Wow, what a boneheaded decision by Jacoby Jones. 7-3, Balty.
Sarkus
6482
Williams has a unique playcalling philosophy that has bit them in the ass a bit in their last two playoff losses. There was a lot of talk about it after they lost to Seattle in the playoffs last year, and Bradshaw went on about it on the post-game show yesterday.
At any rate I guess Schefter says that Mike Nolan and Spagnuolo are the hot defensive coordinators with both high on the list in New Orleans and Atlanta.
The Falcons hired Dirk Koetter to be their new offensive coordinator by the way.
Lorini
6483
Is this his first time catching punts? He didn’t do much better on his second punt catch.
sluggo
6484
Falcons: 1999
Bucs: 2003
Panthers: 2004
Saints: 2010
Sarkus
6485
Heh. I always forget about that Falcons appearance. ;-) Not that it matters unless San Francisco does make it this year.
This Ravens/Texans game is pretty dull, like all Ravens games. And I’m surprised that Houston is sticking around this long. That they can run against the Ravens makes me wonder just how dangerous they would have been this year had Schaub not gotten injured.
My guess about the second half: The running game ceases to work for Houston but Flacco ceases to work for the Ravens. Ultimately the Raven defense saves the day and the Ravens win anyways.
jeffd
6487
From what I could tell, the Patriots ran man coverage with a deep safety. They also somehow got insane penetration on the line of scrimmage; I’m not smart enough to figure out what was going on there. Was it a blocking scheme thing? Were the Denver linemen just physically outclassed?
Steelers, otoh, were running zone coverage without a deep safety and were bringing a LOT of pressure on the line and still not getting good penetration. They just totally screwed up their scheming.
It’ll be interesting to see how Tebow does after a full offseason. In his favor he doesn’t tend to make dumb decisions; he’s just hideously inaccurate and has terrible mechanics.
sluggo
6488
Why does it matter at all? It’s interesting as an oddball stat, but says nothing about the relative competitiveness of the teams today. The whole thing across as a weird plea for respect.
Zuwadza
6489
I could live with Spanuolo at DC over Williams. Williams’ playcalling worked when the Saints’ secondary, especially their CBs, were playing a lot better. As it stands they can’t play man-to-man worth a damn, which is kind of important when you’re going to blitz almost 70% of the time.
Speaking of defense, Houston’s is looking excellent.
sluggo
6490
This game has gotten interesting, and that’s a nice goal line stand by Houston (watch out for the safety here), but really, I don’t want to see either of these teams in the Super Bowl. Let’s just go Pats/Packers and move on with it. :)
Man, that Nicks has got some legs.
sluggo
6493
That is a TERRIBLE onside call by the Packers.
The surprise onsides is a risk you take to try to turn a game in your favor, when you’re looking for a way to close the gap against a better team. But the Packers are the better team here - they don’t need to be taking risks like that, and they now give the Giants momentum. Terrible call.
Thongsy
6494
Tebow doesn’t annoy me. I’m sure he’s a great guy. He led the Broncos to the playoffs and a victory too. What annoys me is ESPN and their year long coverage of Tebowmania. When he won, it was Tebow just wins. When he loses it was because he sucks. But either way they’ll find a way to cover Tebow every week ignoring every other player and team in the league. This past week was the perfect example of that, the whole week was just talk of the Broncos-New England game on ESPN ignoring every other game. And most of that talk was just on Tebow too. If he suceeds, great for him but Tebowmania just needs to die and if it take having brutal failure of a season next year, so be it.
I assume McCarthy called for the onside to appease the gods of fate. The not-overturning-of-the-not-a-fumble call was quite egregious.
robsam
6496
I agree it was a bad decision, but I don’t agree that Green Bay is the better team. They had the better record in the regular season, but the Giants are getting better every week. Also, apparently the Green Bay receivers have forgotten how to catch.
As always, sports “momentum” can only be seen in retrospect, and has no carry-forward properties, unlike actual momentum.
I want to know who put Vasoline on the gloves of all the Packers receivers…
I honestly think that the week-long festival known as Tebowmania also got to Brady. He’s the three-time Superbowl-winning quarterback who impregnates both Hollywood starlets and Brazilian supermodels alike. Tebow is a terrible quarterback who’s best known for loving Jesus very publicly. Yet all the talk in the media all week was on Tebow. Brady definitely had an edge last night, and he fucking went off on the Broncos.
