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The good, the bad and Grossman
QB woes, unproven 3-0 teams, 'Boys land right coach
Posted: Tuesday September 25, 2007 1:03PM; Updated: Tuesday September 25, 2007 1:26PM
It's three weeks into the regular season, and already we hold these truths to be self-evident:
• The end of the Rex Grossman era in Chicago draws near, and at this point it's just a matter of how the details work themselves out. Last Friday, I wrote that the Bears' game against visiting Dallas could be Grossman's Waterloo, and it was. He might get one last-chance start this week at Detroit, he might not. But either way, Lovie Smith and the Bears will finally put Grossman out of his misery soon, and end a story that went on too long to begin with. Grossman's next contract will be with another organization, and it'll be for backup money.
• Jerry Jones knew what he was doing when he hired Wade Phillips to replace Bill Parcells. The move was derided by many, but Phillips has quickly proven to be an inspired choice. He has just the right temperament and laid-back approach to life to follow the gruff, tough-guy act that a Parcells-coached team always tires of in about four or five years.
The Cowboys had the talent. Now they've got the mojo too. Their decisive win at Chicago on Sunday night announced their presence as the NFC's team to beat this season. Phillips is no Jones-maneuvered hand puppet. He's the right guy at the right time in Dallas.
• Reggie Bush needs room. If the Saints keep trying to run their second-year running back between the tackles, he's going to keep that 2.8-yard rushing average (80 yards on 29 carries) frozen in place. Bush's value is playing in space, where he can accelerate and best use the elusiveness and change of direction skills that set him apart. Thinking of him as the Saints lead running back is a classic case of miscasting, and New Orleans must devise a plan that gets him the ball once he's already on the run.
• As a team, New Orleans has lost its identity. The Saints are doing nothing well so far, and they look like they weren't mature enough to handle the Super Bowl expectations that their Cinderella 2006 season inspired. Heading into a bye week that will feel like anything but a reward, New Orleans is the clear front-runner for disappointment of the year in the NFL.
• Vince Young just knows how to win. The second-year Titan may never be a great quarterback by standard statistical analysis, but that doesn't mean he won't find a way to beat you using the game he does have. Tennessee offensive coordinator Norm Chow is really starting to figure out how to best use Young and his unique package of skills. With Young, the Titans are rarely going to be out of a game, and the difficulty that teams have defensing his blend of passing and running threat makes Tennessee's mediocre receiving corps more effective than it has a right to be.
Young and the Titans are not going away. We can now see that Tennessee's six-game winning streak late last season was no fluke.
• Not all 3-0s are created equal. The resurgent Steelers might wind up being one of the success stories of the year in the NFL, but through no fault of their own, we really don't know enough about Mike Tomlin's guys to christen them an elite team. Pittsburgh has won convincingly three weeks in a row, but those victories came against the Charlie Frye-led Browns, the injury-decimated Bills and the offensively-challenged 49ers.
In Weeks 7-8-9, the Steelers will show us what they've got, when they draw at Denver, at Cincinnati and home against Baltimore. Our hunch is the Steelers are for real. But you can't put them in the same class as the Patriots or Colts based on three wins against teams that had losing records last season.
• For all their emphasis on building a potent offense, the 49ers simply don't scare anyone on that side of the ball. Third-year quarterback Alex Smith hasn't progressed. He has just one touchdown pass, a 51.8 completion percentage, with nine sacks and a ho-hum 67.4 passer rating. Running back Frank Gore is rushing for 58.3 yards per game, tight end Vernon Davis (8 catches for 83 yards) still hasn't lived up to his monstrous workout at the 2006 NFL Combine, and new receiver Darrell Jackson hasn't sniffed the end zone yet, despite his 11 receptions for 166 yards.
San Francisco (2-1) has scored just five touchdowns in three games, and it ranks 31st in the league in both total offense (223.0 yards per game) and passing (132.3). It's hard to imagine those levels being enough to keep the 49ers winning two out of every three games they play.
• Jevon Kearse looks done. The Eagles' injury-prone left defensive end is 31 and in his ninth NFL season, and it's hard to remember the last time we saw his dominating game. Philadelphia had nine sacks Sunday against Detroit -- tying for the second-most in franchise history -- and Kearse still didn't even make the defensive stat sheet. For the season, all he has to show for his three starts is one tackle (one!), a half-sack, and a fumble recovery. The Eagles other defensive end, Trent Cole, has five sacks, 15 tackles and two forced fumbles.
• Those who scoffed at New England's offseason moves and were quick to remind everyone that championships aren't won on paper apparently weren't reading the right paper. The Patriots aren't just better, they're demonstrably better for all their personnel acquisitions. If they were a hurricane, the Pats would be a Category 5, with sustained winds of 38 points per game.
Randy Moss has scored five touchdowns and posted three consecutive 100-yard receiving games. Wes Welker has scored. Adalius Thomas has scored. The Patriots are No. 1 on offense (441.0 yards per game), No. 1 on defense (207.0), and second in points per game (38). If anything, New England is actually better than the hype. The Patriots' only weakness appears to be in their video department's decision-making.
• No team anywhere has had a crueler fate delivered than the Bills. Losing Kevin Everett to a life-threatening spine injury on opening day set the tone for a season that could be avert-your-eyes ugly. Already this year, Dick Jauron's club has seen injuries rob playing time from defensive starters Paul Posluszny, Keith Ellison, Ko Simpson and Jason Webster, with backups Coy Wire and Ryan Denney also hurt. Anthony Hargrove is still serving a four-game suspension, and now the Bills must make due on offense with rookie quarterback Trent Edwards until J.P. Losman heals up a knee sprain.
• Hands down, Chris Hanson has the best job in the NFL this year. Hanson is the Patriots punter. He punted a season-high twice in New England's 38-7 rout of Buffalo on Sunday, and has been used just four times for a 36.5-yard average in the Patriots' first three games. He's on a pace to punt just 21 times in 2007, which is good work if you can get it.
• Rookie head coach Lane Kiffin has brought instant respectability back to Oakland's offense. The Raiders in 2006 scored a league-low 12 offensive touchdowns, and averaged just 10.5 points per game. Oakland this season is averaging more than twice that (22.3, 13th in the league), and the Raiders have scored six offensive touchdowns in just three games, a pace that would see them finish with 32. Kiffin's work is far from done, but the Raiders offense is no longer a league-wide punch line.
• The Packers may well be this year's Cinderella story, and their NFL-best seven-game winning streak dating to last season is a testament to how quickly coach Mike McCarthy has turned Green Bay's program around. But let's not coronate the 3-0 Packers just yet. The Eagles would have beaten Green Bay in the opener at Lambeau if they could have fielded a punt. The Packers' second-half in the Meadowlands was impressive, but the Giants defense isn't the ultimate test.
You had to respect Green Bay's tenacity against San Diego, but the Chargers did lead with a little over two minutes remaining, and then suffered a defensive breakdown when Packers receiver Greg Jennings took a short slant pass 57 yards for the winning score. Great things appear to be happening in Green Bay, and Brett Favre is, as usual, in the middle of it. But let's see a little bit more before we declare the Pack all the way back.
• The Michael Vick-less Falcons won't be making it four consecutive years leading the NFL in rushing. Through three games of the Bobby Petrino era, the Falcons are rushing for just 89.7 yards per game, which ranks 24th in the league. Atlanta last year posted almost 100 more yards rushing per game, at 183.7. That was 22.6 more yards per game than the No. 2 rushing team, San Diego. Atlanta last season had three rushers with more than 600 yards: Warrick Dunn, Vick and Jerious Norwood. This year, their leading rusher, Dunn, is on pace for an 853-yard rushing season.
LINK
QB woes, unproven 3-0 teams, 'Boys land right coach
Posted: Tuesday September 25, 2007 1:03PM; Updated: Tuesday September 25, 2007 1:26PM
It's three weeks into the regular season, and already we hold these truths to be self-evident:
• The end of the Rex Grossman era in Chicago draws near, and at this point it's just a matter of how the details work themselves out. Last Friday, I wrote that the Bears' game against visiting Dallas could be Grossman's Waterloo, and it was. He might get one last-chance start this week at Detroit, he might not. But either way, Lovie Smith and the Bears will finally put Grossman out of his misery soon, and end a story that went on too long to begin with. Grossman's next contract will be with another organization, and it'll be for backup money.
• Jerry Jones knew what he was doing when he hired Wade Phillips to replace Bill Parcells. The move was derided by many, but Phillips has quickly proven to be an inspired choice. He has just the right temperament and laid-back approach to life to follow the gruff, tough-guy act that a Parcells-coached team always tires of in about four or five years.
The Cowboys had the talent. Now they've got the mojo too. Their decisive win at Chicago on Sunday night announced their presence as the NFC's team to beat this season. Phillips is no Jones-maneuvered hand puppet. He's the right guy at the right time in Dallas.
• Reggie Bush needs room. If the Saints keep trying to run their second-year running back between the tackles, he's going to keep that 2.8-yard rushing average (80 yards on 29 carries) frozen in place. Bush's value is playing in space, where he can accelerate and best use the elusiveness and change of direction skills that set him apart. Thinking of him as the Saints lead running back is a classic case of miscasting, and New Orleans must devise a plan that gets him the ball once he's already on the run.
• As a team, New Orleans has lost its identity. The Saints are doing nothing well so far, and they look like they weren't mature enough to handle the Super Bowl expectations that their Cinderella 2006 season inspired. Heading into a bye week that will feel like anything but a reward, New Orleans is the clear front-runner for disappointment of the year in the NFL.
• Vince Young just knows how to win. The second-year Titan may never be a great quarterback by standard statistical analysis, but that doesn't mean he won't find a way to beat you using the game he does have. Tennessee offensive coordinator Norm Chow is really starting to figure out how to best use Young and his unique package of skills. With Young, the Titans are rarely going to be out of a game, and the difficulty that teams have defensing his blend of passing and running threat makes Tennessee's mediocre receiving corps more effective than it has a right to be.
Young and the Titans are not going away. We can now see that Tennessee's six-game winning streak late last season was no fluke.
• Not all 3-0s are created equal. The resurgent Steelers might wind up being one of the success stories of the year in the NFL, but through no fault of their own, we really don't know enough about Mike Tomlin's guys to christen them an elite team. Pittsburgh has won convincingly three weeks in a row, but those victories came against the Charlie Frye-led Browns, the injury-decimated Bills and the offensively-challenged 49ers.
In Weeks 7-8-9, the Steelers will show us what they've got, when they draw at Denver, at Cincinnati and home against Baltimore. Our hunch is the Steelers are for real. But you can't put them in the same class as the Patriots or Colts based on three wins against teams that had losing records last season.
• For all their emphasis on building a potent offense, the 49ers simply don't scare anyone on that side of the ball. Third-year quarterback Alex Smith hasn't progressed. He has just one touchdown pass, a 51.8 completion percentage, with nine sacks and a ho-hum 67.4 passer rating. Running back Frank Gore is rushing for 58.3 yards per game, tight end Vernon Davis (8 catches for 83 yards) still hasn't lived up to his monstrous workout at the 2006 NFL Combine, and new receiver Darrell Jackson hasn't sniffed the end zone yet, despite his 11 receptions for 166 yards.
San Francisco (2-1) has scored just five touchdowns in three games, and it ranks 31st in the league in both total offense (223.0 yards per game) and passing (132.3). It's hard to imagine those levels being enough to keep the 49ers winning two out of every three games they play.
• Jevon Kearse looks done. The Eagles' injury-prone left defensive end is 31 and in his ninth NFL season, and it's hard to remember the last time we saw his dominating game. Philadelphia had nine sacks Sunday against Detroit -- tying for the second-most in franchise history -- and Kearse still didn't even make the defensive stat sheet. For the season, all he has to show for his three starts is one tackle (one!), a half-sack, and a fumble recovery. The Eagles other defensive end, Trent Cole, has five sacks, 15 tackles and two forced fumbles.
• Those who scoffed at New England's offseason moves and were quick to remind everyone that championships aren't won on paper apparently weren't reading the right paper. The Patriots aren't just better, they're demonstrably better for all their personnel acquisitions. If they were a hurricane, the Pats would be a Category 5, with sustained winds of 38 points per game.
Randy Moss has scored five touchdowns and posted three consecutive 100-yard receiving games. Wes Welker has scored. Adalius Thomas has scored. The Patriots are No. 1 on offense (441.0 yards per game), No. 1 on defense (207.0), and second in points per game (38). If anything, New England is actually better than the hype. The Patriots' only weakness appears to be in their video department's decision-making.
• No team anywhere has had a crueler fate delivered than the Bills. Losing Kevin Everett to a life-threatening spine injury on opening day set the tone for a season that could be avert-your-eyes ugly. Already this year, Dick Jauron's club has seen injuries rob playing time from defensive starters Paul Posluszny, Keith Ellison, Ko Simpson and Jason Webster, with backups Coy Wire and Ryan Denney also hurt. Anthony Hargrove is still serving a four-game suspension, and now the Bills must make due on offense with rookie quarterback Trent Edwards until J.P. Losman heals up a knee sprain.
• Hands down, Chris Hanson has the best job in the NFL this year. Hanson is the Patriots punter. He punted a season-high twice in New England's 38-7 rout of Buffalo on Sunday, and has been used just four times for a 36.5-yard average in the Patriots' first three games. He's on a pace to punt just 21 times in 2007, which is good work if you can get it.
• Rookie head coach Lane Kiffin has brought instant respectability back to Oakland's offense. The Raiders in 2006 scored a league-low 12 offensive touchdowns, and averaged just 10.5 points per game. Oakland this season is averaging more than twice that (22.3, 13th in the league), and the Raiders have scored six offensive touchdowns in just three games, a pace that would see them finish with 32. Kiffin's work is far from done, but the Raiders offense is no longer a league-wide punch line.
• The Packers may well be this year's Cinderella story, and their NFL-best seven-game winning streak dating to last season is a testament to how quickly coach Mike McCarthy has turned Green Bay's program around. But let's not coronate the 3-0 Packers just yet. The Eagles would have beaten Green Bay in the opener at Lambeau if they could have fielded a punt. The Packers' second-half in the Meadowlands was impressive, but the Giants defense isn't the ultimate test.
You had to respect Green Bay's tenacity against San Diego, but the Chargers did lead with a little over two minutes remaining, and then suffered a defensive breakdown when Packers receiver Greg Jennings took a short slant pass 57 yards for the winning score. Great things appear to be happening in Green Bay, and Brett Favre is, as usual, in the middle of it. But let's see a little bit more before we declare the Pack all the way back.
• The Michael Vick-less Falcons won't be making it four consecutive years leading the NFL in rushing. Through three games of the Bobby Petrino era, the Falcons are rushing for just 89.7 yards per game, which ranks 24th in the league. Atlanta last year posted almost 100 more yards rushing per game, at 183.7. That was 22.6 more yards per game than the No. 2 rushing team, San Diego. Atlanta last season had three rushers with more than 600 yards: Warrick Dunn, Vick and Jerious Norwood. This year, their leading rusher, Dunn, is on pace for an 853-yard rushing season.
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