It will be interesting. The Raiders remaining schedule is:
@ Green Bay - loss
Detroit - tough game, flip a coin. Suh’s first game back as well.
@ KC - I’d count this one a win, but KC can be tough at home.
San Diego - Can the Bolts beat anyone now?
So I see the Raiders going 2-2 probably. The Broncos schedule is:
Chicago - Forte’s out. Could be a 6-3 game.
New England - probably a loss
@ Buffalo - can Buffalo beat anyone now?
KC - it’s a rivalry game so anything can happen but I’d take the Broncos at home.
I think the Broncos can squeeze out a couple of wins. Last I read they have the tiebreaker against the Raiders, too. I think Oakland might need to finish strong and win 3 of 4 to win the division. I’d give the odds to Denver getting it done at this point.
The Packers are only a story over the Saints because they’re undefeated. If they had a loss in there it wouldn’t be so favorable towards the Packers.
And nobody is getting more press than Tebow.
Lorini
5123
Mr. Peach, I must agree with you. Losing to Tebow would be ALMOST as bad as drafting JWalrus as the first pick. ALMOST.
Ha ha.
At least the guy was highly thought of by most draft experts. It’s not like the Heyward-Bey pick that seemed crazy.
Sometimes the #1 overall is not the best pick to have. Too many expectations.
That’s obviously a big part of it. But the other part is that the Packers didn’t get the hypefest treatment last year – remember that Rodgers didn’t even make the Pro Bowl – so there’s some lost time to make up for, too. The combination of surprise Super Bowl victory plus undefeated team plus phenomenal QB who wasn’t properly recognized last year adds up to a good story.
But yeah, the instant the Packers lose their first game, the knives will be out about how injuries in the secondary have destroyed an already-weak defense; about how their running game has never been better than serviceable; about how their receivers drop too many balls; how their special teams couldn’t cover a dead chipmunk; etc.
Dan’s feeling like it would have been nice to play with touch football rules too…
Hold the phone there, Tonto. I’m not sure what I said to deserve that kind of vitriol.
I don’t begrudge the Packers their coverage, or San Fran their “surprise team” story, or even Tebow his stories (although I do think the “Tebow is God” brigade overblows it). I’m not bothered by the coverage of other, non-Saint related NFL stories, either.
I just think it’s a little odd that the Saints don’t get talked about much. They’re likely the second-best team behind the Packers right now, and they’ve got a quarterback who’s almost certainly going to smash Marino’s yardage record before the season is done (he damn near did it in 2008, and his pace this year is even stronger). I would think that sort of thing might be worth a little pregame chatter, ya know?
Vitriol? You say “Fuck y’all” in virtually every post in this thread. Not to mention nothing I said was vitriolic.
Then why bring them all up?
Maybe you need to watch more pregame. I see them talking about Brees and the records he is due to break and may break this season every week. The entire halftime last night was about it, and it was brought up several times in the second half.
Oakland v. Detroit should be a hell of a game – Suh will be back, all pent up and ready to stomp some heads^H^H^H^H^Hmake some sacks; plus, the game is considered a must-win for Detroit to secure a wildcard, so they’ll come in fired up and ready to destroy. Which also means that they’ll be so tightly wound that they’ll commit a record number of penalties.
Between the two teams, I’m predicting an NFL-record 38 penalties during the game, including at least seven personal fouls (I’m only halfway kidding).
That’s a friendly (and tipsy) “fuck y’all.” :) C’mon, Bill, you know better than this.
Uh-huh.
As illustrative counterpoints. Goodness.
At any rate, saying “this story isn’t being talked about, the news is talking about these other stories instead” does not imply that those other stories are somehow not worthwhile. It just means that one story is being overshadowed.
Well, sure a good chunk of halftime (certainly not all) OF A SAINTS GAME, WHEN THAT WAS THE ONLY GAME ON was about it. Shocking that they’d talk about one of the teams actually playing in that situation.
As for the other pregames, I just don’t see it, at least not with the same kind of breathless attention paid to other NFL stories. And like I said, I don’t begrudge those other stories their due. It just seems like the Saints get a quick mention during the “let’s run through all the other NFL teams in two minutes” segment while the anchors sit there and chat endlessly about those other stories.
And I think mdowdle’s got the reason about right: they’re doing what’s expected of them, with little attendant drama.
But hey, I’m a Saints homer, so whatevs. YMMV.
Shadarr
5132
Clearly? The Saints have lost one more game than the 49ers, and that loss was to the Rams. The Rams! A team whose only other win on the season is against the Browns, and who coincidentally were shut out by the 49ers yesterday. They also lost to the Bucs, another team the 49ers manhandled.
Everyone thinks the 49ers schedule has been soft up to this point because they play in the shitty-ass NFC West, without actually looking at the schedule to see that they have barely even played the NFC West to this point. Yes, the rest of the schedule is basically a cake walk except for the Steelers followed by a short week against the Seahawks. However, that doesn’t make the 10-2 record any less impressive, they’ve beaten several teams with winning records and none of their losses have been embarrassments. Part of being a good team is winning the games you should win. That’s something the Saints haven’t done, and that’s why they’re not the second best team in the NFC.
I contend that the Saints receiving corps was still worn out from all the running they had to do against the Colts the week before. :)
But yeah, that was an embarrassing loss. The other two, not so much. They had a legitimate shot at pulling it out against Green Bay, which is more than most of GB’s opponents can say. We split the series with TB, who always seem to give us fits, even when they aren’t forcing our head coach to be hospitalized.
Oh OK, right. Sure.
The Saints being a good team is not news. Stop being a such a homer. Sorry that bothers you. I’d love it if SF being good wasn’t news, but I’m far from complaining about it. All I had to listen to for most of the season is how good the Niners probably aren’t and I am still hearing about it. I don’t give two shits about your complaint that people aren’t praising the Saints enough for being a class franchise.
What exactly is there that is special to say about them aside from Brees’ chances at breaking records (and their inability to generate turnovers this year)? Losing in week 1 took them out of any undefeated talk. Other teams are playing well and have winning records. I’d say the least surprising good team this season is the Saints. They don’t carry the stigma of a possible Superbowl hangover and they have no star players injured or a hilariously bad defense (New England). Aside from that, they got their share of press when Peyton’s leg was broken, when they obliterated the Colts and when they honked it to the Rams the week after. There are 32 teams, if you spend just 5 minutes on each of them each with your show is going to run 3 hours. If there’s nothing to say, there’s nothing to say. What should people be saying? I can think of 10 different storylines that are of more general interest than “the Saints are winning as expected.”
You are a homer and that’s why you’re whining about it. Funnier still you used to be a Dallas homer but something happened to that, I guess.
And the Saints can roll into Candlestick this postseason and we’ll see who’s “clearly” better. SF just shut out a team they couldn’t beat.
I am really looking forward to the NO/SF game.
I say we pass the hat for both Damien and Bill to attend with the caveat that they must meet up and road-trip to the game.
People can shit on SF’s schedule all they want, nobody plays teams with winning records every single week. SF lost to the Ravens fair and square and to Dallas on a miracle pass by Tony Romo. Both teams have winning records and oh yeah may very well win their respective divisions. They also beat the Bengals, Lions, Eagles, and Giants. Also, hey, what about that, the Cardinals and Seahawks have been winning games and might end up with decent records after all.
Also the Packers got to play the Panthers, Broncos, Rams, Vikings, Chargers and Bucs. I take nothing away from what that team can do but let’s not pretend they’ve played nothing but contenders. Likewise the Saints have played the Jags, Panthers, Bucs, Colts, and Rams, losing of course to the Rams. Yet I still take nothing away from them either. The Niners have ostensibly played 6 bad teams to the Packers and Saints 5 apiece, I don’t want to hear another word about how easy their schedule is comparatively.
Add that they must live blog and preferably videotape their experience at the game and you got my money.
Sarkus
5139
The “NFC West sucks” thing has been going on for at least seven years now so its really just “conventional wisdom” at this point. Who cares if during that time two NFC West teams have made Superbowl appearances, or that the NFC west playoff teams have generally acquitted themselves quite well. You just aren’t going to convince people otherwise. Even if you point to something like GreatAtlantic’s power ranking thing this year where the AFC West has been consistently ranked as the worst division.
In general the NFC playoff picture is going to be interesting. Green Bay, New Orleans, and San Francisco are clearly a step or two above everyone else, but the collapse of the Bears and Lions really opens things up. Somebody will win the NFC East, but after that there are a lot of teams still in the hunt because the wildcards will likely end up going to relatively mediocre teams. An 8-8 record might just be enough the way things are going. That Seattle still has a (very weak) shot at the playoffs is proof enough of that.
I think “7-9 division champions” is one of those things that sticks around in people’s memories for a while.
As for SF themselves, I think most of it is the Alex Smith Effect. I realize he’s apparently playing well this year, but he’s well past the point in his career when you’d expect him to start playing well, so it has the feeling of a Cinderella story, in that he might turn into a pumpkin again at any moment. Mid-career QBs on the glide path to backupdom don’t suddenly turn good, you know?
