Tuesday Morning Week 2 Recap

Week 2 Predictions Head up   8-7

Week 2 Predictions against the spread 7-7 (1 Push)

Record so far this year: 8-7

Every Tuesday morning I’ll try to have a quick hits section about 4 or 5 things that stuck out to me from this weekend’s slate of action. We’ll start off with my record for the previous week then get into some of the bigger surprises/disappointments of the action.

2-0 surprises

If somebody would have told me before the season that the Chiefs, Bears, and Bucs would be 2-0 to start the season I would have asked them why they were giving me weird NFL predictions, then I would have said they were ridiculous. But apparently coordinators matter in the NFL as Mike Martz has invigorated the passing attack in Chicago, while Scott Pioli is trying to relive the glory years of the Patriots with Romeo Crenell and Charlie Weiss in KC. However it’s not just coordinators it’s also a youth movement going on in both KC and Tampa Bay, the Bucs seem to be reinvigorated by an influx of both offensive and defensive playmakers while the Chiefs seem to be doing the same with the added draw of an explosive special teams.  The chiefs only have two real contributors on their defense over 30 in Mike Vrabel and Jon McGraw, their average age of a starter on their defense is 26.The Bucs are lead by the veteran presence of Ronde Barber one of the few players left from the Bucs super bowl championship of 2002, their defense is even younger coming in at an average age a shade over 25. While the Bears are surprising as well they have a good deal of talent and recognizable names: Jay Cutler, Greg Olsen, Matt Forte, Brian Urlacher, Devin Hester, and Tommie Harris. This Bears team was more a question of using the talent properly and executing. Not many of us thought Jay Cutler could, but through two games he’s been up to the challenge with 5 touchdowns, only 1 interception and a quarterback rating of 121.2. The question remains if any of these teams have it in them to continue to succeed during the long haul of the season or will they whither under the pressure of raised expectations like the Denver Broncos of last year. Only time will tell.

0-2 Disappointments

Even John Madden doesn't think he's having fun out there now

I’m looking at you Cowboys and Vikings. There were supposed to be 4 elite teams in the NFC: The Saints, Vikings, Packers, and Cowboys. Apparently only 2 of them got the message while the Packers and Saints reside in the land of the undefeated the boys and Vikings are simply defeated. What’s the problem?? Well in the land of Lakes it seems to be pretty simple: 1. Brett Favre isn’t nearly as committed to this team as he was to the team in 2009 2. He misses Sydney Rice a lot more than any of us thought he would or 3. He got a lot older really really fast.  I don’t have the answer but I do know the Vikings need to figure it out because the odds for 0-2 team’s making the playoffs reside at 13% and it doesn’t get any easier from here on out as they play a pretty tough Lions team in week 3 also looking for their first win. The Cowboys on the other hand have a bit more blame to go around. The defense was torn apart by Jay Cutler last week to the tune of 21/29, 277 yards, and 3 touchdowns, that comes out to a quarterback rating of 136.7 ouch. However while Tony Romo may be chucking it up and down the field with almost 700 yards in two games but he only has 2 touchdowns to go along with his 2 interceptions. The cowboys have a grand total of 139 rushing yards in their two games, so they can’t run the football and they’re not turning all those passing yards into touchdowns, while they can’t stop the pass. There are a lot of problems in Big D….oh wait did I say they can’t stop the pass? Who’s that coming up on the schedule next week? Could it be Matt Schaub of the 497 passing yards and 3 touchdowns? It looks both of these teams could be 0-3 before we know it.

Defense Wins Championships

Your starting quarterback can not have a Mullet

Are there two defensive players playing any better right now than Troy Polamalu and Clay Matthews? Matthews has an ungodly 6 sacks after two games and doesn’t appear to realize that the other people are trying to block him and he should play along sometimes. While Polamalu is reminding everyone that he is probably more important to the Steelers super bowl chances than Ben Roethlisberger.  I mean just based on hair alone I would value Troy over Big Ben. A ridiculous sideline interception and leaping goal line stop are just the highlights; it’s his consistent ability to be everywhere for the Steelers defense that pushes them from good/great into the truly elite. Speaking of elite defenses who thought the Colts would come into Sunday night and absolutely put the hammer to a giants O that never had a chance, Eli Manning looked like he wanted to stop playing after the 3^rd quarter. 4 Sacks and 3 forced fumbles combined for Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney, not to mention how many pressures and hits they got on Eli, a game like that would invoke the mercy rule in Madden. When Mathis and Freeney are given a lead on that track in Indy it seems like its lights out for any quarterback. This makes it all the more perplexing that the Giants didn’t try to establish the running game early.  Well I guess they couldn’t really get that two headed running game going when one of the heads couldn’t find his helmet because it was in the stands.

Hey!!!! Remember Michael Vick???

With a performance that would make any coach re evaluate his depth chart Mike Vick reminded us all that he was once the most exciting player in football and probably in all professional sports. Count me as one of the people who didn’t think a 30 year old Mike Vick would still have the speed or the arm strength to do the things he used to. Not only does he still have the arm strength and speed he seems to have added a bit of accuracy and calm within the pocket that you need from your quarterback if you want to have an elite passing game. If the Eagles hadn’t absolutely tied their wagons to Kevin Kolb Vick would be the starter week 3. This is one of the problems with the NFL, people don’t like to admit they’ve made mistakes, and they definitely don’t like to admit they’ve made mistakes with the most important position in the franchise. The Eagles sent Mcnabb packing for Kevin Kolb and all they’ve gotten from Kevin Kolb is an absolutely dreadful preseason and a concussion to show for it.  Too bad the Eagles gave Kolb a 12 million dollar contract extension based on…a 48-22 loss to the saints, a masterful 4 interceptions zero touchdown 2008 year, and a beat down he put on the Kansas City Chiefs. So 12 million bucks for one good game and one game with a lot of yardage and 3 picks. Hmmm I’m gonna say that wasn’t a smart move.