The Interim Thing Works?

Peter King tells us that "Interim coaches, mostly, bring fresh air and new approaches."

there have been seven interim coaches since the start of the 2007 season, and every one of them has had a better winning percentage than the coach he replaced in that season. ... Here's how the last seven teams to make in-season coaching changes have fared with the new man:

I think he's missing the point. Leslie Frazier, Jason Garrett, and Mike Singletary were earmarked as rising stars: they were guys that you would want to hire to be the head guy. Perry Fewell might be in that same category: he looks like he can coach, based on what he's done with the Bills and Giants. Putting THOSE guys in charge might be a good move regardless of when you do it. The other guys on King's list were replacing disasters (Linehan, Lane Kiffin, Bobby Petrino) with solid professional coaches: not stars, but not disasters either.

King's examples do not tell us that it's an awesome idea to fire a coach midseason and appoint an interim. They reinforce how important it is to get the head coaching hire right, which we sort of knew anyway. They also tell us that Frazier, Garret and Singletary (and possibly Fewell) have some potential as head coaches – which we also knew anyway. Not every team has a potential star waiting in the wings.


I suppose I should admit somewhere that (a) I am rooting for Leslie Frazier to succeed, because John Harbaugh said he's tremendous, and (b) I am rooting for Jason Garrett to fail spectacularly, because he was offered the Baltimore head job and turned it down to stay a coordinator (John Elway redux) – plus he's a Cowboy, of course. But who knows, Garrett could turn out to have a little Sean Payton in him. Which would be frightening.

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21 point swing

Late in the 2nd quarter of yesterday's Bucs-Ravens game, Tampa defender Myron Lewis was flagged for pass interference against TJ Houshmazilly. This put the ball on the Bucs 10 yard line with 37 seconds left in the half, and on the next play Flacco threw a TD pass to Mason, to put the Ravens up 17-3.

Just a few mins earlier in the same quarter, the Ravens kicked off after Todd Heap's touchdown reception, and Tampa's Micheal Spurlock busted a big return, finally getting tackled by Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff.

Later in the game, with about 12 mins to go in the 4th quarter, on 3rd down from their 40, Tampa QB Josh Freeman lofted a bomb to Spurlock. Spurlock had toasted Ravens CB Lardarius Webb with a double move, beating him deep. The ball bounced off of Spurlock's hand in the end zone and fell incomplete.

The pass interference call was, to put it charitably, “questionable”. A lucky break for the Ravens. Without that call, the Ravens almost certainly don't score that second touchdown. The kick return – can we agree that, whenever your kicker has to make the tackle, you are lucky it did not go all the way for a touchdown? And the deep ball, that pass should have been caught. It hit Spurlock in the hand!

That is a 21 point swing. Take 7 points off the board for the Ravens, and put 14 on for the Bucs, and instead of a 17-10 win Baltimore is left with a 24-10 loss.

The crazy thing is, as a Ravens fan, I really felt they had the game under control. They kept Tampa bottled up in their own end for much of the first half, etc: didn't really seem threatened. I may have to recalibrate my “game sense” or something, because this game could easily have been a 2-TD loss for the Ravens. And maybe it should have been.

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Breaking down the QB

I read a Ravens message board that's pretty standard for message board material, but there are some interesting contributors that also blog and write articles for the site. One of them - Chris Johnston - is a high school coach that breaks down some of Flacco's better plays vs. Carolina in a blog post here. He'll apparently do the bad at a later time which I'll link if I remember. Either way, it's somewhat interesting reading and viewing (video accompanies to show the actual plays on the blog, as well as shown below).

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Matt Millen gets a nice surprise

Yahoo's great football blog "Shutdown Corner" points out this:

Matt Millen gets a nice surprise in the booth

Nice.

Matt Millen may be a buffoon and an insult to fans, but he's also a dad with a son serving overseas, so we give thanks and offer our best wishes.

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CONSPIRACY THEORY ALERT!!!

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say that watching Matt Millen on TV act like he knows more about football than my three year old daughter is not only vomit-inducing, it's infuriating.

Is it possible that this is ESPN extending a giant middle finger to the sports world? "Look how big we are! We are so big and powerful, that we can hire the most incompetent executive in the history of the sports universe, and place him at the epicenter of many large football events! You will take it, you will love it, and you will thank us for it!"

There's really no other explanation other than Millen having pictures of high ranking ESPN execs in compromising positions with farm animals.

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Statistical stupidity

The Grey Lady takes a moment to tell us this:

Manning Has Quietly Become Giants’ Most Frequent Fumbler

Seriously? This is worth a headline? Quarterbacks always lead their team and the league in fumbles. That's what happens when you handle the ball every single play.

To be fair, that is mentioned in the body of the article:

Quarterbacks usually fumble more than other players. They handle the ball on every play. They are involved in dozens of ball transactions in a game, receiving a snap from center and handing or pitching it to a running back. And they fumble when they step back to throw, whether on a blind-side sack or when a defender knocks the ball away as the quarterback cocks his arm.
...
Quarterbacks dominate the list of career fumblers. The first nonquarterbacks on the list are Franco Harris and Tony Dorsett, tied for 20th, with 90 each.

So they do acknowledge the basic statistical truths of the situation. But I ask you, is that headline fair?

(I'm still a little irritated by the notion of Matt Millen arguing with Steve Young.)

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Matt Millen argues with Steve Young

Did you catch this, from the ESPN pre-game to Monday Night Football? I did not. Yahoo Sports "Shutdown Corner" blogger Chris Chase brings it to our attention:



An argument between Steve Young and Matt Millen is like – what is it like? I struggle for apt comparisons.

Steve Young graduated from BYU, and received his law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. In football, he holds the NFL record for highest career passer rating and won six NFL passing titles (which ties him with Sammy Baugh). Selected to 7 Pro Bowls, a 2-time NFL MVP, he also played on 3 Super Bowl winners (though only starting on one) and was a Super Bowl MVP. Elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005. He is intelligent and articulate. When he speaks, it is worth listening to what he has to say.

Matt Millen was a good football player, making the Pro Bowl one time, and was an important contributer on defense for 4 Super Bowl winning teams. He is also the most incompetent executive in the history of pro sports. He is the author of the Detroit Lions 0-16 season. He is a blight on sports broadcasting, and every time his braying voice is splattered all over the country, it is a slap in the face to NFL fans.

Matt Millen telling Steve Young he's wrong? I am sputtering with the preposterousness of it.

--------------------------------------

Update
Maybe this is what I meant to say:

In what kind of crazy universe can Matt Millen lecture Steve Young on quarterback play?

--------------------------------------

Update again

I mean, imagine they had switched places in the 2000s. Say Steve Young got that unearned opportunity to be a GM of an NFL team, and, I dunno, Millen went to law school or spoke at the Utah Valley State College commencement or the 2000 Republican Natl Convention or served on the board of Foundry Networks, or whatever else Young did to keep himself busy in the aughts.

There's no way in the world Young would have been as catastrophic a failure at GM, as Millen was, is there?

I mean, it's easy to picture Young not having tremendous success. You need a certain specific knack, and it's a competitive sphere. Young would have been competing with Ozzie Newsome and Bill Polian and Ernie Accorsi and the Patriots machine and all the other good GMs in the league. So maybe Young would not have put together a champion. But there's no way in the world he would have been the gigantic pile of fail that Millen was.

Right?

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Minnesota rejoices!

It's about freakin' time. Brad Childress has been fired.

Minnesota has finally done what it should have done a couple years ago--released Brad Childress from the franchise.

I've never been a Chilly fan, mostly because of the self-centered way he's always dealt with other people around him. It became obvious years ago with the way he handled the release of Marcus Robinson, which caused the Vikings to put in place new policies to keep Chilly from going renegade again. Fittingly, it was this policy that ultimately caused the chaos during the Randy Moss termination debacle--Childress broke a policy that was enacted specifically because of his own actions.

Yes, the Vikings have improved during his tenure. They have also made significant personnel moves during this time that account for this improvement much more so than anything Chilly has done.

Leslie Frazier now gets his a chance to do his best Jason Garrett impersonation, by taking a team that completely underdelivered and finding a way to get them to show some professional pride even when the stakes are pretty much nonexistent. He's got 6 games to audition for the 2011 head coaching job--assuming there is a 2011 season at all, of course, thanks to the labor issues.

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Cowboys Second Guessing in T-minus ....

After how many wins does the national media break out this line?

"And now we're left to wonder what the fate of the Cowboys would have been had Jerry Jones fired Wade Phillips after the [insert chosen loss here]. Had he done so, it's certainly possible the Cowboys would in fact be able to host their new stadium's first Superbowl."

My over/under is after next week if they beat the Saints. My only real question is whether or not someone's already said it, and I just haven't seen it yet.

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Ed Reed and William Faulkner

The Baltimore Sun's Kevin Van Valkenburg explains how Ed Reed is like William Faulkner:
(scroll down to the last graph above point #5)

You can't take what you like about Reed, and not accept some of what also drives you nuts. If Reed were a famous writer, he'd be William Faulkner. Obviously brilliant, willing to take risks, a little bit mysterious, occasionally maddening and hard to understand, always interesting.

And you thought literature had nothing to tell us about football.

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Would you take Vick now, if you knew – ?

I was listening to SportsTalk 980 the other day, and they had listeners call in to answer the question, if you had it to do over again, knowing what you know now, would you have picked up Michael Vick this offseason?

Vick's only leading the league in passer rating, having thrown 11 TDs to 0 INTs, with a yards-per-attempt figure that's 3rd in the league (behind Troy Smith and Philip Rivers). He also has 4 rushing TDs, to go with 57 rushing yards per game (7.8 per attempt). He was the most electrifying player in the league 4 to 6 yrs ago; a rare, unbelievable talent. Now he is again. Oh, and the Pheagles are 4-1 when he plays the whole game (vs 2-2 otherwise).

On the call-in show, there were a predictable number of callers who said no way, they didn't want that killer on their team – at least one wished Vick actual harm, saying I hope he gets injured this week etc etc. Not cool. And on the other side there were a number of callers who knew Vick had this kind of performance in him, somebody just needed to give him a chance. One guy said that Washington would have been a great destination for Vick (980 is a DC-area station), because of the huge population of Virginia Tech grads, who would have been fans of Vick's since college.

(You can listen to the whole show here – go about 2/3's in to get to the part where they take callers.)

I think the question misses an important point. The Vick we are seeing now, of the 63% completion rate and the 8.8 yards per attempt, not to mention the infinite TD-to-INT ratio: this is a Vick that has never existed before. Vick was never much of a passer in the old days. He was an electrifying talent in Atlanta, sure, but he was not a good passer. He never had a completion pctg higher than 56 before, never had a yards-per-attempt much above 7, never had an INT pctg below 3.

Signing this Vick was not an option that was available to most teams. Most teams would have gotten old Michael Vick, completing about 55% of his passes for ~2400 yards, 6+ yards per attempt, maybe 17 TDs to 13 INTs (and then rushing for another 6 or 8 hundred yards). And it's reasonable for a team not to be super interested in that Michael Vick, particularly at age 29 or 30, with the questions that would come along.

The Eagles were able to get this Vick, because they took time and worked with him. The Eagles are one of the top 5 organizations in football. They have a tremendous coaching staff. Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg are masters – I'll make fun of Mornhinweg as a head coach as much as the next guy, but he's been an excellent offensive coordinator for a long time. The QB coach is James Urban, who I've never heard of. This is just his second year in the position; but remember that Kevin Kolb had that terrific start out of the gate last season.

I'm not going to say that the Eagles coaches "made" Michael Vick. He was a great player before he got to Philly; and a rare talent. But Vick has always needed some polish on his passing game, and now it looks like he's got it.

I give a lot of credit to Andy Reid, for seeing an opportunity that other teams didn't see. Last season was probably an unusual window, in the sense that Vick was probably more receptive to coaching than at any time in his career. (I've never heard Vick was "uncoachable", that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, Vick was probably more willing to do anything, including make changes to his game, than he'd ever been before. Desperate to get back into the league.) And last year was a great situation for Reid to be able to keep Vick off the field. He had McNabb! Vick was going to stay on the bench, and like it. There was also a quality #2 ahead of Vick. Just a great opportunity for him to keep his head down and work on his game.

I don't know how it's going to turn out. But Andy Reid and the Eagles staff deserve their share of credit for Vick's incredible performance. And Cap'n Andy deserves applause for spotting an opportunity and seizing the moment.

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Eagles Poised To Dominate

It is difficult to see a team with as bright a future as Philadelphia. I was as skeptical as anyone about Vick's early breakout. I figured the league would adjust and he would go back to being the Vick of old - except not as good.

Boy was I wrong

My prognosticator probably isn't any better now than it was 6 weeks ago, but I am completely sold. With Philadelphia's group of skill players, Vick has resources that he never had as a Falcon. Replace Alge Crumpler and Warrick Dunn with DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Brent Celek and LeSean McCoy and Vick has the type of arsenal that makes a player with his skillset extremely difficult to stop.

I understand that Vick's statistics are heavily skewed by Monday's whitewash of the Redskins, but nevertheless they are remarkable.

       Att   Comp  Yards   TD    INT   Rate    Rush    Yards    TD   Team Scoring
Vick    153     96  1350    11     0    115.1    44      341     4        165
Kolb    153     97  1035     6     4     85.3    11       56     0         92

While the statistics are a little deceiving, Vick has played a game more than Kolb, the difference in the Eagle offense is remarkable. They have scored 33 points/game with Vick, 23 with Kolb.

Anyhow, this is a long-winded introduction to the idea that the Eagles are particularly fearsome with Vick under center. I think they can get better though.

I am pretty certain that Philadelphia intends to go forward with Vick. The question then is whither Kolb? I'm sure there will be some temptation to keep him and continue to groom him. I think this would be a mistake.

If we look at the recent windfalls that teams have gotten for unproven quarterbacks like Matt Schaub and Charlie Whitehurst. If we look at what teams have gotten for proven busts like Brady Quinn, one trembles at what Kolb could bring.

Add another couple of young star players to a potent nucleus and it is easy to imagine this team contending for the next five years, and not just contending in the way that they have in the past. Philadelphia has the capacity to move into the rarified elite, from a 9-11 win team to a 12-14 win team. Without simply listing off names, it is hard to overestimate how effective Philadelphia has been year in and out at replenishing their talent. They have a mix of players, each in the top half at their spots in all position groups.

While this post wasn't supposed to be about Vick, it does start and end with him. Vick, the player he is now, will carry the team.

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TWO!!!

Thursday night football kicked off with a bang with two 6-2 teams facing off. The Ravens looked flat to start and it had the makings of a blow-out, but wound up being an exceptionally entertaining game. It also came with several story-lines at the end of it. Wow, Matt Ryan morphed into an elite QB before our eyes! Wow, the reffing in the game was questionable! Wow, Joe Flacco can't get off to a good start on the road! Wow, the Ravens defense is no longer one to be feared!

Lost in the shuffle of the hoop-la was a terrible decision by Mike Smith that almost wound up costing the Falcons the game. Early in the 4th quarter, Ryan dumped the ball off to Roddy White for a touchdown that seemed like it may have been the nail in the coffin for the Ravens. The score put the Falcons up 19-7 with 11:39 to play.

And Mike Smith sent in the kicking team to kick the extra point.

If you've been watching this season at all, you know the end of the story. Matt Ryan leads a terrific, final minute drive; capping it with a perfect down-field TD pass to White. But the decision to go for one instead of two in that spot should be under far more scrutiny than it seems to be.

11:39 is precisely the spot where a team should always go for two points when taking a 12 point lead...
- There isn't really enough time for a team to get a TD, xpt and two field goals.
- There is plenty of time for a team to get two TDs.
- The team losing will always need more than a TD and FG to tie or win the game.

And had the Falcons lost the game, the decision could easily have been argued to have been one of if not the most critical one that cost the Falcons the game. Go for two and make it, and you're at least going to force OT, rather than be required to drive the field or face a loss. It's one Smith should probably be taking more heat for than he seems to be.

It also seems to be a shining example of how results oriented the media is when it comes to sports.

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LA Times: How Complicit?

Canal Street Chronicles poster MtnExile with a post yesterday that is already gathering momentum around the internet (later).

It was in response to this snippet from Chris Dufresne of the LA Times.

If Reggie is such a "good dude," why is he not welcome on the USC campus?

Why did the school send his Heisman Trophy back?

Why is USC going to have to vacate its 2004 Bowl Championship Series title?

Why is USC going to lose 30 football scholarships, pending appeal, over the next three seasons?

Why can't USC go to a bowl game this year and next?

Bush was a fraud because he presented himself as something he was not — a good guy. He and his parents, according to the NCAA report, brazenly broke clear-cut rules and he didn't seem to care what impact this might have on his school or his teammates.

Everyone was on Reggie's bus until he threw everyone under it.

Okay, seems reasonable. However it fails to note that the Bush scandal was only the leading edge of the mountain of violations that Pete Carroll seems to have committed or allowed while head coach at USC, including this and this.

So naturally Saints fans are a little miffed that Bush is being blamed for the destruction of the USC football program, his powers so vast that he corrupted O.J. Mayo and the USC basketball program as well.

Anyhow, MtnExile with a decisive counterpunch to Dufresne's attack on Bush.

I'm not going to defend Reggie. Instead, I’m going to practice what we like to call "deflection." That is, I’m going to make this about you, Chris Dufresne. You and the LA Times.

I notice there’s another story currently on your site: More NCAA trouble for USC football? Seems Pete Carroll did something that violated NCAA rules. I’m shocked, shocked…along with, approximately, the other 300 million Americans who knew for years that Carroll was running a dirty program. They just weren’t in any position to dig for the truth.

But you were.

And yet, from the LA Times we heard…nothing. Not a peep, except how great Carroll and the Trojans were, until finally Yahoo broke the biggest sports story of the year in your own backyard. Now it turns out there is seemingly no end to the trouble that Carroll caused for USC. Now you report. Why didn’t you have the story then?

I can only think of two possibilities: either the sports staff at the LA Times was collectively so inept and clueless that they never noticed the stench of fraud seeping from campus…or you knew all about it, and chose to enable USC in their coverup, and now you’re only angry at Bush because he ruined your cozy relationship and, incidentally, embarrassed you in front of the whole country when you got scooped.

Which is it, Chris? How do explain Bill Plaschke stating that "Carroll has worked hard to build that rare dynasty that follows the rules"—after Yahoo had already broken the story? Are you guys evil, or just stupid?

Game, set ...

Indeed. How stupid does Dufresne and the Times think we are that we would accept some Cock and Bull that all of USC's issues distill to Reggie Bush and that Carroll, et al were oblivious to this. Are we really supposed to believe that not one coach or administrator involved with the USC athletic program noticed that Joe McKnight - whose family lost everything in Katrina - all of a sudden had enough money for a Land Rover?

Worse though, and more to MtnExile's point, where was the Times? How could you possibly not know? The press pays for access. We know this. The currency though is principle. You abandoned your journalistic integrity, you become an apologist and cheerleader for our program, you get more access. Don't look at the man behind the curtain Dufresne. Being Pete Carroll's mouthpiece is too doggone profitable.

and finally, as promised. At the time of this post, MtnExile's rant has been reposted 9 times around the internet in its first 13 hours.

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Why is NFL Network so bad?

Sitting here and watching the NFL Network's broadcast of the Ravens/Falcons game, and I'm struck by how awful the coverage is. One of the first plays from scrimage, they didn't catch the snap cause they were off somewhere else. They have Bob Papa who's mediocre at best as a play-by-play man. And their color guys are two of the worst in the league in Matt Millen and Joe Theismann. And those three are an upgrade from Bryant Gumbel.

And it strikes me, how is the NFL putting out such a poor product? Their sports-casting show is pretty solid, headlined by Rich Eisen who I think is terrific. They have the weight of the league behind them which is a 30 ton gorilla. And they can't find a way to put together a better production team than this?

Disappointing to say the least.

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Using Average Value To Evaluate Drafts

Pro Football Reference has a proprietary statistic called Approximate Value, developed as a method to evaluate players across eras.


Maybe not the most original idea, but I thought it would be interesting to look at Career AV as a tool to evaluate drafts. The nice thing about it is that while it is additive, it also has diminishing returns so it is possible to evaluate active players who have played more than about 7 years. Yeah, the 9 year guy will have a slight advantage over the 8 year guy but not so much that entire drafts would be skewed.

There are a lot of ways to look at this, but considering how little time I actually want to put into it, I'm going to just look at the top ten guys from drafts across 7 years, and maybe sum them up to calculate "star power" of each draft. I fully acknowledge that this is an entirely arbitrary system. I should also note that AV is calculated on a seasonal basis, so is only current to the end of 2009. I warn you in advance this is going to chart ugly, I have no patience for formatting right now.

Year        Player       Pick #        Career AV
1995    Derrick Brooks     28             138
      Warren Sapp        12             117
      Curtis Martin      74             101
      Steve McNair        3             100
      Kevin Carter        6              89
      Ty Law             23              85
      Kerry Collins       5              83
      Joey Galloway       8              78
      Terrell Davis     196              73
      Hugh Douglas       16              71
Tie     Ruben Brown        14              71        Top Ten Total:   935

1996    Ray Lewis          26             143
      Marvin Harrison    19             124
      Terrell Owens      89             116
      Zach Thomas       154             115
      Jonathon Ogden      4             101
      Brian Dawkins      61             100
      La'Roi Glover     161              91
      Willie Anderson    10              89
      Simeon Rice         3              88
      Muhsin Muhammed    43              82        Top Ten Total:  1049

1997    Jason Taylor       73             115
      Ronde Barber       66             110
      Tony Gonzalez      13             102
      Orlando Pace        1             101
      Tiki Barber        36             100
      Walter Jones        6              96
      Warrick Dunn       12              95
      Sam Madison        44              87
      James Farrior       8              86
      Derrick Mason      98              82        Top Ten Total:   974

1998    Peyton Manning      1             153
      Randy Moss         21             120
      Alan Faneca        26              90
      Fred Taylor         9              87
      Charles Woodson     4              86
      Hines Ward         92              83
      Ahman Green        76              80
      Jeremiah Trotter   72              74
      Matt Hasselbeck   187              73
      Flozell Adams      38              73        Top Ten Total:   919

1999    Edgerrin James      4             114
      Donovan McNabb      2             102
      Champ Bailey        7             101
      Torry Holt          6             100
      Daunte Culpepper   11              86
      Joey Porter        73              84
      Chris McAlister    10              73
      Jevon Kearse       16              70
      Ricky Williams      5              70
      Donald Driver     213              69        Top Ten Total:   869

2000    Tom Brady         199             104
      Brian Urlacher      9              97
      Jamal Lewis         5              69
      Keith Bullock      30              68
      Shaun Alexander    19              68
      John Abraham       13              68
      Laveranues Coles   78              67
      Plaxico Burress     8              66
      Adalius Thomas    186              64
      Julian Peterson    16              64        Top Ten Total:   735

Okay, so what do we learn? Well, one thing is that I grossly underestimated the value of a couple of extra years to Career AV. But even with those years it looks like Tom Brady aside, the 2000 draft was awful for star power. That total won't get pushed up much. Half of those guys are retired and only Brady is still contributing at a particularly high level. There really aren't too many guys who are still active who will push their way up the list.

And golly! What a powerful draft in 1996, and three of those guys still active. Lawyer Milloy may also push his way into that top ten before he is done. He is sitting at 78 Career AV and having a pretty good year in Seattle.

I like the process. I think the next step is to work backward to 1990. Well, gotta include Barry Sanders, so 1989. Get a look at what these top tens look like when the players really are completely retired and try to get an idea of how much that total grows on an annual basis. Right now I really don't know how 735 in 2000 compares to 869 in 1999 to 919 in 1998, except to see that the slope is non-linear (not shocking).

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Jim McMahon: My Memory's Gone

Jim McMahon at the 25th reunion of the 1985 Bear team;


 

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Cowboys next coach

Not too soon, is it?

The Balimore Sun's Mike Preston proposes an interesting choice:

Cowboys should hire Brian Billick

Preston makes a good case.

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Cowboys In Training Camp Mode

So Wade Phillips is putting the Cowboys back into training camp mode. What exactly does this mean?

Are they going to run out and sign 30 undrafted free agents? Are they going to hold two-a-days in the middle of November? How about a Friday night exhibition with Stephen F. Austin.

I can hardly wait for this.

[/popcorn]

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To My Friends In Dallas

I thought you guys could use a little help.

The mind is a strange thing, men.

We must begin by asking it...

..."What is losing?"

Losing is a disease...

...as contagious as polio.

Losing is a disease...

...as contagious as syphilis.

Losing is a disease...

...as contagious as bubonic plague...

... attacking one...

... but infecting all.

But curable.

Now, I want you to imagine...

...you are on a ship at sea...

...on a vast...

...gently rocking.

Gently rocking.

Gently rocking.

Gently rocking.

Hope that helps!

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Monday Tidbits - Week 8

Changing the format of this thing a bit cause this week just played out the strangeness of the NFL. Here are some random thoughts on the parity, and the craziness, we're seeing.

- The Oakland Raiders, a combined 31-87 their past 118 prior games, have just won two games in a row on the road by a combined score of 92-17. I don't particularly care if those two games were against the two worst teams in the NFL (and the Seahawks, while not great, are certainly not in that category). If you're beating two teams on the road 92-17, you're not a bad football team.

- The Miami Dolphins are 4-0 on the road and 0-3 at home.

- The 0-7 Bills have gone on the road and taken two 2-loss teams to overtime in consecutive weeks.

- The Bucs and Seahawks are a combined 9-5, but have been outscored by their opponents by a combined 44 points.

- The Lions and Chargers are a combined 5-10, but have outscored their opponents by a combined 54 points.

- Three teams that had draft picks in the top six in April are leading or tied for the lead in their divisions.

- Five division winners from last year are currently third or fourth in their divisions right now.

- Two days ago the consensus "best teams in the NFL" (according to most pundits) just lost yesterday by a combined 29-10.

- There is only a single team with less than two losses and only three teams with less than two wins.

Strap in folks, it's gonna be a wild ride in the second half of the season!

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