Every week the Browns’ story just keeps getting crazier and crazier. This is better than fiction. Two more twists in this twisted tale. First, linebacker D’Qwell Jackson has been placed on the IR. He’s one of the few highlights on this team defensively. He leads the team in tacklesths year, and topped the whole league in that category last year. The Browns’ defense was already nothing to write home about, and this certainly won’t help. The other news is that Cleveland has been overrun with a flu bug, and it has affected six starters so far, including nose tackle Shaun Rogers, one of the other few defensive highlights. The players – 12 in total – missed practice on Wednesday, and could miss more – especially if it turns out to be H1N1. This puts a serious kink in the team’s preparations for Sunday’s game against the Giants. Given that they were already in deep in that game this is bad news for them – and entertaining for us.
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Month: October 2009
1. Norv Turner should be fired now. With cause – willful and incomprehensible waste of talent.
2. The first thing the new coach should do is work on covering kick returns. It’s not even like Eddie Royal was an elite kick returner before today.
I talked about Joe Torre’s roster moves on Thursday, and by Sunday they had already come back to haunt him. As you may recall, Torre deactivated Jeff Weaver and Jon Garland, and activated Hiroki Kuroda in their place. Kuroda had been out for the first round with a back injury. I said then that it seemed like a very odd decision – surely a healthy Garland or Weaver was better than a rusty and likely sore Kuroda. It turns out, for once, that I was right. Kuroda was terrible last night – allowing six runs while recording just four outs – and is the main reason why the Phillies are holding a 2-1 lead. Far be it from me to second guess Torre, but I really don’t get it.
I’m going to do a much more comprehensive review of what we learned from the NFL today when I have more time tomorrow. For now, though, I just want to touch on five different stats. Each of them is almost impossible to believe, but they all happened. Not surprisingly, three of them came from the same game:
As always, there are all sorts of great storylines in today’s college football action. Here are my favorites:
Oklahoma (-3) vs. Texas – Both teams desperately need this win, but for very different reasons. Texas dropped out of the second spot in the polls last week, and their play hasn’t been particularly impressive. They need an impressive win over a good team in order to prove that they are a good team and that they belong in the BCS Championship game. Oklahoma has had a very rough year – two losses, the injury to Sam Bradford, and so on. This team is better than a 3-3 team, or at least they should be. They won’t be if they don’t win here, though. There is real desperation on both sides, and that leads to good drama. It also doesn’t hurt that these teams don’t exactly like each other.
Iowa (+2.5) at Wisconsin – Iowa is still undefeated and poised to keep climbing up the charts. They face a tough rival here, though, and they aren’t exactly coming off a tour de force performance in their narrow win over Michigan last week. They need to win, and win big, here to continue to gain respect and climb the polls since they are burdened by playing in a pretty underwhelming conference this year.
USC (-10) at Notre Dame – This is being painted as the game of the week. Like so many games of the week featuring USC, I expect this one to be a bust. Notre Dame has a largely one-dimensional offense, and they haven’t run up against a defense as good as USC has. Notre Dame has played very close games against teams that it should be totally outclassing. For all their faults this year, the Trojans are significantly better than any team they have faced. I don’t see how the Irish can measure up. This could be the end of yet another Heisman campaign – Jimmy Clausen’s.
I’m very intrigued by tonight’s Big East showdown. Cincinnati has a pretty clear road to the BCS if they beat South Florida, and the Bulls have the same if they win. For South Florida that’s especially surprising because stud QB Matt Grothe is on the sideline for the year. There is all sorts of intrigue in this one – is Cincinnati for real? How about South Florida’s surprisingly stout defense? Can Cincy QB Tony Pike put himself into the heart of the Heisman race with a big performance here? How about Cincy receiver Mardy Gilyard? Do the Bearcats deserve national championship consideration? How much of a joke is the Big East? This is probably the highest profile Thursday night game we have seen yet this year. Last week we saw Nebraska, and Ndamukong Suh made a big leap into the Heisman race thanks to that game, so anything can happen here. I really respect Cincy coach Brian Kelly and tend to think that he has things going in the right direction with this program, so I am hoping for them. It’s a tough team in tough location, though, so it certainly won’t be easy.
Continue reading “Thursday Night = Good Football + Baseball”
It hasn’t been easy to watch the Steelers this year – they are just a shadow of their former selves this year, and are going to have to work hard to make the playoffs, never mind to defend their Super Bowl title. Things certainly didn’t get any better on that front today – the team has had to put DE Aaron Smith on the IR for the year because of a torn rotator cuff. Smith isn’t one of the bigger defensive names in the league, but he really should be – he’s a run blocking machine as good as almost anyone in the NFL. In Smith’s absence, the job is going to be filled by committee – by a bunch of guys who aren’t good enough or ready enough to be starters right now. That’s a significant downgrade for a team that was already struggling defensively compared to what we have become used to from the top defensive team in the league the last two years. The Steelers are all but assured to get seven wins – the three they already have, plus Kansas City, Oakland, and Cleveland twice. That means they need to win four of their remaining seven to comfortably assure themselves a playoff spot. That’s far from impossible, but three of the seven are leading their division, Baltimore falls twice, and there are no soft spots. This team needs to be sharp. Really sharp. Given their early play I think I’d actually bet against a playoff spot.
I didn’t watch much of the Florida game today because Michigan was playing at the same time, but what I did see was less than thrilling. It was a typical SEC defensive battle. Maybe it’s a personal fault, but that style of football generally bores the hell out of me. TimTebow didn’t look particularly good in his return to action after his concussion, but he was far better than his counterpart and he got the win. Florida finally proved themselves against their best opponent yet, but I still don’t believe that this is the best team that there is.
Well, I hadn’t been too excited about baseball for a while now, but that all changed yesterday afternoon. What a freaking ball game that was! It was like watching a boxing match – punch and counter-punch all night long. It’s been a long while since I have enjoyed a game so much. Now it will be interesting to see what happens tonight in New York. The Yankees have been handed tonight’s game on a silver platter – an emotionally and likely physically exhausted team with nasty travel and a depleted bullpen. They will be humiliated if they can’t take advantage of it.
A little football, then a little baseball today:
First, the football. That was a very interesting game last night. I wasn’t particularly excited about it – fatigue over the Favre hype. In the end, though, it ended up being interesting for a number of reasons. First, and most troubling for Green Bay, that is one terrible offensive line they have there. Jared Allen is a nice player, but not nearly that nice. He absolutely decimated Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, and gave them little chance of success. The Packers were a team I was very keen on coming into the season, but they stand little chance of doing anything meaningful until they find a way to offer even a little bit of protection. That was pathetic. On the other side, Minnesota’s offensive line performance was very mixed. On one hand, Favre had all of the time in the world to do whatever he wanted, and he made the most of it. On the other hand, though, Adrian Peterson was contained in a very surprising and uncharacteristic way. The final piece of interest out of this game is the question of just how good they Vikings are. They are 4-0 and will be hyped up significantly after this high profile win, but I still don’t feel like we have seen them really be tested. The first two wins against the Browns and the Lions prove nothing. The San Francisco game probably should have been a loss if it wasn’t for the fluky last second pass. The Packers weren’t a particularly real test either given that offensive line. Next up is the Rams, too, so this team will be 5-0 without a true test. This team is good, but we won’t know how good until we see them play the Ravens in week six. In my eyes this is a very tough team to assess right now.
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