Joe's Opening Drive: Week 17 posted by Joe Anello

Happy New Year everyone! The NFC is all about seeding this Sunday, with all of the players at the table. In the AFC, the two wildcard spots will be hotly contested with the Ravens and Jets owning the inside track. Let's not waste time, here's the Opening Drive of week 17 in the NFL! *sniffle* It goes by so fast!

(8-7) Pittsburgh Steelers at (7-8) Miami Dolphins

Well they need help, but the Steelers aren't eliminated from post-season play yet. However, every scenario that finds the Steelers defending their title requires at least two teams in front of them to fall plus an obvious Pittsburgh win. After a late rally against the Texans last week, the Dolphins will be focused on getting to 8-8 but will need Chad Henne to play near-perfect along with a large dose of Ricky Williams (who may not play). Even on the road without Troy Polamalu, I like Pittsburgh to win. Though any Steeler (lookin' at you LaMarr Woodley) or Steeler fan who thinks the Colts or Patriots are resting players because they don't want to see the Steelers in the playoffs is delirious. Maybe you shouldn't have lost five straight?

(10-5) New England Patriots at (8-7) Houston Texans

If the Texans are going to make their first ever playoffs, they need losses from two of the following three teams: the Jets, Ravens, or Broncos. Matt Schaub has taken great strides to become a top signal-caller this season and he'll be staring at a weak New England secondary today.  The real question is how long the Patriots will feel like playing. Tom Brady says he expects to play the entire game, but I'm not convinced. Perhaps a half, but anything beyond that would be foolish. Bill Belichick's Pats aren't playing for anything other than the 3 or 4 seed, so unless they prefer to play San Diego I don't envision more than a half for Brady, Welker and Moss. Houston should get the win unless Belichick has a second coach-fart this season. 

Cowboys Receiver Miles Austin and Daddy Warbucks posted by Colin Linneweber

Wide receiver Miles Austin helped lead the Dallas Cowboys to a 37-21 victory over the Atlanta Falcons Sunday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Austin, 25, an undrafted free-agent from Monmouth University in New Jersey, had eight receptions for 171 yards and two touchdowns as the Cowboys improved their record to 4-2.

The previous week, Miles established the Cowboys franchise record for receiving yards in game with 250 in a 26-20 overtime win versus the Chiefs in Kansas City and he now has caught 21 passes for 502 yards and five touchdowns to date in this 2009 season.

Austin was a standout athlete at Garfield High School in the "Garden State" where he lettered in football, basketball and track and field.

Despite being honored as a high school senior on the gridiron with All-Bergen County and All-State honors, Austin did not garner much interest from major college football programs.

So, Austin decided to stay close to his hometown and play for the Hawks in nearby West Long Branch.

Monmouth University is a relatively small school that has impressively sent four squads to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament since 1996.

Beyond their prowess on the hardwood, Monmouth is also known because an academic building located in the center of their pristine campus, Woodrow Wilson Hall, was utilized as "Daddy Warbucks'" mansion in the famed film Annie.

Austin and Miami Dolphins tight end John Nalbone are the only two players who attended Monmouth and eventually ascended to the NFL.

The Washington Redskins - a perfect blue chip stock posted by Pablo Rotondaro

BAILOUT the Redskins! Such is the state of things in Washington DC. Like most of the stocks traded on Wall Street, there are many assets that have no real value but continue to produce millions for its shareholders and owners. The Redskins are just like the stock market, look great on paper and generate millions to the owner but filled with high price, former blue chip stocks that have no real value when put to the test. This team is worse than bad, they are horrible and with no young, up-and-coming players to pin our hopes on, no star QB in the making, no player ready to bust out, if there was ever a time to blow the whole thing up it is definitely now!

Fans of the Washington Redskins have grown accustomed in the past decade or so to expect that their team with have a fighting chance to squeak into the playoffs and then, as the cheesy and cliché statement says, anything can happen. This is the hope that fans of this once-proud franchise held, probably fooling themselves into believing that this system, one where the owner is GM and often plays with the team the way that some us enjoy our fantasy football leagues, could ever and will ever work. More and more people are coming to the realization that this is nothing more than a pipe dream and that this system in place will never and has never worked. 

Unlike some of the horrible teams in the NFL, like the Lions or Chiefs, the Redskins are not in rebuilding mode, they do not have a rookie quarterback with a lot of promise (Stafford, Detroit Lions) or a team filled with young defensive players that get better week by week (Chiefs). The Redskins are a team full of over-the-hill, over-paid players with no fight and little talent. The performance that Jason Campbell put up in one half yesterday was one of the most pitiful performances by a starting QB in the NFL this year, he looked like the twin of JaMarcus Russell (Raiders). He couldn't hit a single open receiver, even though he was constantly under pressure thanks to the porous offensive line, he couldn't even hit the receivers when he had the time.The best decision of the day was to bench him to at least give the offense a quarterback that can make the reads and pick a receiver, though the results were not much better, at least he looked like a real quarterback.

Joe's Opening Drive: Week 6 posted by Joe Anello

With a busier schedule than normal, the Opening Drive was relegated to Sunday morning! Here’s my quick takes on some of the weekend’s NFL match-ups. 

(3-2) Baltimore Ravens at (5-0) Minnesota Vikings In one of the better match-ups of the weekend, Brett Favre and the undefeated Vikes get their toughest challenge to date when the surely fuming Ravens come to town. I don’t know if I can imagine that team after losing three straight. I’d be scared. Still, Minnesota has a stout defense of its own. Favre and Joe Flacco need to protect the ball because each offense excels at cashing in on turnovers. Man I hope the Ravens win. 

(5-0) New York Giants at (4-0) New Orleans Saints 

Total lossless action Batman! Eli and the G-Men head to Louisiana to face a fresh Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. Both of these defenses aren’t getting enough love because their quarterbacks are hogging all the attention with outstanding play. Manning has shined in spite of his young receivers and Flacco might have the best long ball in the league. 

(1-4) Cleveland Browns at (3-2) Pittsburgh Steelers 

Is Brady Quinn being traded? Is that why his house is up for sale? Who cares? The Browns suck and will continue to be awful as long as Eric Mangini keeps trading away their best players. “I want to run a ball control offense, so I’ll have Derek Anderson as my starter! Going 2 for 17 is efficient enough for me!” He needs to stop, just like Cleveland’s winning streak will on Sunday. Pittsburgh should lay the wood to these streaking Browns.  

250 Miles between Austin & Kansas City posted by Amari Harris

Any Cowboys fan who watched Sunday’s game had to be ready to throw themselves out of a 3rd story window when they saw that the Cowboys were getting beaten by the Chiefs nearly the entire game.  I, myself, wasn’t able to watch the game but I constantly monitored the score which may be even more maddening.  

Fast forward to the 4th quarter and the Cowboys were deadlocked with the Chiefs at 13-13.  After coming up with a pivotal stop, the Cowboys had an opportunity to finally put away a team they should’ve beaten in the 1st quarter.  At this juncture, Miles Austin made the first big play in what would be the making of the legend of Miles Austin.  He caught the ball on a slant route, broke a couple of tackles and scampered 59 yards for what looked to be the game winning touchdown with about 2:15 left in the 4th quarter.

Against any other team, that would seem like way too much time to leave an offense on the field, but the Chiefs longest scoring drive for the whole game was 36 yards.  Barring some sort of monumental collapse, the Cowboys were going to shut the Chiefs down like they had the whole game and run the clock out for a hard fought 20-13 victory.  

Fast forward 1:54  and 74 yards, and Matt Cassel had just thrown a 16 yard touchdown to Dwayne Bowe .  Fantasy points for me, but potential doom for the Cowboys! At this point I was actually watching the game because the lowly Redskins had just lost to another winless team in the Carolina Panthers and this was “Bonus Coverage” from FOX.  I had just missed the Miles Austin touchdown, but I got to watch every second of the Chief’s scoring drive(

History Repeating: The Lost Inches posted by Amari Harris

After the last few years I’m beginning to wonder how many times I’ve thought to myself, “The Cowboys should have won that game.”  So many big games come to mind:

In 2007 the Cowboys were 13-3 and hosting the New York Giants in a divisional playoff game.  Although the Cowboys had already beaten the Giants twice in the regular season, everyone knew this would be a tough game (except for maybe the Cowboys).  On the first drive of the game, not only did Demarcus Ware get called for a bogus offsides penalty to give the Giants a first down, but Amani Toomer (who was way past his prime) managed to shake several Cowboys’ defenders on the next play for a 52 yard touchdown.  The rest was history as the Cowboys would lose to the eventual Super Bowl Champions 21-17.

Last year the Cowboys were in prime position to beat the eventual champions again as they played the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road.  They had outplayed and more importantly “out-hit” the rough and tumble Steelers in their own house.  That was until Tony Romo threw a disastrous interception for a touchdown with just minutes remaining in the 4th quarter.  Romo was unable to conjure up any 4th quarter magic and the Cowboys would fall to 8-5 and allow the rival Giants to clinch the NFC East.

After beating the hated Giants the week before, the only thing that stood between the Cowboys and a guaranteed playoff spot was a tough Baltimore Ravens team.  Once again, the Cowboys played good football and gave the Ravens all they could handle. They fought their way back into the game and into the lead in the 4th quarter.  This time

Welcome to Fantasy Land! posted by Amari Harris

Good morning fantasy friends!

Today is Saturday September 26, 2009 so you have a little more than 24 hours to get your fantasy act together or you may end up with that crucial week 3 L.  

It has been a very interesting week in fantasy land for me.  Lots of wheeling and dealing, some unfortunate attempts at cheating and a hazy injury to Marion the Barbarian.  Let’s begin with this “cheating” situation:

So, I am in a random NFL.com fantasy football league. We’ll call it the “Bush League” which is a very appropriate title for so many reasons.  One great fantasy insight that I’ve picked up this year is setting up my fantasy alerts.  (In most leagues you can set up regular e-mail alerts that notify you of a player’s status, league transactions, starting line-ups, trades, etc).  These alerts are very useful because it allows me to check on important league activity without having to log into the site every five minutes.  My fantasy alerts proved to be very useful this week. 

You can imagine my surprise when I received notification of a pending trade involving “Bush team 1” and “Bush team 2”.  (Although I have aliased the names of these two teams for confidentiality and competitive purposes everyone should know that the real names of these two teams were very similar which raised a red flag in my head from the beginning, but I digress.)  My notification revealed to me that there was a pending trade that would send Chris Johnson and Andre Johnson from Bush team 1 to Bush team 2 for Joseph Addai and Michael Jenkins.  Now to the average person this is no big deal because the players play the same position and 2 equals 2.  But to “fantasy landers” this is sheer blasphemy.  Consider the fact that Chris Johnson scored 3 touchdowns last week of 50 yards or more and amassed

The Toughest Season posted by Amari Harris

Pre-season predictions are probably one of my favorite things about the NFL off-season.  I love this time so much because it absolutely validates my opinions of specific football analyst as well as football analysis as a whole.  I mean seriously, has anyone listened to Mark Schlereth talk football.  I’ll credit him on being a handsome and well spoken former football player, but he is no analyst.  Same goes for “Dat Dude” Marcellus Wiley.  I know he went to an Ivy League school, but I’m starting to seriously question this guy’s football intelligence.  But I am digressing.  Pre-season predictions are great because nearly everyone is wrong at the end of the season (not just Mark and Marc…that would be a great show huh?).  There might be one or two people that actually predict the outcome of the Super Bowl, but to try and anticipate what will happen at the top end of the National Football League is nearly impossible.  Notice I say “top end” because there are some teams that are guaranteed to be at the bottom of the food chain: Lions, Raiders, Rams, Bills, Chiefs, Broncos, Buccaneers, etc.  But, predicting who will make the playoffs and who will ultimately win the Super Bowl is about as close to a crapshoot as you can get in professional sports.  This is why I like that the Dallas Cowboys are ranked no higher than 15th on any major power rankings. 

The Cowboys are virtually the same team they were last year when everyone was putting them in the Super Bowl despite the fact that it was July.  Of course they lost some veteran talent: T.O., Greg Ellis, Anthony Henry, Roy Williams, and Chris Canty.  But they have reloaded and brought in viable replacements for all of those people.  The only spot that you might question is wide-receiver but T.O. is definitely on his way down and Roy Williams will have equitable statistics if not better numbers than #81.  The Cowboys’ main issue at this point is their schedule.  They play in the NFC Beast and it’s always going to be tough to make it out of the division alive.  But I love what Eagles’ President Joe Banner had to say in regards to the best division in football:

Foreigners in NFL History posted by Chris Johnson

We know that football, or should I say American football, has been growing for years. It's just that the mainstream media does not cover American style football as much as, say, the NCAA or NFL.
And since Americans don't really realize the game is being played in other countries, my thoughts revolved around one question: "What foreigners have played American football professionally?"

Denmark
Morten Andersen (born in Copenhagen, Denmark) is the all-time leading scorer in the NFL with two different teams (New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons). In college, Anderson played for the Michigan State Spartans. He set several kicking records, including a Big 10 Conference record: a 63-yard field goal against Ohio State. In 1981, Anderson was named an All-American.

Italy
Lino Dante "Alan" Ameche (born in Italy), nicknamed "The Horse," played for the Baltimore Colts after winning the Heisman Trophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1954, and was named an All-American. In 1955, Ameche was awarded Rookie of the Year. Ameche gained fame for scoring the winning touchdown in the 1958 NFL Championship Game against the New York Giants, labeled "The Greatest Game Ever Played." Ameche emigrated to the US with his family in the 1930s.

Leo Joseph Nomellini (born in Lucca, Italy) was a two-time All-American at the University of Minnesota. Nomellini was the San Francisco 49ers first-ever NFL draft selection in 1950. In the offseason, he was a professional wrestler called Leo “The Lion” Nomellini.

A Burgess Believer posted by Randolph Charlotin

OK, now I’m sold.

Since the end of the regular season I’ve been waiting for the Patriots to get a rush linebacker I could believe in. Whether it was a rookie day one draft pick, a free agent, or by trade, I wanted someone that could get to the quarterback better than Mike Vrabel did in 2008. His trade to Kansas City made the need urgent.

I had been hoping, praying, begging, pleading, making blood sacrifices, and negotiating with the Devil (my soul for eternity was asking too much) that sometime, somehow, a DE/OLB would join the Patriots and bring teeth to a pass rush that had just 31 sacks last season.

By finally completing a trade they’ve discussed with Oakland since the NFL Draft for DE Derrick Burgess, I finally believe the Patriots are a Super Bowl-caliber team.

This was supposed to be about my night at the training camp practice inside Gillette Stadium. A synopsis: players ran, caught, blocked, and did other football things, the end.

The Burgess trade made a pony show training camp practice practically insignificant.

A quick look at Burgess and his career might not generate much of a reaction. In six seasons (one season lasted on game, so I’m not counting it against him) Derrick had two double-digit sack seasons, both with the Raiders (16 in 2005 and 11 in 2006). The other four years combined he averaged just five sacks.

Overall, in 84 games, the soon to be 31-year-old Burgess has 47 sacks, a little better than one every two games. Stretch that average through 16 games, and that’s just about nine sacks.

Bucs QB Freeman fractures tip of thumb (AP)

Josh Freeman's preseason is over, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers can only hope his injured thumb doesn't lead to another slow start when the real games begin. The second-year quarterback fractured the tip of the thumb on his throwing hand during the opening quarter of Saturday night's 20-15 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. [read full article]

From Yahoo! Sports

Buccaneers QB Freeman injures thumb

Tampa Bay quarterback Josh Freeman hurt the thumb on histhrowing hand during the first quarter of Saturday night'spreseason game against the Kansas City Chiefs. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for NFL