Ok, so I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting my detailed explanation as to why the Saints, the Colts, Vikings and Jets won. Well I’m going to tell you why, but more on the Jet game in a later post.
Cards vs Saints- As I wrote in the previous prediction column I mistakenly ignored all the good karma that the city of New Orleans had going for it and the good karma that they added on by bringing back fan favorite Deuce McCalister on a one day contract, simply so he could lead them out of the tunnel. Peter King said it best, they had 52 healthy players and needed a player to fill in number 53 and that more than anything speaks volumes to who Sean Payton is as a coach and as a person. He gets it. He understood how important and how well it would be recieved by both his players and this city that has had nothing but hills to climb since Katrina. Something is going right for this city and its this time and no one symbolizes that climb more than Deuce.
But more so, I took into account the layoff between the last good game the Saints played and equated that to being rusty. While that’s good sensible logic (really i’m grasping at straws here to defend such a, now looking back, atrocious pick), I also failed to take into account the Super Dome. This weekend, the dome teams went out and dominated. Flat out. Nothing more to say than that. The Super Dome is one of the loudest stadiums. Ever. I mean, who can forget that first home game following Katrina? I bet the Falcons walked into that stadium and from the word go probably realized they had a negative chance at winning that game, that stadium was rocking that hard that night and similarly so too was the stadium last Saturday. It was a party from the very first Saint touchdown to the very final bell.
In between the Saints discovered a few things that I hope the Vikings were paying attention to. Their secondary got much healthier than they had been all season. Jabari Greer, Tracy Porter and Randall Gay were all 100% and raring to go for the first time in a long time and perhaps in the everlasting debate over rest or ride for meaningless games, rest may have been the formula here. Their secondary gave Kurt Warner nothing but little dink and dunk passes. I expected both teams to limit big play opportunities but little did I know that the Cardinals would not play any defense at all. Poor tackling, missed assignments and awful secondary play (albeit after Rodgers-Cromartie went down), contributed to the lack of defensive intensity but another huge factor missing in all this was: holy crap, that was Reggie Bush that everyone thought he would be.
Was it me or did he look huge, like cartoonish huge. I’m not trying to say he’s on something but you’d be hard pressed to find a more physical player than Reggie Bush on saturday. He was running over people like he was Brandon Jacobs. He invited contact instead of trying to make the “And-One” play all the time and making people miss. I love Reggie when he tries to but in the NFL, players are just as fast as him and bigger. I think Reggie finally embraced his natural ability and became who he was meant to be. North to south, east to west, ability to break things open and ability to run between tackles. Another wrinkle that came out of this is the fact that Reggie Bush is owed a sizable roster bonus during March. This was pretty much a resume he handed into Saints management who will have to consider him at the very least now. Michael Lombardi said it best when he commented “he was once an accessory to this offense, and on Saturday he looked like a legitimate part of it.”
Biggest turning point of the game had to be the Kurt Warner injury. If that weren’t sign enough that it was time to leave, i’m sure when he came to his senses, his mind was made up. Even his suddenly much younger looking and much hotter wife, had a look of resignation as Warner was attended to as they had discussed this possibly being his last season as an NFL player. Warner leaving will be a huge blow to the Cardinals because, i don’t know if anyone else saw what I saw from Matt Leinart but his shoes will be hard to fill by anyone they have currently on their roster.
COLTS vs. Ravens- Let’s be clear here, Peyton Manning’s brilliance is once in a life time and his knowledge of the game is unparalleled. I used that disclaimer before I tell you that the mistakes the Ravens made in this game cost them the game more than Peyton Manning playing his usual killer self at the QB position. Go ahead, look at the stats. Most of the stats are pretty similiar. Even the turnover game: technically the Ravens picked off Peyton twice but the stat sheet will only show one. Why? Because one of them was nullified thanks to a penalty. The other was returned only to have Ed Reed (the interceptor on both of those plays, back to back in fact) get the ball knocked out of his hand and the Colts recover. Two opportunities, and both missed thanks to bad play by the Ravens. We haven’t even talked about how many huge drops there were, and the interception that Joe Flacco threw to close the game and the other one that was tipped off the hands of Ray Rice and right to the Colts. All rally killers and all mistakes that cost the Ravens.
We know to give credit where credit is due, but let’s go ahead and remember what was truly at work here. The Colts defense was fast and opportunistic, while the Ravens offense was giving and slow. One 11 of their 13 first down opportunities they ran. Yes, they are a power running game, but their passing offense wasn’t too bad. Looking at the stat sheet of the game, of their 12 first downs 10 were gained by passing now that means that they were left in mostly 3rd and more than 5 or 6 which meant that the Indy defense knew they were going to pass which plays into Indy’s strength. If they had reversed the trend and ran after passing on first down, it would’ve greatly affected 3rd down on many of those occasions. Baltimore kept making mistakes which allowed the Colts better field position and just better overall manageable situations. That penalty on Ray Lewis was a bit of a touchy call but still, the rule is very clear: anytime the defender leads in with his helmet and hits another helmet, it is a penalty and that should NOT be something to quibble over especially if you’ve been reading the New York Times very expertly written research into the link between brain damage and football players.
VIKINGS vs. COWBOYS- A lot of people, including me, bought into the hot Cowboys. They were America’s team and they were putting each demon behind them as the season wore on and after decisively beating the Eagles two weeks in a row, many considered the Cowboys the second best if not best team heading into the playoffs. Only, once again, I refused to consider how dominantly the Viking front four would play and answer the call. I only spoke of the fearsome pass rush that DeMarcus Ware and Co. were putting together and yet glossed over the fact that the Viking front four could be equally as destructive. In fact, I spoke so highly of the Cowboy offense that I misremembered how good the Viking offense was. Actually, no I didn’t, I in my continued hatred for how poorly the Giants played those last few weeks, saw that last game as a mirage. A byproduct of playing a team that no longer cared. But in fact, the Vikings came out and executed excellently. They never had to depend on Adrian Peterson who played yet another subpar game. 20 carries for 63 yards is a rather meager output but when you consider that his presence alone made the Cowboys come up on the line, and gave the receivers one on one on the outside. It seems as if Brett Favre and Sidney Rice are really catching on. Sidney is tall and athletic enough to make some catches that normally aren’t good throws but you can’t get a better thrown pass than the one Brett threw him for the first touchdown. It was literally there on his hands and it was such a good job of Rice to act as if he wasn’t the intended target that the safety never turned around or ever put his hands up either. It fell right in his lap and he took it the rest of the way for the touchdown.
The chop block for the second TD was a bit sketchy but stood simply because it was a heads up play to never give up. Favre really had no other options and found Rice open in the middle of the field. The third one was a perfect throw again which really the Cowboys couldn’t have defended any better.
The game was lost because of the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys. You can make a case that Romo lost the game but that again is the simple answer. Romo never had any time to step into a throw and was constantly pressured to the point that he was constantly running around like a headless chicken. What’s more is that the Vikings did it with a conventional 4 man rush which goes to show you how much depth they have on the front line. Ray Edwards, up until his knee injury, was a beast and the Cowboys never had a shot at defending him.
A major question to come out of this is will Wade Phillips be fired. According to Ed Werder he will NOT be fired and will be back next season. Here’s the thing, working in an environment where you are evaluated year after year is something we all have to go through but Wade knows that he won’t be anyone’s head coach next season and Dallas is the only place that will put him at head coach. Also, Jerry Jones knows the players love playing for Wade and not just that, he’s a guy who he can manipulate and control and won’t fight back. Jerry has always loved those guys and stick by them. As long as Wade isn’t impeding on Jerry’s team, he’s not going to make a move although many Cowboy fans will be upset by this, its the truth. Forget the fact that Wade is in my top five of dumb head coaches. Forget that Wade will never get further than where he is right now. Forget that the Cowboys have built up enough bad karma over the last twenty years that Wade’s dumb ass can’t undo. Forget that Romo always has that deer in head lights look when his team gets down. Forget that Flozell Adams is the dirtiest player in the game. Ok, so he had nothing to do with my point, but i just wanted to hate on him a little bit. Forget all that and remember this: like the Chargers and Cowboys, during the regular season, both teams have shown that they CAN beat the top tier teams in the league, yet fail to do so when it comes to the post season. Why? Because their coaches have reached the limit of where they can guide those teams. They need someone else to come in and get them over the hump. Dan Reeves proved it during his career that no team that he coached could win with him despite having one of the greatest QB’s of all time John Elway. It took Mike Shanahan to come in and win for Elway to finally win. Some coaches are in front of the door unable to find the right key to get them in, and other coaches are ones that answer the door and Wade Phillips, Norv Turner, those guys will always be great assistants but will never lead their team to the promised land. Sorry Dallas, and sorry San Diego, no matter what you will say in the coming weeks, nothing will make me think otherwise that your coaches will ever get further than they got their teams thus far.
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