Monday, January 30, 2012

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND


I have been putting off writing this week’s “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” because like many football fans, I am in total denial about the fact that there is only one game left this year. This season seems to have passed even faster than usual, but what a year it has been. Considering there were a lot of new faces in the playoffs this year, it is funny that the Super Bowl will be a rematch of the historic 2008 game. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at last week’s successes and failures.

The Good: After playing second fiddle to Hakeem Nicks the last two playoff games, Victor Cruz hauls in a whopping ten catches for 142 yards.

All season long, the Giants had lived and died by creating long, explosive plays on offense. Eli Manning led a passing offense that had more 40+ yard plays than any other team in 2011, but he was going up against a defense that was the best in the league in stopping big plays, mostly due to their stellar play at the safety position. Hakeem Nicks had been unstoppable the last two weeks, accounting for 280 yards, four touchdowns, and more than 20 yards per catch. The 49ers clearly focused on stopping Nicks, and they did, holding him to just 55 yards.

However, they did not have an answer for Cruz all day. It was his ability to keep the chains moving that slowed down the fierce 49ers pass rush just enough for the Giants offense to keep them in the game. His ability to get open quickly gave Eli a reliable target to go to while he was being taken to the ground by defenders, which was quite often (a staggering 20 times to be exact). I almost went with Eli in this spot because he took such a beating and still led his team to a W, but he could not have produced much of anything on offense without Cruz coming up big for him over and over again. Cruz and Nicks should give the Giants a dangerous one-two punch in the passing game for a long time to come and it will be interesting to see if the Patriots struggling defense has an answer for either of them.

The Bad: Kyle Williams loses two punts, including one in overtime that set up the Giants with the game winning field goal.

I will not blame Williams as the sole reason the 49ers lost like many have done, but there is no denying that this was a really tough game for such a young and inexperienced player. His two turnovers accounted for 10 of the Giants’ 20 points, including the game winning field goal. Both were inexcusable mistakes, especially in such a huge game for a franchise that had not been in the playoffs since the 90s. His muffed punt during regulation where he simply failed to get out of the way and allowed the ball to be recovered by the Giants was in my mind significantly worse than the fumble in overtime. The golden rule of being a punt returner is either catch the ball or get the heck out of its way. He is not the 49ers’ starting punt returner, but he has still been around football enough of his life that he should have known better.

All that being said, the 49ers had many other problems that led them to lose this game. Most notably, the 49ers passing attack did absolutely nothing unless Vernon Davis was streaking down the field wide open. The 49ers have to figure out if they want to ride it out with Alex Smith or if they will bring in another quarterback to compete with last year’s second round pick Colin Kaepernick. Possibly more important, they need to find some decent receivers to help out whoever their starting quarterback is in 2012 because Michael Crabtree drops a lot of passes and their second best receiver has a lot of work to do to repair his image in the Bay Area. What’s his name? You guessed it, Kyle Williams.

The Ugly: The Ravens offense.

I could blame Lee Evans for dropping what would have been a game winning touchdown, or Billy Cundiff for missing the field goal that would have sent the game into overtime, or even Ray Rice for averaging barely over three yards a carry. However, it is much simpler to just say they all stunk and it took the entire Ravens offense to lose this game. Going into this matchup, the Ravens had to know that they were not going to win this game with 20 points. The Patriots offense had been unstoppable in recent weeks and the Ravens defense played out of their mind holding Tom Brady to zero touchdowns to two interceptions.

I have already mentioned Evans, Cundiff, and Rice as guys who could be blamed for this loss, but Joe Flacco needs to get at least some of the blame as well. Statistically Flacco had a good day, but anyone who watched that game saw him miss open receivers numerous times and often looked lost. His pocket awareness was pathetic and he often stepped up right into the Patriots’ blitz. He might have thrown for 306 yards, but the Patriots allowed 294 yards per game so he had nothing but an average game against them. Flacco has not helped himself in the media by talking about how he does not get enough credit for the Ravens success and speaking publicly about wanting a new contact before next season. Since he has not really backed up his big talk with anything but mediocre performances in the playoffs, it will be interesting to see what his future will be with the Ravens. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY DIVISIONAL ROUND


To say it lightly, I did not see the outcome of these games coming, although I guess I should have figured the Patriots were going to blow out the Broncos. Every game besides the Patriots game was a close one and probably could have gone either way had a few things gone differently. There is plenty to talk about so let’s get to it.

The Good: The Giants dominate the Packers in all aspects of the game and guide Aaron Rodgers to his worst performance of the year.

The Packers came in with a 15-1 record lead by a guy who will most likely be the league MVP. Despite their record and their regular season performance, the team came in with some glaring deficiencies. Despite how good Rodgers was all year long, the offense had struggled to get anything going on the ground all year long, which allows teams like the Giants to constantly blitz without fearing a running back breaking a long one. Also, their defense, which was a strength in their Super Bowl run last season, touted the worst pass defense in the league and allowed the most amount of total yards of any defense in 2011. The defense’s only strength was that they lead the league in interceptions. Basically this team lived and died by the play of their quarterback and their ability to force turnovers.

The Giants exploited those decencies to perfection. They made Rodgers uncomfortable all day with their plethora of pass rushers and it forced him into making big mistakes. Rodgers had two turnovers and his running backs who had been ineffective all season long had two more of their own. The Giants offense torched the Packers all day long with huge plays, most notably a 37 yard touchdown to Hakeem Nicks as time expired in the first half to put the Giants up ten instead of just three points. Eli Manning was inches away from being perfect and again made all the plays that he needed to in order to keep the Giants a step ahead of the Packers for 60 minutes. If I were the 49ers, I would be very scared of this team right now.

The Bad: The Saints turned the ball over five times and their defense couldn’t stop the Alex Smith to Vernon Davis connection in the forth quarter in a shocking 36-32 upset.

Before the Giants-Packers game, the last game of the weekend, I had Alex Smith penciled in my “Good” section. That all changed when the Giants came out and dominated the top team in the league, but that does not at all diminish Smith’s performance. However, his impressive performance was still way less surprising than the Saints completely dropping the ball (often literally) on offense, defense, and special teams. I knew the 49ers defense was tough and that the Saints would have some sort of trouble with them, but I assumed they would still manage to score a lot of points, which they did. I knew that Smith would have an above average day passing because the Saints defense has been the team’s weakness for a long time now. However, I did not think the Saints would let an opportunity like this pass through their fingers like it did last season.

However, that is exactly what happened. The Saints, much like against the Seahawks last season, got down big early, managed to catch up, and again lost the game in the forth quarter despite charging back. I did not think that Alex Smith would be able to carry this offense when Frank Gore had such a pedestrian day. It was Alex’s play, not his defense, that won them the game. Smith was able to out-play Drew Brees all game long and that was the difference in the game. I simply did not think that would happen and that says a lot about the Saints’ defensive performance (I don’t care what you think of Smith, he is not even close to as good as Brees). Had there been another 60 seconds on the game clock, maybe the Saints would have won it, but you cannot expect to win a game when you are -3 in the turnover differential. The Saints have a lot of work to do on the defensive side of the ball, but they might have even more work to do in order to keep their offense together with Drew Brees, Marques Colston, Robert Meachem, and Carl Nicks all set to become free agents, along with eleven other players. This was a Tebow away from being an ugly performance.

The Ugly: Tim Tebow completed about one third of his passes and the Broncos defense gave up five touchdown passes to Tom Brady in the first half.

I don’t care how well you run the ball or how good your defense is, you will not win many games in the NFL completing less than 50% of your passes, let alone less than 35% of your passes. It would also be helpful if you could score points more than once a half. Tebow has to become a much more efficient passer from the pocket in order to become even a decent option at quarterback. Yes, he had an impressive season, but that had more to do with his team rallying around him than his individual performance. Leadership is an extremely important characteristic for a quarterback to possess, but when push comes to shove, the guy has to be able to pass the ball (that’s kind of one of the bigger job requirements for a quarterback). Tebow failed to get anything going on offense against one of the worst defenses in the league and the Broncos have to bring in a quarterback in the off season in order to push Tebow to become better.

Tebow at his best probably would have still lost this game because Brady was lights out all day long. The only reason the score wasn’t 70-10 was because Brady simply stopped trying to put up points after getting his team up by five touchdowns. The Broncos defense, which has been the strength of the team since their mid season surge, was unable to do anything to even slow down the Patriots offense. I mean allowing a 43 yard run by a backup tight end on the first drive of the game is unforgivable. The Patriots did not get much out of their run game outside of Aaron Hernandez (the backup tight end), who lead the team in rushing with 61 yards, despite the fact that he had only eight rushes in his entire career leading into this game. This might have been the ugliest playoff performance I have ever seen. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY WILD CARD WEEKEND


Sorry I missed the last week of the season, but I was extremely busy and was very depressed over my Jets falling apart at the end of the season. Let’s just say Matt Flynn was great, the Raiders blew a huge opportunity to win the AFC West, and the Jets took the ugly cake.

Moving on to the Wild Card round of the playoffs. I always think this is the most exciting round of the playoffs because you never know who is going to play up to their potential or fall on their faces. Despite all of the wild card teams being knocked out of the playoffs already, there were still a couple of upsets/surprising performances. Check out the highlights.

The Good: Tim Tebow throws for a career best 316 yards and an NFL record 31.6 yards per completions against the top ranked Steelers defense.

Drew Brees was amazing yet again against the Lions, but so was Matt Flynn the week earlier so I just had to go with Tebow’s performance. The Steelers made the mistake of trying to defend against what they had seen Tebow do this season instead of what he is capable of doing and it cost them the game. They kept all their defenders close to the line of scrimmage in order to stop the run and Tebow beat them with the deep ball over and over again. Not having free safety Ryan Clark really hurt this defense and Tebow exploited that early and often. This was by far Tebow’s best game as a pro and it shows his immense potential when he can throw the ball accurately. It also didn’t hurt that Demaryius Thomas averaged over 50 yards a catch and his offensive line was spectacular, but still a great day for Tebow.

The Bad: Andy Dalton threw a career high three interceptions to zero touchdowns against the Texans after throwing just 13 interceptions all year long.

Dalton had a better rookie year than he has gotten credit for, mostly because he plays in Ohio, and if it wasn’t for Cam Newton’s record breaking year, he would be hands down the rookie of the year. I know he had a pretty easy schedule, but he took a four win team to the playoffs in his first year which is no easy feat. This is also an offense that had no established receiver, yet he was extremely efficient and led his team to nine wins. He showed off an arm that was significantly better than he got credit for in the draft, which I am personally guilty of, and was the clear leader of this extremely young offense. It is unfortunate that his season had to end this way, but he has really struggled against the top defenses in the league so it will be interesting to see how he progresses over the next few years. The Texans defense confused him all day and since they could not get anything going on the ground, Dalton was forced to try to carry the team. It did not work out for the Bengals this week, but the future is still bright for this team.

The Ugly: The Falcons’ offense scores zero points against the Giants.

Wow were the Falcons bad all over the field in this game, but as bad as the defense was, the offense was way worse. Michael Turner averaged 2.7 yards a carry against a very mediocre Giants’ run defense and the Giants forced the offense to run through the passing game. Matt Ryan again had an awful performance in the playoffs despite all the talent around him and the Falcons as an organization have to start thinking about whether or not they actually have a franchise quarterback. The Falcons gave up basically two draft classes in order to get their hands on Julio Jones to help Ryan progress. Despite having his best statistical season, he was pretty inconsistent, especially early in the year, and might have had the worst game of his career last week. This team was not one player away from being a Super Bowl team, obviously, and their move to get Jones really hurts their chances of rebuilding an aging and ineffective defense. The future is not so bright for this franchise, who will also have to replace the soon to be retired Tony Gonzalez on offense.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY WEEK 16


Sorry this got out so late, but I have been without internet for about a week and have been extremely busy. Week 16 was yet another exciting week of football and a lot of teams had their playoff hopes squashed, or at least highly diminished. Let's get right into it.

The Good: With one game left, Drew Brees breaks Dan Marino’s passing record with 5,087 passing yards.

What a year Brees has had. He is completing over 70% of his passes and scored 41 touchdowns to only 13 interceptions, way down from 22 last season. All of those stats might be even more impressive than the 5,087 yards. In 1984, Marino threw for 5,084 yards, but he scored just 17 touchdowns and had the same amount of interceptions as Brees does this season. While the rules have changed to help the quarterback since Marino’s time, Brees 2011 season is still at least as impressive as Marino in 84. The Saints are ranked 9th in rushing offense, but this is all a product of defenses focusing on stopping Brees and the passing game. The Saints do not have a player with more than 600 rushing yards and have used an effective rotation of running backs with Darren Sproles leading the way. He is averaging seven yards a carry and has also caught over 80 passes. He runs almost entirely out of the shotgun formation and is only effective because defenses have to play the pass every time they line up in the shotgun. They are not prepared for a run and Sproles has exploited defenses all season for huge chunks of yardage. Sproles has never had more than 350 rushing yards in a season and his production this season goes to show how Brees gets the most out of every offensive weapon that Sean Payton lays at his feet. Brees is well deserving of his place in the history books and this season has most likely made him a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Runner Up: The Colts score their only touchdown of the game with one second left on the clock to beat the Texans and give them their first win streak of the year.


The Bad: The Chargers blow their playoff hopes by coming out flat against the roaring Lions, who clinch their first playoff berth in over a decade.

The Chargers needed a win more than the Lions, but the Lions wanted to clinch that playoff berth more than the Chargers wanted to stay alive. Matthew Stafford was perfect all game long and scored three touchdowns in the first half. The Chargers could not get anything started in the first half on offense or defense and they were down 24-0 at the half. They had to completely forgo their surprisingly strong running game and were forced to pass for the entire second half and Phillip Rivers could not deliver, much like he has failed to do for the majority of this season. This was a rough game all around for the Chargers and it really leaves them scratching their heads about what could have been this season. They are going to have a long offseason and there is most likely going to be a lot of turn over on this roster, and possibly the coaching staff.

Runner Up: The Rams give their fan base no hope for the future by getting obliterated by the Roethlisberger-less Steelers 27-0.


The Ugly: Tim Tebow shows why a quarterback needs to be able to throw the ball in order to win football games.

After going on a 7-1 run, Tim Tebow has lost the last two games mostly due to the fact that his defense is not spoon-feeding him wins. Last week, it was no surprise to watch the Patriots steam roll the Broncos’ defense and Tebow being unable to match Tom Brady. However, you had to think they would rebound against a Bills team that had lost its last seven games and has not shown a shimmer of light since losing both defensive captain Kyle Williams and play making running back Fred Jackson for the season. The Bills rebounded in this game, putting together a great performance on offense, defense, and special teams. C.J. Spiller had his most impressive game as a pro, the defense had three sacks and forced four turnovers, and they returned a punt for an 80 yard touchdown. Despite all of this, Tebow had a chance at the end of the game to do what he does best, come from behind and miraculously win the game for his team. However, on back to back drives, Tebow threw interceptions that were returned for touchdowns and blew the game for his team. We have not seen Tebow do this all year, but I would not be surprised if this started to become a trend for Tebow. Defensive coordinators will definitely be watching tape of the Bills game in order to see how they were able to slow Tebow down all game, especially in the forth quarter.

Runner Up: The Jets fall flat on their faces against a Giants team that does not look like a playoff team either.