Who is the best team in the NFC?
I know, stupid question. That's like wondering, "Who was a better interim coach, Michael Cooper or Mike Evans?" Or asking a real Colorado sports fan, "Who do you hate less, Al Davis or Bradlee van Pelt?"
Nonetheless, the question remains. No matter how good you think the Colts, Broncos, Bengals or double-defending champion Patriots are, at least three of those teams will be watching from home Super Bowl Sunday as an inferior squad competes for the NFL championship.
Right now five teams in the NFC have at least 10 wins, and it seems obvious to me that one of them will take the conference crown. (And I do mean one specific team, but we're getting there.) Those teams are: New York, Chicago, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Seattle.
I was going to say "Those teams are from," but let's face it, if Jersey's Giants are from New York, so am I. Anyway, let's start with the Giants:
The positives: Eli Manning, the No. 1 pick just last year, leads an offense that places sixth in the league. Tiki Barber has played some of the best badminton-wait, make that some of the best football of his career, piling up 1,657 yards, including two games of 200+.
The negatives: Believe it or not, I don't believe in a Manning. Elisha's piled up a ton of yards and thrown a ton of passes, but he's completed just 52.9%. Oh, and the defense ranks 25th in the league.
The outlook: Not a team built for the playoffs. But the rest of the NFC's not a lot better.
Chicago: The positives: The league's best defense in scoring and yardage. Thomas Jones. (Who thought I'd be saying that?)
The negatives: What, you don't know? This team's offense is so bad, they consider Rex Grossman an upgrade at quarterback.
The outlook: Do you remember when the 2001 Bears put together a 13-3 regular season with the same kind of team, then got bounced from the playoffs with a quickness? You know what the difference between these two teams is? Led by Jim Miller, the '01 team had a way better passing attack.
Tampa Bay, the plusses: Give up just 1.7 yards per game more than the Bears, though they allow significantly more points. One of the league's best coaches. Rookie sensation Cadillac Williams, who has been spectacularly good...and bad.
The minuses: My land, is every team in the NFC this one-dimensional? 23rd rated offense, thanks mostly to a quarterbacking corps starring children of privilege Brian Griese and Chris Simms. What, Cooper Manning's not available?
The outlook: Good but not great. Postseason experience (last team outside of New England to win it all) could be an edge for coaching staff and some key players.
Carolina, +: Steve Smith, whose teammates must be grateful he's beating up entire defenses instead of them. Great defense (4th in the league behind the last two teams and the Steelers). I like John Fox a lot. (As a coach! We're not in elementary school.)
-: Not-so-hot offense, outside of Delhomme-to-Smith. Can you believe a team with Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster has gotten neither over the 1,000-yard mark?
Outlook: Somewhat intriguing, though the unusually-bad running game will probably prevent a deep playoff run.
Seattle: and how: Top record in the NFC at 13-2. On an eleven-game winning streak-last loss was Oct. 2. First in the league in scoring offense and offensive yardage. A consistently spectacular year out of offensive stars Matt Hasselbeck (only one game with more picks than TDs).
Let's not forget the heartwarming story of Shaun Alexander, who has bounced back from an incident late last season in which coach Mike Holmgren plunged a knife deep into his back. While some feared Alexander would never walk again thanks to the blade's proximity to the spinal column, he has bounced back for a league-leading 1807 yards, including eleven 100-yard efforts. In a happy coincidence, he's about to be a free agent.
Less than stellar: Just a little better than middle of the pack defensively, but teams with eleven consecutive victories don't show a lot of weaknesses.
Here's my question: are the Seahawks this good, or is the rest of the conference this bad? They don't seem, on the surface, much different than in years past...and they've been running away with the conference.
Outlook: Heavy favorites as NFC champions. The Seahawks have flown mostly under-the-radar this year-can you imagine the kind of coast-to-coast hype a team like, say, the Colts would get if they won 11 games in a row? Yes, I think you can!
The Seahawks face an easier road to the title game than any AFC entrant could-will that help them come Super Bowl time? Maybe, but then that sounds a lot like the argument people were making for the still-ringless Jason Kidd a few years ago. But there are some AFC teams-namely the Colts and Bengals-that I think the Seahawks match up pretty well with. I'm still going with the AFC for now, but I think Seattle has a real shot.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
New coach for the Heat
Stan Van Gundy, coach of the Miami Heat, resigned today, citing the time his job kept him from his family.
The start of the aforelinked article says he "resigned Monday citing family reasons". That's code for: embarrassment over the job his brother is doing in Houston.
In all seriousness, I always have mixed feelings over this kind of thing. If Stan Van Gundy is really leaving so he can spend time with his family, that's great. I mean, I'm sure he can afford to take some time off and that's a positive way to spend it. Family's important to me, too.
At the same time, I'm not a big fan of a coach quitting in the middle of a contract, much less the middle of a season. Any player who tried this would be blasted for the rest of his career. Is being a coach a lot more time-consuming than it was last year? I doubt it. Van Gundy knew what he was getting into.
Besides, shouldn't a coach be held to a higher standard than the athletes because of his position of authority?
But on the other hand, you don't want to keep a coach around if he doesn't want to coach any longer. That's not good for the team, either.
What would be good for the team-and the league-is the return of Pat Riley to the sidelines. Everyone acknowledges the unbelieveable career Phil Jackson has had, but Riley was nothing short of legendary in his own time. He's had the kind of success that immediately demands respect.
Sure, like Jackson, Riley always had great players-but with Dwyane Wade and Shaq, he's covered in that department.
Of course, some of you might be thinking to yourselves, "Hmmm, fantastic coach of the 80s and early 90s...why should this end any better than the return of Joe Gibbs?" Good point, class, but why are the Redskins awful? Two words: Dan Snyder.
Personally, I'm excited to see what the Heat can do if Pat Riley returns as head coach.
The start of the aforelinked article says he "resigned Monday citing family reasons". That's code for: embarrassment over the job his brother is doing in Houston.
In all seriousness, I always have mixed feelings over this kind of thing. If Stan Van Gundy is really leaving so he can spend time with his family, that's great. I mean, I'm sure he can afford to take some time off and that's a positive way to spend it. Family's important to me, too.
At the same time, I'm not a big fan of a coach quitting in the middle of a contract, much less the middle of a season. Any player who tried this would be blasted for the rest of his career. Is being a coach a lot more time-consuming than it was last year? I doubt it. Van Gundy knew what he was getting into.
Besides, shouldn't a coach be held to a higher standard than the athletes because of his position of authority?
But on the other hand, you don't want to keep a coach around if he doesn't want to coach any longer. That's not good for the team, either.
What would be good for the team-and the league-is the return of Pat Riley to the sidelines. Everyone acknowledges the unbelieveable career Phil Jackson has had, but Riley was nothing short of legendary in his own time. He's had the kind of success that immediately demands respect.
Sure, like Jackson, Riley always had great players-but with Dwyane Wade and Shaq, he's covered in that department.
Of course, some of you might be thinking to yourselves, "Hmmm, fantastic coach of the 80s and early 90s...why should this end any better than the return of Joe Gibbs?" Good point, class, but why are the Redskins awful? Two words: Dan Snyder.
Personally, I'm excited to see what the Heat can do if Pat Riley returns as head coach.
See You
Everyone's asked me lately what I think of the Gary Barnett firing, and I have to say: it feels pretty good.
It doesn't feel good because he was a bad coach-the program is in eons better shape than it was under Rick Neuheisel. It doesn't feel good that we got rid of this scumbag-because he's not one. Step aside, Winston Churchill: Gary Barnett is a great man.
I'm not even happy because, after the Terrell Owens situation proved me remarkably pro-labor, Barnett is pocketing $3 million.
No, I'm happy because as a University of Colorado employee, this firing proves that I have basically unlimited job security.
Let's face it, what hasn't Barnett done in the last few years to try to get canned? Claimed blissful unawareness of scandalous recruiting practices? Check. Insult an alleged rape victim? Check. Lose a big game 70-3? Checkmate.
But hey, at least the players are starting to recognize they represent the university and are doing so with class. Um, wait, maybe not.
Observers have been left scratching their heads and asking themselves, "What's it going to take for Gary Barnett to get fired?"
Now they have their answer, though it surely wasn't a rash decision. No one in their right mind thought we had much of a chance against Texas. If Barnett lost his job based primarily on recent on-field results, gruesome as they were, then the athletic director's a total idiot.
I think it's clear the university was waiting to fire him for financial reasons. I'm sure the higher-ups weren't big fans and haven't been for a while.
Barnett is a fine football coach. Though his teams were run-oriented and generally conservative, no one faked punts from anywhere on the field the way we did. And he won a conference championship, which is more than we could say for Mack Brown up to a few weeks ago. Barnett led the Buffs to a BCS bowl and had a decent argument for the national title game after the 2001 season. (That fell apart pretty quickly during the actual Fiesta Bowl, but I swear, Joey Harrington was good back then.) Considering how the program is regarded nationally, I'm not sure we could have expected much or anything more from the team during his time here.
I'm not going to go through the rumored candidates, mostly because I don't know enough about all of them, but I doubt we'll be better off without him on the field.
Off the field, we're definitely due for improvement. After the Katie Hnida remarks, Barnett was a deservedly easy target for those looking to criticize the university. The school is trying to clean up its image both in the athletic department and the university at large-though it's not doing a particularly good job yet.
Yet now that CU has dumped Barnett, the university has silenced half of its critics. That leaves the other half to wonder: "What's it gonna take for Ward Churchill to get fired?"
It doesn't feel good because he was a bad coach-the program is in eons better shape than it was under Rick Neuheisel. It doesn't feel good that we got rid of this scumbag-because he's not one. Step aside, Winston Churchill: Gary Barnett is a great man.
I'm not even happy because, after the Terrell Owens situation proved me remarkably pro-labor, Barnett is pocketing $3 million.
No, I'm happy because as a University of Colorado employee, this firing proves that I have basically unlimited job security.
Let's face it, what hasn't Barnett done in the last few years to try to get canned? Claimed blissful unawareness of scandalous recruiting practices? Check. Insult an alleged rape victim? Check. Lose a big game 70-3? Checkmate.
But hey, at least the players are starting to recognize they represent the university and are doing so with class. Um, wait, maybe not.
Observers have been left scratching their heads and asking themselves, "What's it going to take for Gary Barnett to get fired?"
Now they have their answer, though it surely wasn't a rash decision. No one in their right mind thought we had much of a chance against Texas. If Barnett lost his job based primarily on recent on-field results, gruesome as they were, then the athletic director's a total idiot.
I think it's clear the university was waiting to fire him for financial reasons. I'm sure the higher-ups weren't big fans and haven't been for a while.
Barnett is a fine football coach. Though his teams were run-oriented and generally conservative, no one faked punts from anywhere on the field the way we did. And he won a conference championship, which is more than we could say for Mack Brown up to a few weeks ago. Barnett led the Buffs to a BCS bowl and had a decent argument for the national title game after the 2001 season. (That fell apart pretty quickly during the actual Fiesta Bowl, but I swear, Joey Harrington was good back then.) Considering how the program is regarded nationally, I'm not sure we could have expected much or anything more from the team during his time here.
I'm not going to go through the rumored candidates, mostly because I don't know enough about all of them, but I doubt we'll be better off without him on the field.
Off the field, we're definitely due for improvement. After the Katie Hnida remarks, Barnett was a deservedly easy target for those looking to criticize the university. The school is trying to clean up its image both in the athletic department and the university at large-though it's not doing a particularly good job yet.
Yet now that CU has dumped Barnett, the university has silenced half of its critics. That leaves the other half to wonder: "What's it gonna take for Ward Churchill to get fired?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)