The age of the BCS lottery machine is upon us. The difference between winning and losing has a lot more to do with money than it does with the score. It’s hard to know what drives a good team anymore; the money or the winning.
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Peyton Manning is a pocket passer. Peyton Manning is purely a pocket passer. He cannot beat a defense with anything except his arm. So, why do defenses hardly ever blitz him?
Last night, I watched another game where a NFL defensive coordinator chose to sit back in zone defense and attempt to fool Peyton Manning with a variety of coverage schemes. It didn’t work. Peyton Manning was allowed to pick a defensive secondary apart, while the defensive line rushed only 3 or 4 linemen. His statistics were 15/25 for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns.
What has happened to common sense in the NFL? Why let an immobile quarterback sit comfortably in the pocket all game and pick you apart? Immobile, dropback, pocket passers are vulnerable to the pass rush. They always have been and always will be. Johnny Unitas, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Troy Aikman, Drew Bledsoe, and, yes, Peyton Manning were, or, are, least effective when forced out of the comfort zone of the passing pocket. Good pocket passers have to be pressured for a defense to be successful because they are too knowledgeable and too accurate for a defense to solely try coverage trickery.
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NIT for the ‘Cuse in 2006
It wasn’t too long ago the Syracuse Orange (formally known as the Orangemen) were Champions of College Basketball. Led by a squad that included stars such as Carmelo Anthony (now of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets), fan-favorite Gerry McNamara, Craig Forth, and the flashy dunks of Hakim Warrick, the Orange always seemed to be in the middle of the National Championship mix. Since then, players such as Anthony have gone pro and others have graduated, leaving only a few players left from that 2003 National Championship team. Although some highly recruited freshmen have been brought in the past few years by head coach Jim Boeheim (currently enduring his 30th season as head coach) these young “stars” have yet to step up as did ‘Melo and G-Mac in their respective freshman years. The team as a whole has suffered thus far.
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Rebuilding mode
The Lions started their rebuilding process by firing head coach Steve Mariucci and naming Dick Jauron their interim head coach.
For those of you who remember, Jauron was the head coach of the Chicago Bears before Lovie Smith took over at the beginning of the 2004 season.
A look at what the Lions must do in order to become a winning franchise again:
Not much change in the Top 10 as teams ranked higher last week came out with victories. How can we drop Pittsburgh much for losing to the best team in the league? Furthermore, while Dallas and NY Giants should have won their games, the point is that they didn’t. Meanwhile, San Diego managed to pull their game out and move up in the standings. It’s unbelievable that a team this good might miss the playoffs. Those of you who enjoy painful football can check out the bottom of the rankings for your fix. Without further ado, here are your week 12 Power Rankings.
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Down- but not out
By Billy Fellin
I feel sorry for my family. I really do. They have to put up with not one, but two screaming Giants fans every week. Part of that is because the Giants have had heart wrenching games the past few weeks, either going into overtime, or a late game drive by Eli. However, this game against the Seahawks was crucial, and even though we lost, don’t count this team out just yet.
Wait a minute! There’s a Pac-10 Championship game?? No, not really, but USC play UCLA in one of the biggest games of the year, which effectively decides the Pac-10. Oh, and the other game’s a small southern rivalry pitting Georgia against LSU in the Dome in Atlanta. Should be quite a weekend, shouldn’t it?
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Back in Blackshire
“You can tell everybody that Prairie View football is back.”
In those words, the most remarkable rebuilding process ever to go undocumented was kept silent from the world. There was no mention on ESPN; there was no article on cbssportsline.com; there was no acknowledgement anywhere in mainstream sports society. But in the graceless ignorance given to Division 1-AA football, Prairie View A&M, the worst football program of the 1990s, has returned.
Shhhh…Don’t tell anyone, but if you’re looking for a bandwagon to jump on, the Charlotte Bobcats may be for you. Coach and general manager Bernie Bickerstaff is setting the example of how to start a franchise from scratch.
Ahh….it’s Championship game week. Some teams love it, some teams hate it, and for some teams, winning this one is the “big one” compared to winning a bowl game (no, I’m serious).
Here are my predictions for the Big XII and ACC Championship games, with the SEC and `Pac-10 Championship game’ between USC and UCLA coming later in the week.