1921

I agree with you. In the games I saw a lot more guys ran it out from 5 to 8 yards deep than I thought would. Maybe that will change as the season goes on, as kickers legs’ start to get tired, but as of now I like the change.

1922

Yeah, the play I was thinking of (not Chung’s blocked punt from earlier in the game) was this one from the Patriots’ dismantling of the Dolphins last season. Chung blocks Dan Carpenter’s field goal attempt and Kyle Arrington picked it up and ran it back.

Also, didn’t the Raiders do it against the Chargers last year? Yes. Yes, they did.

1923

Yeah but, didn’t EVERYBODY do it against the Chargers last year? And KO returns for TDs… see also THIS year.

Still, Chargers win the opener; maybe they can get some early season momentum going. What’s that? @NE next week? Damn.

1924

Okay, Kansas City is nothing to talk about, but Washington! I’m using NFL Game Rewind to watch every Redskins game this year, even the painful ones. I got through about 20 minutes of the Giants game this morning in my pre-work hour here in the office. First few things I noticed:

[ul]
[li]Tim Hightower’s vision impressed me. He turned a lot of losses into 3 or 4-yard gains, and he did a great job finding the hole or the cutback lane.[/li][li]It’s weird for me to think of Santana Moss as the cagey veteran, since I don’t think of 5’10" 180-pound cagey veterans, but Moss did a good job on the first few drives, sitting down in the zone for Grossman and then doing a great job getting immediately vertical on a fourth-down play after the catch. He’s a smart, smart receiver.[/li][li]Without looking around the league at all, I think Washington has the best backup tight end in the NFL. Fred Davis is fantastic with the ball in his hands.[/li][li]Fred Davis is AWFUL at blocking. On a play where Grossman got rushed, Davis tried to assist in a block with a few half-hearted swipes, then looked back to see how Rex was doing. Finish the block, you putz![/li][li]While it’s easy to blame Reed Doughty for that 68-yard Hakeem Nicks catch, I don’t. Eli Manning broke up out of the pocket and Doughty came up a bit, and I’m pretty sure the overaggressive LaRon Landry asses that play up too.[/li][li]Anthony Armstrong’s full-horizontal diving grab in the early second quarter to give Washington first and goal at the one is an amazing catch.[/li][li]Rex Grossman’s passes are great, assuming Washington is fielding a team of nine-foot-tall players. He sails way too many over the middle of the field, and that may kill him (and his receivers) later.[/li][li]LT Trent Williams is a powerful run blocker and did a great job on pass blocking too, but with no Osi or Tuck for the Giants, I’m not exactly getting his bust ready for Canton.[/li][/ul]
Tune back in for more overanalysis tonight or tomorrow!

1925

Hell, after that performance, 3-13 might be optimistic!

1926

Glad to see the Cardinals make it past the Cam Newton Express. Can no one stop Steve Smith?

1927

Steve Smith did almost nothing last year, I wouldn’t be sure if that wasn’t bad game planning/preparation for him.

Teams won’t make that same mistake moving forward.

~C~

1928

So I’m reading about how Indy’s scouting out QBs, and one of the things that occurs to me, somewhat surprisingly, is that they really don’t appear to have had much of a backup plan for Manning in place.

When the Packers had perennially healthy Favre, they still kept working to develop solid QBs. And the reality of Favre’s longevity meant that most of those ended up starting elsewhere (Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselbeck successfully; Ty Detmer, Aaron Brooks, and Doug Pederson less so – but even so, all of them were starters at one point), but their perennial QB development mill meant that when Favre actually was done, they had Rodgers sitting there waiting for them.

With the Colts, though, it doesn’t seem like they’ve done that kind of development. Jim Sorgi was a longtime backup, and he left to be a backup elsewhere. Nobody seems to have any faith at all in Curtis Painter. Brock Huard and Mark Rypien never started anywhere after their Indy stints. Basically they’ve just never had anyone behind Manning who was even plausibly a starter for them.

And I suppose that worked well enough for over a decade, but it does seem short-sighted in the long run.

1929

One of the biggest reasons for the Dolphins’ decline, IMO, was their failure to draft a young QB during Marino’s last 5 or so seasons, and their further failure to draft one #1 since.

1930

When do the games become available? $39.99 is certainly cheaper than what I spend to watch the games in bars.

1931

Continuing the QB development discussion, look at how ably Matt Cassel stepped in for Tom Brady when Bernard [f’ing] Pollard ended Tom’s season a couple years back. And Brady, of course, spelled Drew Bledsoe before that.

1932

I was watching the Redskins this morning at 7 AM Central. I don’t think they’re available on Sunday – it was unavailable yesterday.

1933

Cassel might be an outlier. New England grabbed a guy who hadn’t started since high school and had been known to Football Outsiders fans as “Rusher McFumbles” thanks to his uneven play in preseason and turned him into an almost-star. That might be incredible coaching, that might be unparalleled scouting, that might be dumb luck, it might be a combination of them. But I’m not quite willing to call that superlative work by New England.

1934

And incredible coaching + unparalleled scouting doesn’t equal superlative work?

To paraphrase Tina, what’s luck got to do with it?

1935

A) I don’t think the Patriots’ scouting ability is all that great – they have as many hits and misses as anyone not named Dan Snyder.
B) I don’t think Cassel’s all that great as a QB. I think he’s aggressively mediocre. But that might be coloring my participation in this conversation.

I don’t really know what point I was trying to make anymore. Tom Brady and Matt Cassel were incredibly late-round picks (6th and 7th, I think), so it’s not like they were putting Steve Young behind Joe Montana or anything. I think they got lucky with Brady (Brady is an incredibly skilled QB, and having him slip to them in the sixth round and he turns out to be Superman is lucky).

Mostly I hate everyone involved with the Chiefs today after that Bills beatdown. I HATE CASSEL AND EVERYONE WITH WHOM HE IS ASSOCIATED

1936

I know. Speaking as a Steelers fan from birth, I have to say that loss carried with it quite a sting. If it hadn’t been for Teflon Ray and Flacco’s receiver-finger-seeking throws*…

  • That is, if it hadn’t been for Baltimore’s entire offense. I know how it sounds. I’m a bit partisan on this topic. :P
1937

They promise within 24 hours of the last play. As Matt said, the games weren’t available yesterday (although I think they took the service down because the NO/GB game had previously been available).

What I liked the best at least so far is the fact that you can choose the plays to watch. So I just finished watching all of the Eagles offensive plays. Later this week I want to take a look at Cam Newton and it will be easy to do so using the Rewind service.

1938

I love it. :)

1939

More WAS/NYG thoughts.

[ul]
[li]Rex settled down on his passes and only floated a few more.[/li][li]Rex took at least two inexcusable sacks, including the fumble. Protect the ball, Rex![/li][li]Trent Williams had an awful series against Jason Pierre-Paul, getting blown by three times in a row, giving up a hurry and a sack.[/li][li]The entire offensive line combined to miss all of their blocks on Grossman’s 16-yard-loss sack. I’ve never seen that before. Everyone came through![/li][li]I think Santana Moss got a first down on every reception. Remarkable game.[/li][li]Fred Davis and Chris Cooley give Washington a really dangerous two tight end set, especially since Fred Davis is apparently as good at run blocking as he is bad at pass blocking.[/li][li]Orakpo did not do well on inside moves, but going to the outside he almost got to Eli a few times.[/li][li]I hate Graham Gano so much.[/li][/ul]

1940

I don’t believe those were right calls. The referee said it was a penalty because he hit the receiver in the head with his shoulder, however in replay it was clear that he did not contact the head. Ergo, it was a blown call. The Akers roughing the kicker thing, I don’t know. I never saw an angle showing even glancing contact with his foot, I think that’s what they call “veteran savvy”.

However, worse than the bullshit unnecessary roughness penalty they did call, they missed a clear unnecessary roughness penalty later in the game, when somebody (maybe the same guy?) delivered a forearm shiver right to the Seattle receiver’s head, and the receiver was then lying on the ground and had to be helped off the field. So good job NFL, 0-2 on the new protecting players rule.