The NFL draft is about a month away and the most important story in the league is the proposal approved last week to change the overtime rules.
The amendment passed by a 28 to 4 margin. Teams voting against the proposal were the Bengals, Bills, Vikings, and the Ravens. Continue reading
You know the drill…I’ll just go through all thirty-two teams in the National Football league and tell you where they are as of Mid March. We’ll start with the team that has made the most noise in free agency.
PLAYOFFS!?!?
There are a lot of arguments floating around the world of professional sports right now, but if you like I aren’t too particularly concerned where Tiger Woods’ “club” has or hasn’t been, let’s just get right to the important stuff real sports fans should be caring about. Currently, there is an abomination amongst professional sports leagues that is allowing for these leagues to sell us a product that is not up to the standards by which we should judge such professional competition. The middle of this article is written in second person, suggesting that the reader is one of these teams in question.
My New York Giants finished .500 this year and (spoken with complete lack of respect) without question should have missed the playoffs like they did. I thought their effort down the stretch was totally pathetic, and it got me to thinking: Why is it that teams that are at or sub .500 are still playing in the last few games of the season with a great shot at making the playoffs? Shouldn’t the playoffs be a sacred thing that only the best of the best get invited to? Continue reading
The Score:
New Orleans Saints 31, Indianapolis Colts 17
The Stats:
Believe it or not, Peyton Manning was actually throwing the ball well. Joseph Addai only had 77 yards rushing, but they were all really tough yards and he ran the ball with purpose. Manning doesn’t throw a lot of interceptions but when he does they’re usually catastrophic. But you have to take your chances. Their defense did do a fairly good job against the run only giving up 51 yards on the ground (which is kind of unusual for them) but their secondary is going to continue to get torched if they can’t cover better. Andre Johnson from the Houston Texans must have been drooling buckets watching the game yesterday.
The Saints put everything on Brees’ shoulders because that’s what they have been paying him to do. And he owned up big time. 32-39 and 288. That was easily by far the best non-300 yard performance ever by a quarterback in the postseason, let alone the Super Bowl. Reggie Bush was a non-factor as I had expected. I think they need to trade him while he still has a high market value. Colston had a bad drop early on, but that will eventually happen. The kid is still a stud. Time of possession was almost identical, with the Saints having only a 22 second advantage there. What really impressed me was how Brees managed the game. If he made a mistake he didn’t run around blaming everyone in sight for his shortcomings.
The Facts:
I still believe Indy is the better team. No questions asked, no questions necessary. I think if Manning is only 34 years old next year, he’s got five legitimate shots left in him. The Colts really don’t have anything to be ashamed of, because although Tony Dungy built that team, Jim Caldwell was still a rookie coach. They have two great developing young receivers and I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last year they make the playoffs. That division is getting tougher, but won’t be much tougher the next 2 or three years. They’ll be back here again.
But how about the Saints? It seems almost very hard to believe. I will say this, after the pick six, it hadn’t hit me that they might actually win, but in that moment it all came together and smacked me right in the jaw. The New Orleans Saints are actually going to win the freaking Super Bowl. Unreal.
And how about that onside kick call? Most ballsy call in Super Bowl History. Can’t believe they would even consider the possibility of giving Peyton Manning a short field to work with down four points at halftime of the big one. If that play doesn’t succeed, Sean Peyton’s life changes forever, and he’s always looked at as being that guy. Incredibly risky, but it did work and it gave them the momentum boost they so desperately needed at that point.
And how about Sean Peyton? Trusting your number one guy with everything when it all goes down, maintaining a cool head through all of this craziness, and (most importantly) practicing the principles he preached to his team all year long. An excellent guy to have in charge of your franchise. An A plus for the job he’s done since the second he walked into that locker room. He’s made a lot of “OK” players into “really good” players and it shows. This Super Bowl win is just the culmination of all of the hard work he has put in there the last four years.
And what a ride this Tracy Porter kid has had. Picking off Brett Favre and kicking him out of the playoffs two weeks ago, and then doing the same thing to Peyton Manning in the game to end all games. Crucial.
The fans have the right to be drinking heavily and partying it up down there. They’ve been through a lot of bullshit with the hurricane and even worse, they have to admit that their city is the backdrop for the A & E series “Steven Seagal: Lawman”. That’s a feeling nobody should have to go through. I urge Saints fans to enjoy this one, and have themselves a Lombardigras of a hullaballoo. Party on, Garth.
The Year in Review:
Overall the NFL did have a pretty good year. Michael Vick came back and there was no real dangerous protests as the fine folks at PETA had promised. Plaxico Burress is in jail which is always good. Commissioner Goddell has really been able to sweep this labor thing under the rug, even though a lockout is completely unavoidable at this point. No one still wants to give Donte Stallworth a job which I also find hilarious. The league looks very respectable from most angles.
But in honesty, this post 2011 lockout is going to happen. Everything I’ve read about either or both sides tells me nobody’s budging at all, which will really suck for football fans. I was 8 years old when the lockout went down in 1987 and even as an eight year old, I still thought the scrubs were schmucks. I think Commissioner Goddell is going into this the same way he goes into fining someone for an end zone celebration. He seems to be very condescending and labor unions don’t buy that shit at all. The guy is just short of bringing in a rattle and a bib and handing them to the union, and they’re going to rock his world when he finally does. This IS NOT over and it has me very worried. I don’t want to see any sort of shortened season, and at the time where the NFL is killing it and making crazy jack while doing so I can’t imagine they’d want to suffer the lack of revenue they might potentially incur. And you know how the NFL loves money.
So congratulations to Drew Brees and the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints. Keep watching, because it really could be anybody next year, and let’s all hope the labor issue is resolved.
Once again, thank you for your continued readership and make sure to keep coming to First Order Historians. I’m going to take a couple of weeks off, by then I’m sure I’ll be back to complaining about something. Take care…
Meehan
This is not the Super Bowl preview article, and I won’t be doing any Pro Bowl preview article either. I was thinking about doing a really mean one as a snarky joke, but I think creating a whole separate hyperlink to discuss why we shouldn’t discuss something is kind of silly. I do think it’s humorous that McDonalds is sponsoring the Pro Bowl this year, as both of those things make me want to drop a deuce.
AFC (2:00 PM CST)
I really didn’t want to see the New York Jets win that game. I don’t think that it would have been good for the league and if you don’t believe me look at Mark Sanchez’ playoff statistics: http://nfl.fanhouse.com/players/mark-sanchez/9269?selectedTab=splitStats I don’t have a whole lot to say about the Jets other than they are great fundamental football team, which doesn’t always end up being sexy on TV. Overall it was a really successful season and they made it two weeks longer into the playoffs than their division rivals in New England, so this may be a signal that the balance of power in the AFC East is shifting. Not rapidly, but definitely moving in the Jets’ favor. Gutsy coach in a town that likes gutsy coaching. (See Bill Parcells) Young QB that will have plenty of ground options to ensure that he will never have to throw the ball 45 times. A game plan that will also ensure that he won’t have to throw the ball 45 times. And to top it all off, an incredible defensive unit that can put it down as long as they aren’t on the field too much.
Indianapolis making it to the Super Bowl doesn’t surprise me one bit. I was really worried there for a while though. At 3:30 PM CST the Super Bowl was shaping up to be awfully boring. But as always, Uncle Peyton came back and brought the house down. What an interesting year for the Colts. They lose their Hall of Fame head coach, start two rookie receivers and almost go through the whole season undefeated had Coach Caldwell not decided to pull the plug in Week 15. Then they do just enough to scrape by in their two playoffs games, and additionally don’t end up having to play the Chargers, Steelers, or Patriots who they’ve had problems with in past postseasons. I’m not saying they had it easy, because the NFL never makes the Colts’ schedule easy, but everything definitely lined up in a way that allowed them to just knock down the pins.
NFC (5:40 PM CST)
The Vikings are about exactly what they were made out to be, a team with several young offensive weapons and a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback that was about one possession away from the Super Bowl. It’s nearly impossible to turn the ball over five times in a conference championship and win, and the Vikings almost did it. They had three more fumbles that were retrieved, but that’s an awful lot of times to put the football on the ground in a game like that. Inability to protect an aging quarterback ended up having some sort of effect if Favre’s press conference was any indication. Retired or not, I hope he remains healthy because what happened to him tonight could end up being the difference between becoming a vegetable and not becoming one. He got hit from every angle tonight. All in all, a sloppily played game and an abrupt end to a good season from a classy organization. The Minnesota Vikings will be back, but with who at the helm? The suspense is giving me blisters already. Not really though.
The New Orleans Saints proved that sometimes you can win ugly and still look dominant. Just when it seemed that they couldn’t convert a third down situation to save their lives they end up running into a team that couldn’t hang on to the football to save theirs. Brees didn’t even throw for 200 yards, but still had three touchdowns and a Super Bowl visit to show for it. They got a couple of calls thrown their way at the end, and even though you hate to see a game end under those circumstances I think they were probably the better team. They’re going to need to step up the pass coverage in two weeks otherwise they are going to get eaten alive. Lot of solid defensive play tonight from Jonathan Vilma. The Saints dropped a couple of sure interceptions (which they won’t be able to afford to do against the Colts) and the secondary did not play to the level that they are capable of playing. Hard to the core as always, not a dirty team but a gritty one. Congrats on their first SB appearance, and may it not be the last.
Today proved that sloppy football is still exciting football, and it doesn’t always have to be a team from a major market to draw interest in a professional football team. Indy and New Orleans both have rabid fan bases and that game is going to get high ratings. Big props to the Saints front office for making the moves to finally get themselves there as well. Should be a lot of good times to be had in the Bayou.
It was a pretty wild year and hopefully it will continue to be entertaining in the last game. Super Bowl related article forthcoming.
Meehan
