Week 2 — Mon, 17 Sep 2007
From: JeffTo: mnf@doobie.com
Subject: It's Monday...
...and the Houston Texans are off to their best start in franchise history.
Yes ladies and gentlemen (and Pete), the Houston Texans went to Charlotte and delivered a defensive-driven beatdown to the Panthers 34-21. Sitting on the Panthers' bench was none other than David Carr -- former first draft pick, and mostly useless former starting Texan quarterback. Carr has never had a year that started 2-0. The Texans haven't lost a game since they traded him. That's gotta sting. Next week the Texans host the undefeated Indianapolis Colts, where they'll be lucky to beat the spread. But it was good while it lasted.
The New York Giants defense showed the world that it doesn't take much of a quarterback to beat a lousy secondary 35-13. Brett Favre and the Packers went to New Jersey and embarrassed Eli Manning and the Giants, on both sides of the ball. The Giants defense was nearly worthless. And Eli Manning looked like a bad college passer (possibly even worse than David Carr). Eli was throwing up these big, floating, misguided ducks that were pretty much free for the taking -- it's amazing that only one was picked off, though fully half of the balls that Eli chucked landed on the turf. He was lucky to get one touchdown. The Packers, on the other hand, scored five, and they are now 2-0, where they share first place in the NFC north with Detroit(!!). Green Bay goes home to host San Diego next week.
Aah, Detroit. While it's true that a win is a win, their overtime 20-17 dispatching of the Minnesota Vikings was one of the most painful games to watch this week. Neither team deserves the win -- if only the rules allowed for both teams to lose. Each team turned the ball over five times. That's seven interceptions, three lost fumbles, with another three near-misses in the form of recovered fumbles. Each team missed a potential game-winning field goal with less than one minute to go in the 4th. Minnesota committed 12 penalties (and only earned 17 First downs). Usually, I'd make a joke about an ACC football team being favored over them next week, but with numbers like that, these guys might not be competitive against De La Salle. The Lions go to Philly next week. The Vikings go to Kansas City to take on the increasingly awful Chiefs.
Even by Chiefs' standards, this 0-2 start might signify the beginning of another crap year. Yesterday, they went to Chicago, and got beat 20-10 because of their special teams alone. When your offense can't score touchdowns, you're going to find yourself punting quite a bit -- and when your punt coverage team gives up 143 yards and a touchdown over the course of a single game, you're just not going to win. The Bears' special teams squad also blocked a 48 yard field goal attempt, and their defensive line completely shut down the Chiefs' running game (in much the same way they did to Ladainian Tomlinson last week). The Chiefs host the similarly awful Vikings next week, in the only game that won't be available in HD. The Bears host Dallas next Sunday night.
The Patriots equipment trailer seemed to be missing some items this week, and the used camera dealers in Framingham are madly buying up equipment that might otherwise get marked "Evidence". The rumors are flying about illegal radios in the coaches ba-aaahx tuned to the NFL Films microphone frequencies, and G. Gordon Belichick himself has been making scheduled apologies daily. This hasn't seemed to affect the team much, though. Without so much as a cameraphone on the sidelines they rather casually rolled by the San Diego Chargers 38-14 in a game that was essentially over by the second quarter. It was one of those classic routs, where the Patriots just outplayed the Chargers at every position, at every moment in the game. It was damn near unwatchable.
A quick word about the Patriots' penalty. The Coach was fined $500,000, The Team was fined $250,000. They will lose _their_ first round draft pick this year (which, since they're likely to have a good year, is going to be near the end of the first round). This is a very lame, lax penalty. Why? Well, not 48 hours after the coach's fine was announced, he signed a new employment contract with the Patriots back office. Whaddya bet it includes a $500k bonus somewhere? And, if you remember, the Patriots traded for San Francisco's first round 2008 draft pick (which will probably come earlier than the Pats own) -- that's the valuable pick, and it isn't the one that the league is taking away.
There are nine teams that have started 2-0 this season (including our own 49ers). There are nine that are 0-2 (including the Raiders -- who lost kinda cheap this week). At the end of the night tonight, there may still be 9 in each category, there may be 10, but the number of undefeated and the number of winless teams will remain in perfect parity for at least one more week.
Which brings us to tonight's game.
The 1-0 Washington Redskins go a few hundred miles north of the Manson Nixon line to the onion and cheese scented town of Philadelphia to take on the 0-1 Eagles on the DD Grassmaster nearly-real turf of Lincoln Financial Field. The Grassmaster system blends synthetic polypropylene tufts of turf in with the real stuff (Bluegrass provided by Tuckahoe farms), to create a field that looks and plays like a real one, but is somewhat more rugged. In Philly, the turf is 97% real, 3% plastic, which makes it the most "real" of the fake fields in the League. The Cheez Whiz that's on top of a delectable local cheesesteak ("wit onions, wit whiz")? Reverse those numbers.
Tonight the game is really about whether the defenses can step up. Washington needs to shut down the Eagles running game if they hope to stay competitive. Fortunately, they have a secret weapon -- Eagles running back Brian Westbrook (a DC-native) has a little brother Byron who is on the 'skins practice squad. If anybody knows a running back's fakes and tricks, it's his defense-minded little brother, no? If they can manage that, and keep Donovan McNabb throwing the ball rather than scrambling around like someone who'd rather be beating dogs to death, then they might just stand a chance to beat the favored Eagles. When the Redskins have the ball, look for the holes in the Philly secondary (15-25 yards from the line of scrimmage), they're somewhat injury depleted there, and sometimes-inconsistent passer Jason Cambell seems to be especially accurate at that range. If he can keep getting the ball to Antwaan Randle El, Santana Moss, and Clinton Portis, perhaps they can score a few touchdowns.
On the other side of the ball, it's really just the Donovan McNabb show. He has been incredibly adept at embarrassing the redskins defense on more than one previous meeting, and when you combine it with the footwork of a tennis player, you end up with a quarterback that you need to guard like a running back. The redskins linebackers aren't exactly making picture-perfect tackles these days, so watch out for an evasive move that shakes Rocky McIntosh right out of his Nikes.
The Line:
The Eagles are favored by 6.5
The over/under is 38.5
The Smart Money invokes the Pete Rose bettor's exemption, grumbles, and proceeds to take the over.
The Bar:
As is common this time of year, we have dueling games, which calls for a
certain type of sports bar. The Giants aren't playoff bound this year,
but they are playing an away game tonight, which will still be on the
primary screen (and sound system) of most of the sports bars in town.
In the past, we've learned that there's at least one place that's big
enough to feature both games at once. And so, tonight we're going there.
Greens Sports Bar
2239 Polk Street (at Green)
Within a dwarf toss of the 19 Polk, and one block from the 41 and 45 Union.
An exceptionally well lit annex of the Marina, in innocuous Russian Hill, with like 20 beers on tap, and a liberal policy regarding outside food (we've even had a pizza delivered there). We're lucky that they let degenerates like us in the place, even if they do fine us every time we use the F word.
Kickoff is at 5:30. See you there???
-Jeff
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