December
14, 2004: NFL Week 14 Commentary and Analysis
By Ahchie
The Best of the Best
While providing analysis for the Oakland – Atlanta game, Randy Cross
said that there is no better prepared, better coached team in America than
the New England Patriots. He did not, however, offer which team he thought
was the best prepared and best coached team in the world. If he was only talking
football, then it stands to reason that the best prepared and best coached
team in America would also qualify as the best in the world. If other sports
were included, then perhaps he isolated the Patriots to America to leave room
for either the women’s beach volleyball
team from Brazil or the men’s basketball team from Italy. Both teams
were given most impressive medal honors by the BMTG for their efforts in the
2004 Summer Olympics.
Oakland at Atlanta
Randy
Cross began his analysis of Oakland by saying that with the Raiders getting
the ball first, they needed to take advantage and strike early because fans
were still arriving and the Georgia Dome was quiet. Oakland then proceeded
to fumble the ball away on their second play of the game, and the Raiders
continue to be the only team in the NFL this season to have not scored a touchdown
in the first quarter. You know you are in trouble if your best strategy is
to try and score before the stadium fills up. It could be that a stadium with
lots of empty seats feels more like home and therefore gives them a twisted
comfort level. Despite the Falcons 35 points, the game was a disappointing
one for fantasy owners (see Fantasy Notes).
San Francisco at Arizona
The
game ended up going to overtime, but the few people that actually sat through
most of the first three quarters and saw the 49ers leading 28 to 3 had probably
turned it off by then. Even though it was the only game offered at one o’clock
in Northern California, chances are very high that there weren’t too
many viewers at all, as this game was the perfect opportunity to get something
useful done in lieu of watching a battle of two bad franchises. This one shaped
up to be just as bad as the “thrilling” match-up San Francisco
had against Miami two weeks ago, yet the players seemed to think it actually
mattered, as evidenced by the following quotes:
After the game, Arizona quarterback Josh McCown said, “It hurts. We needed this game.”
And San Francisco quarterback Ken Dorsey said, “We needed this one.”
Philadelphia at Washington
Another
disappointment for fantasy owners, the game itself was a good one. This was
a game in which both teams made it clear that they were trying to hit each
other as hard as possible, only to get very emotional when someone was finally
knocked out. Throughout the game players on both teams were strutting around
like they were out to kill and went about administering wicked hits. Injuries
to the Eagles defenders included Jason Short (broken leg), Hollis Thomas (dislocated
left elbow), Corey Simon (back spasms), and Jevon Kearse (neck and ankle,
but continued playing). The beatings continued until the fourth quarter when
Shawn Springs was knocked unconscious by Eagles fullback Josh Perry on a vicious,
but clean, block. All of a sudden the players on both sides were visibly shaken
and concerned for the fallen player, as if they were surprised that it could
happen, even though one player already had a broken leg. It was like watching
kids who are playing rough ignore warnings that someone will get hurt until
someone really does get hurt.
Athletes Are Like Criminals
The
comparison stands not because some of them are rapists. Not because some of
them use illegal substances. Not because they make obscene amounts of money.
Athletes are like criminals because only one percent of them are ever guilty.
Ask 100 inmates at any prison (Riker’s Island, Shawshank, Folsom) if
they are guilty of their crime and 99 will say either the system or their
lawyer screwed them. Ask 100 athletes in any sport where penalties and fouls
are called (especially football and basketball) if they are guilty of the
penalty or foul that was called on them and 99 will say the officials screwed
them. Need more convincing? Ask an inmate why they failed and he will tell
you it is because he is a victim of any number of things (poor, abused, born
black, etc.) Whenever an athlete fails on the field or the court, the first
thing he does is play the victim card, looking to see whom he can blame and
pointing to the nearest opponent as the guilty one.
Week 14 Eli Manning Hangs His Head Photo:
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Oh
wait, you can’t because you were the scapegoat that was fired. Dave
Wannstedt’s new job is not going to pan out either, based on his performance
Sunday. Hired by Fox Sports to be the color man for the San Francisco –
Arizona game, Wannstedt’s analysis on a first half coach's challenge
gives some insight as to why Miami may have fired him. Arizona challenged
San Francisco’s second touchdown in the first half to see if the receiver
had both feet in bounds. Wannstedt said it was a great challenge because it
is a close call near the end zone and you hope something crazy may happen.
The replay, however, was clear that the touchdown call was correct. Whoever
advises the coach on which plays to challenge would have had an easy time
determining that Dennis Green should not waste his second and final challenge
this early in the game on a call that was so obvious that it would never be
overturned. While reviewing the play, Wannstedt acknowledged that the replay
was clear that the touchdown should stand, yet he insisted on repeating that
he thought it was a good challenge. How can it be a good challenge when it
has no chance of succeeding and it means you will have no more challenges
for the entire second half? Challenging something just because you hope something
crazy may happen reeks of desperation. This reasoning is what may have cost
Wannstedt his head coaching job. That, and the little fact that the Dolphins
have very few good players and the Dolphins needed to show that they are trying
to turn things around and the easiest move to make is to fire the coach.
O.K., I Won’t
The Ford Motor Company was kind enough to include a warning not to try at
home a daring stunt in one of their commercials Sunday. The stunt was to attach
a steel cable to the rear of a Ford truck and then hoist the truck vertically,
showing how strong something or another was. Thankfully they included the
warning so that during halftime we would not go out and hoist our own vehicles
vertically to see how they compare to Ford.
Questions for Mike Martz
Mike Martz is becoming legendary for his tendency to make horrible calls.
Each week we will pose a new question to Martz. At the end of the season we
will compile his errors into an open letter.
This week's question:
Chris Chandler, starting for the injured Scarecrow, did a fantastic job of taking attention away from Mike Martz by throwing six interceptions. Therefore, there is no question for Martz this week.
Fantasy Notes
BMTG
#2, controlled by The Diesel this week, had two players qualify as this season’s
top two performers not on the roster – Billy Volek (686 smallworld points)
and Drew Bennett (670 points). The trade to switch from Bennett to Mushin
Muhammad was almost the worst trade of the season, costing BMTG #2 402 points.
(Best and worst trades are based solely on the two players’ performances
the first week following the trade.) Drew Bennett’s 670 points also
created the second largest point difference between a player not on the roster
and the actual player on the roster at 560 points (Bennett 670, Derrick Mason
110).
Buffalo scored 37 points and their total yardage was 321. Cleveland scored 7 points and their total yardage was 17. Cleveland averaged 13.3 inches per play for the entire game. Even though Luke McCown threw for 62 yards, Cleveland’s total passing yardage was negative 12 because of 8 sacks for a loss of 79 yards. And yet in the fantasy world, Cleveland receiver Antonio Bryant and Buffalo receiver Eric Moulds both managed a matching 82 smallworld point total.
The
complete team that spreads the ball around to many players, like New England,
is often one of the most successful teams in the league. But they make for
frustrating fantasy teams. Pittsburgh divides running duties between Duce
Staley and Jerome Bettis, lowering the value of each player. Teams with fullbacks
who run only in short yardage and goal line plays can be especially frustrating,
as seen in the Atlanta, Philadelphia, and New England victories this week.
Atlanta scored 35 points against Oakland. Michael Vick and Alge Crumpler,
Atlanta’s two best players, combined for zero touchdowns, while T.J.
Duckett, sharing the backfield with Warrick Dunn, but mostly running in short
yardage situations, ended up with four touchdowns. In the Philadelphia game,
the Eagles started a drive on their own 32 yard line. They marched down the
field and faced first and goal at the one. Dorsey Levens, used much like Duckett
in Atlanta, ran the final yard for the touchdown. It was his only carry on
the drive and his longest run of the night. For the game, Levens rushed three
times for a total of zero yards and one touchdown. In New England, Kevin Faulk
ran the ball once all game, which resulted in a four-yard touchdown run.
There were a total of 11 trades made this week for a total gain of 717 points, meaning that each trade made yielded an average gain of 65.2 points. Now consider that 550 of that gain came on one trade, bringing the remaining 10 trades down to a gain of 167, for an average gain of 16.7 points per trade. Now take out the second best trade that yielded 314 points and the remaining 9 trades result in a total loss of 147 points, for an average loss of 16.3 points per trade. The three best trades amounted to a gain of 1,075 points (358.3 point average). The three worst trades amounted to a loss of 548 points (182.7 point average). The middle five trades amounted to a gain of 190 points (38 point average). By comparison, there were 15 trades made in week 13 that amounted to a total gain of 2,366 points and an average gain of 157.7 points per trade.