NFL Offseason (cont.)

[Jaime L]

On the other side, I love what Shanahan is doing with the Redskins and especially how he is handling Haynesworth. I bet he gets good games out of the guy. Of course, the Shanny doghouse is legendary in Denver and most guys never got out of it.

Yeah, the sense that someone's actually in control is refreshing this training camp. Zorn, by contrast, would perpetually give off the sense of a man unable to remember where he parked.

People think it's an ego thing between him and the giant turd but what most people don't realize is Shanahan could, literally, light the back of Fat Albert's head on fire with his raptor gaze. The fact that he doesn't, in my opinion, is testament to his remarkable restraint.

[Trebla]

Elvis Dumervil out 4 months with a torn pectoral

Ouch. Denver is going to be very interesting to watch this season. Getting rid of your best players, letting your great defensive coordinator walk, and now losing your best pass rusher makes it possible to finish even behind KC.

[Jaime L]

Elvis Dumervil out 4 months with a torn pectoral

Ouch. Denver is going to be very interesting to watch this season. Getting rid of your best players, letting your great defensive coordinator walk, and now losing your best pass rusher makes it possible to finish even behind KC.

That sucks. The guy was like 80% of the Broncos pass rush last season..one of the most underrated guys in the league IMO. Was looking forward to getting to watch him play this season.

Want to be bullish on the Broncos but just don't see any reason how at this point.

[Jaxom 1974]

Want to be bullish on the Broncos but just don't see any reason how at this point.

God is on Tim Tebow's side...?

[Jaime L]

God is on Tim Tebow's side...?

I know you're being facetious but pretty much. Think McDaniels is consciously following the idea that a bunch of high character guys will be greater than the sum of the parts. I think there's some truth to that...but only if you have the horses. I'm not sure they do.

[Jaxom 1974]

I know you're being facetious but pretty much. Think McDaniels is consciously following the idea that a bunch of high character guys will be greater than the sum of the parts. I think there's some truth to that...but only if you have the horses. I'm not sure they do.

Do you think there is any way Tim Tebow isn't the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos no later than game 3 this season? McDaniels needs to jusify the insane first round pick and the Broncos are going to need some kind of boost, such as it is...

Maybe the Vikings can trade for Kyle Orton, you know, just in case... :P

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Elvis Dumervil out 4 months with a torn pectoral

Ouch. Denver is going to be very interesting to watch this season. Getting rid of your best players, letting your great defensive coordinator walk, and now losing your best pass rusher makes it possible to finish even behind KC.

Is it right to hope my team finishes behind KC? I mean it would ensure the prompt dismissal of McDouche and no matter who replaced him I think I would be on board.

I want Brady Quinn to start. If Tebow has a chance at all to survive the NFL he needs a good three years of bench riding.

[Slurktan]

Slurk:

Well, what is in his character that makes you think he would NOT do this? I mean, The TE for the Vikings said he got the texts and then Favre, amazingly, drives out of house in his beat up pick-up truck (that I insist he actually uses for JUST these occasions- to look like a regular good-ol' boy in front of the press), drives up to Ed Werder and says (I swear to GOD!) "What are you guys doing here?" Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Like he does not know PRECISELY why they were there.

When in the past has he come out and directly said a particular "report" about him was completely false as he has with this text message fiasco? The announcement he actually made on Wednesday was also significantly different from previous Favre media things as he said flat out that he'll know after the Dr. Andrews visit next week.

It's one thing to play games with the media and so the public but to blatantly say that a particular reporter has false information and thus calling out two of his teammates is something else altogether. I can't recall him doing something like that before which makes me think he would not do the idiocy you are saying he did.

Side Note: Shiancoe wasn't the one "spreading the rumours", he confirmed with the media the other day that he had heard from a couple guys on the team that they supposedly got text messages from Brett about retiring. Basically he was Jay Glazer.

[DanteGabriel]

We break up the Favre news with a quick quote from Michael Irvin, on the eve of the Hall of Fame induction ceremony:

I remember when I was inducted into the Hall of Fame and they gave me my Hall of Fame yellow blazer. I wore it for two straight days. Finally my wife was in bed and said she wanted to make love but that I had to take the coat off. I refused and kept the blazer on because I wanted to perform like a Hall of Famer on the field and off.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/And-now-we-pause-to-feel-bad-for-Michael-Irvin-s;_ylt=Au0PjVYeSw2VYF0st9g_b045nYcB?urn=nfl-260537

Sadly I'll be busy most of the day tomorrow so I think I'll miss seeing Jerry Rice get inducted. Hopefully the NFL Network will do its thing and replay it endlessly.

[The Dude]

Does this absolve Farve? Hell no. Does it, for me, explain the reason why it's not needed to be trumpted, though I can't see why it's so hard to say, "Of course he's the all time league leader in pass attempts and completions...the caveat to that is that he's going to have more interceptions than anyone else and he does" and then move on in the conversation...

And this kind of rambling nothing is what happens when you have the amount of time on your hands like I've had lately... :P

I don't get it either. I guess it's something to cling to for the Favre haters? Even as a Bears fan, I've never been able to hate on the guy (except maybe during games he's embarrassed us).

Anyway, I had to look into a bit, too, on this Playerfilter site:

http://www.playerfilter.com/leaders#g,u,r;att=ge=2085,u,r;comp;pct;pyds,r;ptd;ptdr;py_g;py_a;qbrat;intc;intr,asc;sack;fum&gtf=career&rl=pass&cat=pass

If you compare all QBs with more than 2000 pass attempts, he's #90 on the list for interception rate. That means there's been 89 guys who throw more INTs per pass.

I don't really care either way if he retires. It's semi-entertaining watching people and the media get worked up about it, but it does get old.

ETA: I messed that up the first time, he's #90

[Mexal]

And with that, we have the first official football action of the seasion.

Ugly game last night for the Bengals. I have a few concerns that I'm not sure can be addressed.

1. Our back up QBs are awful. If Palmer goes down, our season is done.

2. Our offensive line is still poor in pass protection. We need Andre Smith to stop eating and start playing because right now, Palmer has no time to throw.

3. We beat ourselves more than not with large amounts of penalties. For everyone that says it's preseason, we'll fix it, this was the same problem we had last year. We are very undisciplined.

For all of the bad though, I thought the defense played great and I'm really excited about our young guys. Michael Johnson looked like he could be a pass rushing force. Geno Atkins was collapsing the pocket from the DT which is something we haven't done all that successfully in the past. Adam Jones looked solid at corner and will only improve given his immense talent. Our ST looked pretty good and explosive with Shipley, Jones and Scott.

I'm a bit upset about Leonard's injury but I hope that just means we get to see more Scott as he's a game breaker.

That being said, for only having 9 days to prepare, I thought we did ok. Cowboys were in training camp for 2.5 weeks. The biggest measurement will come in a few weeks. For now, any game without major injuries is a good one (though Leonard did say his foot wasn't good).

[Rockroi]

So, yeah my new favorite excuse for why I tested positive for PEDs is that I overtrained! How fantastic of an excuse is that? It sounds so plausible: the reason I am bulked up like such a freak is because I pushed myself too hard! I worked out TOO much! I was too dedicated!

For those who missed this, 2009 ROtY, Brian Cushing is claiming that the reason he tested positive for PEDs was not a dead, conjoined twin or too much Jack, BUT that he worked out too hard. From the article:

"I think that's the final diagnosis we came up with," (Cushing) said, "and a lot of doctors have supported why this has happened."

Stop right there. Brian, buddy, I know you have at least two years of higher education, but football players do not "come up with" a diagnosis; doctors do. And how many doctors are backing you here? Its less than 1, isn't it?

Cushing said months of tests show that he had a "unique" medical condition that led to the positive test.

Yes. And that "unique" condition is doing months of illegal steroids. I am as thrilled to learn this as you are.

"Every individual is genetically different," he said. "I had a unique situation where something like this occurred and we have the science to back it up. It's taken months. It's really beyond what we ever thought and it's beyond the regular medical doctor.

You hear that scientists and doctors?! This man is so unique that not even a mere mortal DOCTOR can figure him out! That's why he tested positive! Because... because YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND, MAN!!!

"We've gone in depth, and there has been a lot of money spent on the research," he said. "There have been a lot of interesting results that I think can help us."

Than where are they? And if you have "spent a lot of money" on the research, how does that NOT sound like you spent a lot of money to get the research results you wanted? What am I missing?

Cushing said he could not offer details about what scientific evidence McNair was presenting. Tom Condon, Cushing's agent, did not immediately respond to an e-mail or a phone message left at his office.

The reason that Cushing could not "offer details about the scientific evidence" was because:

a. Only those who really believe can see the evidence;

b. Ken Hovind, Cushing's science expert, is still serving his sentence for tax evasion;

c. Its hard to show details of something that does not actually exist; or

d. He worked so hard on the evidence that it made the evidence come up as a PED.

I love ESPN in their unflappable efforts to give athletes every opportunity to clear their names, and in turn, having the athletes make asses of themselves.

[Space Bandito]

A little song about Brett Farve and his cell phone habits -

[Mexal]

Now that the first round of preseason games are out of the way, what are your impressions?

As a Bengals fan, the first game was ugly but that was expected given it was basically our intrasquad scrimmage. Last night was a bit better yet you could still see there are things that are being ironed out. It was encouraging to see Gresham and Shipley (our two top rookies) play well with the first time and I expect them to bring a lot to this offense. Palmer is still getting on the same page with TO and seems to progressively get better and better from week to week. We haven't seen much of Ocho but that is fine. The offensive line played better this week but I would love to get Andre Smith in there. He's been a massive bust so far.

Overall, we have the potential to do big things. Scott and Benson look great running the ball and the defense will be scary once we get out of preseason vanilla form. It shows as we're not able to get a ton of pressure on the QB when first teamers are in there. That being said, our kicker is meh, our backup QBs blow but at least we have depth pretty much everywhere else except the offensive line. I'm encouraged by our performance last night but I'm still cautiously optimistic this year. I don't want to be hyping up Cinci and then watch them play like they did the first game last year.

[Maithanet]

Well, the first Skins game was encouraging. Our O line is undeniably better, although whether they have pushed past mediocre is still to be determined (I think so-so is about the best we can hope for). McNabb looked like himself, and that's good. The defense is still adjusting to all the changes, but we've got enough talent on that end to make things very difficult for opposing qbs. I think they've accepted that the bend-but-don't-break style no longer works for defense, and that we need to create more pressure and turnovers. Which should be more fun to watch.

I'm very concerned about our wide receivers. I cannot believe that we were unable to get anyone on the free agent market to bolster this group, usually recievers are relatively easy to find. I'm not talking great recievers, but serviceable ones. We've got Santana Moss, who is getting old, and then a bunch of ghosts. Joey Galloway? Roydell Williams? Bobby Wade? Seriously?

It looks like Malcolm Kelly will be cut. He is never healthy. I wonder if he'll become a decent player for some other team. It's certainly still possible.

Devin Thomas will probably make the team, but still seems like a work in progress. At some point he's going to need to develop into a complete player, because he's got the talent.

After last year's debacle, I think most skins fans are just hoping for a competitive, 8-8 season with some signs of life for the future. I personally do not think that is unrealistic. The problem is that every year there are a few die harders that insist we are on the doorstep of a 12-4 year, and we just have to believe. As if lack of belief is the real problem.

[awesome possum]

I think the Bears offense will surprise some people this season, as long as the offensive line holds. I have serious doubts it can, though, at least on the right side with an unproven seventh-round draft pick and Frank Omiyale there.

The offense is pretty much going to have to surprise people if the Bears even want to think about competing with the Packers and Vikings. Their secondary is still bad. Charles Tillman will continue to be solid at CB, but Zach Bowman is going to get burned a lot. I love how some people are high on the kid because he caught 6 INTs last season all the while forgetting that he was constantly burned by any receiver with a modicum of talent and speed.

Major Wright will be a force at safety one day, but until then we have junk in the backfield. Chris Harris coming back to the team is nice and all, as he never should have been let go after 2006, but this is not the same Chris Harris. This is a guy who would have fought for a starting spot on the Panthers. And the rest of the safeties on the team are the same guys who allowed QBs and WRs to have field days last season.

Even with Peppers on the defensive line and a completely healthy Tommie Harris, Brian Urlacher and Pisa Tisasomething playing, it's going to be rough going. We're going to need to win a lot of shoot-outs, which I'm not sure the team is capable of.

I look at their schedule and I can see them going anywhere from 7-9 to 11-5. I think they'll do well, maybe 9-7, but not enough to make the playoffs.

[grozeng]

Now that the first round of preseason games are out of the way, what are your impressions?

What do you mean? The only game that matters is tonight :)

[davos]

The Packer's first game promising but uneven. The passing game looked impressive. The ground part of the offense was not so convincing. Grant has been a steady producer though so I'm not worried about that area yet. Two areas of concern still are not clearly resolved and nothing I saw agianst Cleveland proved otherwise. First is the o-line. If Tauscher and Clifton stay healthy they have the potential to be one of the better lines in the league. The problem is that both of them are aging and have a recent history of serious injury. The odds of one or both of them missing significant amounts of playing time during the season is quite high. If Baluga develops quickly enough to be effective they should be able to absorb some down-time from the two veterans. If one of them goes down for an extended period or Baluga struggles (something a lot of first year linemen do no matter how strong a career they eventually have) the line will be thin. If both of them go down at once, like they had to deal with for long stretches last year, they could be facing disaster. While Baluga seems to be coming along nicely I'm m still concerned that not enough was done in the off-season to shore up the line. My other concern is the lack of a pass-rush that was evident down the stretch last year, most dramatically in the shoot-out loss to the Cardinals. Their 3-4 needs to the outside linebackers to provide much of the pressure. Matthews was very good rushing last season but he was the only bright spot. If Raji can provide some interior pressue from the NG position there might be some improvement. I was hoping they would go out and find a rushing out-side linebacker to play opposite Matthews, even if it was a rushing specialist to use in clear passing downs. They didn't. Nothing I saw on Saturday convinced me that they can create consistant pressure with the personale they have right now. Still I have expectations of great things for this team.

[Jaime L]

After last year's debacle, I think most skins fans are just hoping for a competitive, 8-8 season with some signs of life for the future. I personally do not think that is unrealistic. The problem is that every year there are a few die harders that insist we are on the doorstep of a 12-4 year, and we just have to believe. As if lack of belief is the real problem.

Agree with everything else you said (especially about the WRs) but I don't believe you or most Skins fans would be satisfied with an 8-8 season. Zorn was 8-8 his first year. It's not exactly a high bar. This is the NFL, things are fluid. Unless a team is obviously rebuilding, like the Rams, I think you have to be hoping for the playoffs. Football Outsiders has a 9.2 win estimate for the Skins this season (tied for highest in the division) so that's what I'm setting my sights on. 10 wins should be the goal, IMO.

Also this team isn't exactly overflowing with young talent. Picking up McNabb plus the 2006 Pro Bowl RB squad, Jamaal Brown and not cutting Fat Albert it's clear Shanny's in win now mode. Future doesn't look so bright - all those skeleton crew drafts where we'd end up with 5 guys, 3 of which were non-impact 6th-7th rounders means we don't have that young talent base to both backup our starters and provide hope for the future. As far as young guys it's pretty much hoping on Orakpo, Trent Williams, Fred Davis and maybe Devin Thomas and Laron Landry. That's it. The problem with the myopic "win now" philosophy they've been using and failing at for 10 years is that it forces a similar set of expectations on the fans. We have to enjoy the moment because there isn't that bright future...ever.

So I'll be happy with a solid looking first preseason game knowing how little it actually means except that nothing disastrous happened and that guys got a bit of confidence. I'll enjoy the today because there isn't necessarily a tomorrow. And that goes for the whole NFL right now as, I hate to say it, there's at least a decent chance of a lockout next year as fools seem intent on throttling the golden goose.

[Maithanet]

Agree with everything else you said (especially about the WRs) but I don't believe you or most Skins fans would be satisfied with an 8-8 season. Zorn was 8-8 his first year. It's not exactly a high bar. This is the NFL, things are fluid. Unless a team is obviously rebuilding, like the Rams, I think you have to be hoping for the playoffs. Football Outsiders has a 9.2 win estimate for the Skins this season (tied for highest in the division) so that's what I'm setting my sights on. 10 wins should be the goal, IMO.

Also this team isn't exactly overflowing with young talent. Picking up McNabb plus the 2006 Pro Bowl RB squad, Jamaal Brown and not cutting Fat Albert it's clear Shanny's in win now mode. Future doesn't look so bright - all those skeleton crew drafts where we'd end up with 5 guys, 3 of which were non-impact 6th-7th rounders means we don't have that young talent base to both backup our starters and provide hope for the future. As far as young guys it's pretty much hoping on Orakpo, Trent Williams, Fred Davis and maybe Devin Thomas and Laron Landry. That's it. The problem with the myopic "win now" philosophy they've been using and failing at for 10 years is that it forces a similar set of expectations on the fans. We have to enjoy the moment because there isn't that bright future...ever.

So I'll be happy with a solid looking first preseason game knowing how little it actually means except that nothing disastrous happened and that guys got a bit of confidence. I'll enjoy the today because there isn't necessarily a tomorrow. And that goes for the whole NFL right now as, I hate to say it, there's at least a decent chance of a lockout next year as fools seem intent on throttling the golden goose.

Well, not all 8-8 teams are the same. The 2008 squad was pretty abysmal in the second half of the season. We had like two good road wins in september (Philly, Dallas) and then after that we couldn't beat anybody that even sniffed the playoffs. If the Skins go 8-8 this year and beat bad teams, while remaining competitive against the top teams, then I will indeed be at least somewhat satisfied.

I agree that our team (particularly our defense) doesn't have a great deal of young talent. But I think next year isn't too late for us, and it takes more than one year to fix the problems we had in 09 (lack of O line, running attack, passing attack, and turnovers forced).

I still can't believe people would be stupid enough to strike in this economic climate. The amount of greed that would display would be simply staggering. I think a deal will happen.