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Let’s go straight to the mailbag:
Q: Dear wise and omnipotent kitty (we reserve the right to edit letters here as we see fit), just a couple weeks ago you said the Dolphins were a bet-on as a big favorite because of their ability to run the ball late in the game to preserve a lead and their solid special teams. What the *&%*% happened?
A: Art imitates life as Ricky Williams can be super-cape EJ of the Playmakers and say "I got my 4 yards". Houston didn’t win one stupid PRESEASON game and all of their wins last year were more like statistical flukes than victories. Who could realistically say Houston would win? The Dolphins plain & simple looked past this game to the Jets and had to be wondering if Ricky was worth 22 carries a game against these guys. The real shocker has to be this: ZERO sacks. Keep in mind the Texans didn’t even address their offensive line on draft day. I have to wonder in this hand-cooked matchup that is week 1, who the hell sat there and said, "Wouldn’t it be great if the Dolphins squared off against the Texans in the opener?" This was a total bullshit week 1 matchup and a real trap for the fish. With the Patriots and Bills squaring off and the Jets/Skins kicking off the season, the Miami Dolphins were left out in the scheduling cold.
The part I love most is that the Texan players have been pointing to the 14 point line as a sign of disrespect and the reason they HAD to win this game. PLEASE! All you really had to do was just cover the stupid line. I don’t see anyone interviewing the Bengals and asking, "Did you feel it was a sign of disrespect that you were 7 point dogs at home? Didn’t you feel that meant you had an obligation to win the game?" I bet they went through EXACTLY what the Texans did with very different results. It is a total joke for the Texans to call out linemakers as being disrespectful when they’ve failed to be competitive in even meaningless football games. Texans followed wins with awful performances last year and the usually overconfident Saints are not likely to overlook the Texans after their beating up in Seattle last week. (Uhm, wasn't Seattle supposed to be banged up? Call me a sucker.)
Q: What did you learn from Week 1?
A: Not a whole heck of a lot. These are hand-picked matchups that the teams spent considerable time preparing for. Many – like the Vikings/Packers game – pit a team against one of their most troublesome opponents. It's best to take these games with a very large grain of salt. They aren’t likely to correlate well with the games in January.
Q: Are you still in Kurt Warner’s camp?
A: Absolutely. That game was certainly more nightmarish than anything I could have imagined but it wasn’t a total shock. I’m not so certain about being in Martz’s camp, however. And if I’m having some doubts, maybe some of those Ram players are too. What, you "feel" something is wrong with your quarterback yet have him throw like 65 times anyway? Again, the Spurrier-like rushing total of Marshall Faulk? And now we are back to Bulger, who gets another home game against a – possibly? – mediocre opponent to pad up his stats. Even if Warner is still Warner, it is hard to know if he can maintain the confidence of his team or if Martz has really gone off the deep end as a head coach.
Q: What’s that crack about the 49ers supposed to mean?
A: Looked to me like the Bears and their crappy special teams basically handed that first game over. I don’t think that game tells anyone anything, other than the 49ers have made good on their promise to run up the score now that they ran mooch out of town.
Q: What’s the best matchup this week?
A: Got to be the dream matchup of Patriots and Eagles coming off of the league’s ONLY scoreless efforts. Honestly, you can’t make that stuff up, can you? I see on the line notes that the Eagles defense has been bombed with "multiple injuries" so maybe Brady can continue his string of "bounce back" games. But you can’t feel too good about the odds the Eagles will stink up the paint in their brand new stadium twice. I’ve always felt the stats in Philadelphia never seemed to back up the mystique of their "home field advantage" and maybe we are just seeing a continuation of that. New place, same old story. I think I’d take the over/under somewhere south of 10 1/2 points!
Q: How about the Bucs? Repeat repeat repeat?
A: As I said last week, let’s wait until they get away from that West Coast offense they’ve been dominating through their recent string of wins. This week’s entry seems to pose the kind of challenge we are looking for. A young, eager to prove defense. An effective power running game. I don’t think the Bucs score too much, so the question is whether or not Delhomme proves to be the answer. Regardless, expect the Bucs to see a whole lot of Stephen Davis. Certainly you can’t expect the Bucs to be overvalued after what we saw on Monday and the strong preseason. So I wouldn’t expect to cover a lot with them.
Q: Is Farve done?
A: No, and he certainly won’t have many bad games at home. Farve doesn’t have much to throw too, but he has always seemed to find guys and stick it in their chest.
Q: Who’s the best running back right now?
A: Certainly looked like Priest Holmes is breezing, as he went through the day practically untouched. And Travis Henry remains the best player the average fan has never heard of. But for a power running game, I’d bank on Shaun Alexander. San Diego looks like they might have offensive line problems and Portis could be sunk by Plummer, who likely will be as bad as he looked.
Q: Are the Bengals going to rebound behind Marvin Lewis?
A: I think Lewis did an atrocious job as the Skins defensive coordinator, moving Arrington to the line in a "look how smart I am!!!" type of move. I don’t have a lot of high hopes here. Defense will be better than last years "double wing double wing, rotate everyone to the right side now!!!" effort that was pitiful. The Raiders basically beat themselves last week with awful line play and they better turn that around quick.
Q: Is Budweiser (AB – A. Baldin) better than Samuel Adams (Boston, as in David)? Did Arizona win here?
A: No way. Detroit must be pretty f**king bad to give up 300+ yards passing to the CARDINALS. C’mon that’s like 300 more yards than you would have pencilled in for this game. In the "preseason is &^*% meaningless" category, I don’t even think AB had more than a couple of catches. A rookie guy on a team with a brand new QB? No, something here definitely smells and it is probably the Detroit secondary. If Arizona and their group of total no-names did THAT, what is Farve and his band of no-namers gonna do?
Q: I was surprised that Pittsburgh pounded Baltimore. What did that mean?
A: It meant that Pittsburgh hates Baltimores guts to the core and – being the better team – you can bet they are going to pound Baltimore into a dung heap any chance they get. Give a checkmark to Maddox for looking like he picked up where he left off and that’s about it. Pittsburgh will have a somewhat tougher time against the high-flying chiefs and probably even more of a tough time when they face other teams that can press downfield. Meanwhile, Baltimore gave up some touchdowns where the defender wasn’t even in sight. I don’t know if they were giving up or if they just suck, but its going to be a slow start until the team gets more confidence in Boller.
Q: Are the Skins for real?
A: They looked a lot more intelligently architected as a squad. They played a good game against a somewhat toothless Jets offense. I’m impressed they shutdown the running game as well as they did, but the passing game was not keeping them very honest. The Skins rushing attack was very impressive. The wideouts are solid and Ramsey looked awesome until he became lost after a turnover. Stay tuned here.
Q: 9-6?
A: What is that – the number of touchdowns in the Cleveland/Indy game? That’s what you would have expected. It was so bad, PRIMETIME highlights began with 3 minutes left in the game. I’d say Cleveland’s secondary must have looked a lot better than last year judging from the stats and Indy probably should have run James more than they did. Maybe Dungy is finally getting his defense in place too. But I wouldn’t read too much here. More likely it was just "one of those days" for both teams.
And that concludes...
THE VIEW FROM THE CAT
Q: Dear wise and omnipotent kitty (we reserve the right to edit letters here as we see fit), just a couple weeks ago you said the Dolphins were a bet-on as a big favorite because of their ability to run the ball late in the game to preserve a lead and their solid special teams. What the *&%*% happened?
A: Art imitates life as Ricky Williams can be super-cape EJ of the Playmakers and say "I got my 4 yards". Houston didn’t win one stupid PRESEASON game and all of their wins last year were more like statistical flukes than victories. Who could realistically say Houston would win? The Dolphins plain & simple looked past this game to the Jets and had to be wondering if Ricky was worth 22 carries a game against these guys. The real shocker has to be this: ZERO sacks. Keep in mind the Texans didn’t even address their offensive line on draft day. I have to wonder in this hand-cooked matchup that is week 1, who the hell sat there and said, "Wouldn’t it be great if the Dolphins squared off against the Texans in the opener?" This was a total bullshit week 1 matchup and a real trap for the fish. With the Patriots and Bills squaring off and the Jets/Skins kicking off the season, the Miami Dolphins were left out in the scheduling cold.
The part I love most is that the Texan players have been pointing to the 14 point line as a sign of disrespect and the reason they HAD to win this game. PLEASE! All you really had to do was just cover the stupid line. I don’t see anyone interviewing the Bengals and asking, "Did you feel it was a sign of disrespect that you were 7 point dogs at home? Didn’t you feel that meant you had an obligation to win the game?" I bet they went through EXACTLY what the Texans did with very different results. It is a total joke for the Texans to call out linemakers as being disrespectful when they’ve failed to be competitive in even meaningless football games. Texans followed wins with awful performances last year and the usually overconfident Saints are not likely to overlook the Texans after their beating up in Seattle last week. (Uhm, wasn't Seattle supposed to be banged up? Call me a sucker.)
Q: What did you learn from Week 1?
A: Not a whole heck of a lot. These are hand-picked matchups that the teams spent considerable time preparing for. Many – like the Vikings/Packers game – pit a team against one of their most troublesome opponents. It's best to take these games with a very large grain of salt. They aren’t likely to correlate well with the games in January.
Q: Are you still in Kurt Warner’s camp?
A: Absolutely. That game was certainly more nightmarish than anything I could have imagined but it wasn’t a total shock. I’m not so certain about being in Martz’s camp, however. And if I’m having some doubts, maybe some of those Ram players are too. What, you "feel" something is wrong with your quarterback yet have him throw like 65 times anyway? Again, the Spurrier-like rushing total of Marshall Faulk? And now we are back to Bulger, who gets another home game against a – possibly? – mediocre opponent to pad up his stats. Even if Warner is still Warner, it is hard to know if he can maintain the confidence of his team or if Martz has really gone off the deep end as a head coach.
Q: What’s that crack about the 49ers supposed to mean?
A: Looked to me like the Bears and their crappy special teams basically handed that first game over. I don’t think that game tells anyone anything, other than the 49ers have made good on their promise to run up the score now that they ran mooch out of town.
Q: What’s the best matchup this week?
A: Got to be the dream matchup of Patriots and Eagles coming off of the league’s ONLY scoreless efforts. Honestly, you can’t make that stuff up, can you? I see on the line notes that the Eagles defense has been bombed with "multiple injuries" so maybe Brady can continue his string of "bounce back" games. But you can’t feel too good about the odds the Eagles will stink up the paint in their brand new stadium twice. I’ve always felt the stats in Philadelphia never seemed to back up the mystique of their "home field advantage" and maybe we are just seeing a continuation of that. New place, same old story. I think I’d take the over/under somewhere south of 10 1/2 points!
Q: How about the Bucs? Repeat repeat repeat?
A: As I said last week, let’s wait until they get away from that West Coast offense they’ve been dominating through their recent string of wins. This week’s entry seems to pose the kind of challenge we are looking for. A young, eager to prove defense. An effective power running game. I don’t think the Bucs score too much, so the question is whether or not Delhomme proves to be the answer. Regardless, expect the Bucs to see a whole lot of Stephen Davis. Certainly you can’t expect the Bucs to be overvalued after what we saw on Monday and the strong preseason. So I wouldn’t expect to cover a lot with them.
Q: Is Farve done?
A: No, and he certainly won’t have many bad games at home. Farve doesn’t have much to throw too, but he has always seemed to find guys and stick it in their chest.
Q: Who’s the best running back right now?
A: Certainly looked like Priest Holmes is breezing, as he went through the day practically untouched. And Travis Henry remains the best player the average fan has never heard of. But for a power running game, I’d bank on Shaun Alexander. San Diego looks like they might have offensive line problems and Portis could be sunk by Plummer, who likely will be as bad as he looked.
Q: Are the Bengals going to rebound behind Marvin Lewis?
A: I think Lewis did an atrocious job as the Skins defensive coordinator, moving Arrington to the line in a "look how smart I am!!!" type of move. I don’t have a lot of high hopes here. Defense will be better than last years "double wing double wing, rotate everyone to the right side now!!!" effort that was pitiful. The Raiders basically beat themselves last week with awful line play and they better turn that around quick.
Q: Is Budweiser (AB – A. Baldin) better than Samuel Adams (Boston, as in David)? Did Arizona win here?
A: No way. Detroit must be pretty f**king bad to give up 300+ yards passing to the CARDINALS. C’mon that’s like 300 more yards than you would have pencilled in for this game. In the "preseason is &^*% meaningless" category, I don’t even think AB had more than a couple of catches. A rookie guy on a team with a brand new QB? No, something here definitely smells and it is probably the Detroit secondary. If Arizona and their group of total no-names did THAT, what is Farve and his band of no-namers gonna do?
Q: I was surprised that Pittsburgh pounded Baltimore. What did that mean?
A: It meant that Pittsburgh hates Baltimores guts to the core and – being the better team – you can bet they are going to pound Baltimore into a dung heap any chance they get. Give a checkmark to Maddox for looking like he picked up where he left off and that’s about it. Pittsburgh will have a somewhat tougher time against the high-flying chiefs and probably even more of a tough time when they face other teams that can press downfield. Meanwhile, Baltimore gave up some touchdowns where the defender wasn’t even in sight. I don’t know if they were giving up or if they just suck, but its going to be a slow start until the team gets more confidence in Boller.
Q: Are the Skins for real?
A: They looked a lot more intelligently architected as a squad. They played a good game against a somewhat toothless Jets offense. I’m impressed they shutdown the running game as well as they did, but the passing game was not keeping them very honest. The Skins rushing attack was very impressive. The wideouts are solid and Ramsey looked awesome until he became lost after a turnover. Stay tuned here.
Q: 9-6?
A: What is that – the number of touchdowns in the Cleveland/Indy game? That’s what you would have expected. It was so bad, PRIMETIME highlights began with 3 minutes left in the game. I’d say Cleveland’s secondary must have looked a lot better than last year judging from the stats and Indy probably should have run James more than they did. Maybe Dungy is finally getting his defense in place too. But I wouldn’t read too much here. More likely it was just "one of those days" for both teams.
And that concludes...
THE VIEW FROM THE CAT
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