- in particular with a guy like Alex Smith taking the snaps -- but Harbaugh has done in half a season what many (myself included) expected former coach Mike Singletary to do but could not even approach doing in a couple of seasons at the helm in San Fran.

The Washington Redskins are absolute shit. You had to know this even after the team started the season 2-0, but my god, is there honestly any worse franchise in all of football today? I mean, this team has only made the playoffs three times since 1993. Holy shit, just think about that. In contrast, the division rival Eagles have appeared in the postseason 9 out of the last 11 seasons, the Cowboys have been there in 11 of the past 20 seasons, and the Giants have been in the postseason in 8 of the last 16 years. In the Redskins' last three games, runningback Ryan Torain has led the team in rushing with an unbelievable 22 yards in Week 6, and now 14 yards in the team's Week 8 crushing at the hands of the Buffalo Bills. 14 yards as your leading rusher, and it's not even an outlier? Is that stat even serious? Meanwhile, current starting quarterback John Beck is just the latest in an amazingly long line of consecutively shitty qbs, following up on Rex Grossman, a worthlessly old Donovan McNabb, Jason Campbell, Todd Collins, Mark Brunell, Patrick Ramsey, Tim Hasselbeck, Shane Matthews, Danny Wuerffel, Tony Banks and Jeff George, which is every hurler to start a game for the Skins since the 2001 season. This team is going nowhere fast and at this point has once again assumed their rightful position at the bottom of the NFC East, a place Daniel Snyder must be getting very used to since taking over the team in 1999 as his team has recorded only two finishes better than 3rd place in the division since 2000.

Staying in the NFC East for a moment, Eli Manning is quietly having a pretty solid season for the Giants, following up on his worst season as a starter in 2010 for the Giants with an efficient and productive effort consisting of a very respectable 63% completion percentage and 1778 yards over 7 games so far this year. Very importantly, Manning has cut down on his 25 interceptions from 2010, tossing up only 5 INTs thus far through 7 games in 2011 to go along with 11 touchdowns. Although the Giants are sitting pretty right now at 5-2 with a full 2-game lead in the NFC East, we're about to learn just how much Manning has cleaned up his act since 2010 as the team's schedule is about to get a lot tougher, with its next six games featuring matchups at 6-2 New England, at 6-1 San Francisco, vs. an upstart Eagles team, at 6-2 New Orleans, vs. the 8-0 Packers, and then at the currently 3-4 but always tough divisional rival Cowboys. Given that the Giants have not played consistently well so far in 2011, it's a safe bet that the NFC East will look a lot different a month and a half from now than it does today nearing the midway point.

Watching Tony Romo lead the Cowboys on two long drives only once the game had become 34-0 with 11 minutes to go on Sunday night against the Eagles reminded me just how much this guy loves to pad his stats with worthless yards and touchdowns late in games. For a guy with lifetime 4th-quarter stats as "good" as Romo's, he has got to be one of the least clutch players in the NFL today, very possibly the literal worst, and this is a trend that looks to me only to be getting worse here in 2011. And my god, will somebody please find someone for the Cowboys to stick at center who knows how to snap a ball to the quarterback, at least a little bit? I can say with confidence that I've never seen during my lifetime anyone consistently make shitty snaps for such a simple play, and retain his job week in and week out.

Which brings me to my beloved Eagles. The Eagles took a big step towards pushing for the NFL East crown this year after their horrid 1-4 start to the 2011 regular season, with Sunday night's absolute blowout defeat of the hated Dallas Cowboys at home in every single aspect of the game lifting the Eagles to 3-4 and a tie for second place in the East through nearly half of the 2011 regular season. With the Packers, Niners and Saints looking like near-locks to win their respective divisions, and with the Bears, Lions, Buccaneers and Falcons all ahead of the Eagles (plus the Cowboys still tied) through Week 8 of the year, the Eagles are likely going to need to win the East to have any real shot of playing in the postseason this year, but this week's win over the Cowboys combined with the Redskins' loss at Buffalo this week positions the Eagles at 3-4 within striking distance of the Giants, with a bunch of winnable games coming up in the second half of the schedule, including games at home against the Bears, Cardinals and Redskins, and road matchups with the Giants, Seattle and Miami, in a division where 9 wins might just be able to take it in a tiebreaker. Star runningback LeSean McCoy just better learn how to hold the ball, though, as he is bound to lose some game-crushing fumbles in the near future if he doesn't stop cupping the ball loosely against his right wrist while nearly fully extending his arm while running for 100+ yards in almost every game.