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.

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.

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.