NFL’s Change in Stance on Concussions Encouraging, Overdue

Jay Glazer of Fox Sports broke news this past weekend that the NFL will begin to require that teams consult independent neurologists or neurosurgeons prior to clearing players to play medically when reporting symptoms of a head injury.

But while it’s another in a long lines of moves by the league and its franchises to curtail the impact of concussions, there was some question as to whether the league is really on board regarding the protection of its players.

The program has already hit the ground running, with the Union’s medical director Dr. Thom Mayer and the league’s medical adviser approving independent doctors for half of the league’s teams, according to an Associated Press report.

It’s an encouraging sign. Concussions, like most injuries in the NFL, are not viewed as serious by the players as medical evidence suggests they should be.

Head injuries, in particular, can lead to lifelong neurological problems. While a career may only last three or four years, the problems from concussions can be far-reaching.

There is a great deal left to be hashed out, as detailed in the above report, including the logistics of how the neurologists will be paid, whether they’ll be present at the games and on the sidelines, and just what their authority will be limited to.

But it’s clear that the league and the union are no longer just paying lip service to the damage concussions can bring, especially if the neurologists have no other allegiance than to the players’ health.

Nobody is suggesting that team doctors are paid hacks doing the owner’s dirty work—this isn’t Any Given Sunday—but there is at least a conflict of interest when a doctor paid by the team has to tell a star player he can’t play because he may risk further head injury.

At the very least, by agreeing to allow independent neurological experts to make medical decisions that impact the fate of its franchises, the league is making a tacit admission that their could possibly be a scenario in which a team doctor is too close to the team to make the right call.

The league’s various independent advisors—everyone from John Madden to Mike Ditka—have also bent Roger Goodell’s ear over other issues, like preventing concussions during the week by perhaps forcing no-helmet practices.

It’s an interesting proposition. Coming from a rugby background, I can tell you that you don’t need a helmet to tackle somebody.

Football isn’t a tacking sport, though. It’s a collision sport. Watch any safety in the league make a hit and you’re rarely to see any sort of fundamental wrapping up.

In the hands of a defensive player, the helmet is the most dangerous weapon a football player has at his disposal, and you better believe players are coached to use it.

I think football should look to its long-lost cousin rugby for some more answers. In a sport that at times looks like one 80-minute long session of “kill the man with the ball,” rugby has long implemented several rules that require safe play.

They’re simply really:

A tackler must wrap up.

A tackle must be on his feet.

You can’t play the ball unless you’re on your feet.

These rules require a player to be on his feet and capable of protecting himself whenever he is involved in the play.

They’re simple, but they keep rugby a relatively safe sport. I’ve watched way too many football players pick up a rugby ball and try to barrel through somebody, helmet-less head leading the way, somehow imagining that is the proper, safe way to approach a group of people trying to bring you down.

But this is the way our football players are coached: To rely on the helmet, to use it as your first line of defense, a weapon.

I’m not saying outlawing the helmet makes sense. I’m not advocating we return to the days of leather wraps and tiny shoulder pads. I’m just saying that those involved with the game of football—fans, players, coaches, executives, writers, owners—should think more critically about what we want from the game and what is more important, player safety, or an extra satisfying *crack* on Sunday.

I’m glad the league is already taking the right steps to ensure that, for their part, they’re on the right side of the debate.

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Bill Belichick, Fourth and Two, and the Decision of The Decade

Early 20th century newspaperman Heywood Broun once wrote that “great circumstances produce great actors.”

Well, we saw the opposite last night as one of the principal players of this little Patriots-Colts rivalry handed Peyton Manning all the circumstance he needed with his incredible decision to go for it on 4th-and-two from the New England 28.

Now, I know a thing or two about questionable decisions.

There’s sampling “Forever Young” for Blueprint 3 questionable, and then there’s what Bill Belichick did.

It was all on Belichick’s face after his team turned the ball over, when he looked like a hungover college student looking at last night’s “dialed calls” list.

It’s a monumental decision that will be chewed over again and again this week.

Was it arrogance? Ballsiness? Imprudence? Foolhardy? Just plain stupid?

I don’t know, but (and bear with me here) looking at the decision analytically I can say that I don’t have a problem with the ultimate conclusion to commit to being in four down territory given the opposition and situation, despite the field position.

It’s not arrogance to assume your football team can get two yards in one down, let alone two.

Bill Belichick didn’t go for it because he wasn’t afraid of Peyton Manning. He did it because kicking the ball to Manning’s Colts when he has the two minute warning and a timeout is how plenty of coaches have lost football games in the past.

My real issue is that if Belichick was gutsy or savvy enough to already have it in his mind to go for it on fourth down from there—which would’ve been a pretty brilliant thing to know beforehand since nobody would’ve expected it—then why did he choose the play he did on third down? Why send the punter Chris Hanson out before calling timeout and letting Brady go for it?

If you already know that, barring a sack or a big loss on third down, you’re going for it the next play, then why put BenJarvus Green-Ellis (who has all of zero carries), as your lone back on the crucial third down play, and then pass the ball?

Even if you went into a two-back big set with Green-Ellis as the fullback, as he was on Maroney’s touchdown run earlier in the game, and run into the teeth of a third down blitz, you have to assume that you can get at least a yard or two, if not the first down, against a soft Colts interior defensive line.

Had they come out in a running formation, the Colts may have even guessed that they might pass, since they did the exact same thing on their last drive, with Brady hitting Randy Moss for four yards.

But lining up from the shotgun with only BenJarvus in the backfield just screamed pass to the Colts, who simply blitzed, played hard press coverage, and hoped they’d make Brady throw before somebody really got open.

If they simply ran a conventional run play from a running formation, which the Colts might’ve been wary to all-out commit to stopping given the aforementioned pass to Moss, the Patriots likely would’ve gained the first down or at least a yard.

Even if they’d been stuffed and were then in a fourth and one or fourth and inches, that opens the possibility to sneak and grab a first down that way.

Regardless of what may or may not have happened on the next play, running on third down at least forces Indianapolis to use their third timeout, which gives the Patriots a greater chance of stopping Manning if they did ultimately have to punt.

Do the Colts audible out of the blitz if Faulk, having the game of his life, is in there on third down instead of Maroney? If the Patriots ran on third, let the Colts burn their timeout, then ran the same play to Faulk on fourth do they challenge and get the first down?

These are the things we can only speculate about, but there are a thousand different ways the Patriots could’ve at least kept the Colts on their toes and instead they basically broadcast with their personnel selection that they were going to pass on third and short.

It’s funny, because if you pay heed to certain statistical analysis, Belichick is the least risk tolerant coach around.

Now I’m not privy to the communication between Belichick and his coaches or his players. I don’t know what led him to make the decision he made. I don’t know if they’ve run that play in practice 1,000 times and completed 1,000 of them for 3 yards.

But from where I’m sitting, it was the combination of a schizophrenic decision making process and a poor selection of plays and personnel on third and fourth down that cost the Patriots a deserved victory.

In a game where Manning and his receivers were on completely different pages at times, when Kevin Faulk looked like Adrian Peterson, when it was 55 degrees in November in New England, it’s only fitting that Bill Belichick mismanaged the clock and forced his team into giving up a victory that was all but in the bag.

I don’t really buy into all this “…of the decade” business (despite the headline), but in what has been a classic matchup of wits between Manning and Belichick, Bill may have finally out-thought himself.

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Breaking Down Patriots-Colts: Key Personnel Matchups to Watch

There are certain things to look forward to in November.

Turkey, Black Friday (if you’re not working), Turkey (leftovers edition), and the best tryptophan-induced nap of the year. 

But one thing I missed as a football fan last year is the seemingly inevitable showdown between the Colts and Patriots with an undefeated record on the line.

Last year the 4-4 Colts welcomed the 5-3 Patriots as a hobbled Peyton Manning took on Tom Brady’s replacement. It was one of the few times this decade the two teams took each other on without it feeling like a midseason Super Bowl.

Manning ultimately found his way to the MVP while the Patriots missed the playoffs, but it was an occasion lacking in the usual circumstance.

This Sunday, that flair is back as the undefeated Colts will take on the resurgent 6-2 Patriots.

Manning is playing as well as ever, Belichick is having a vintage season as coach of a group of players coming together as a group, Brady seems to have rebounded nicely, and all the stars are aligned for another classic matchup.

But these games go so far beyond Brady and Belichick and Manning. Though I’ll discuss the impact of those players as well, let’s look at some of the other positional battles for Sunday where the margin of victory will truly be eked out.

Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney vs. Nick Kaczur and Sebastian Vollmer

The stellar defensive end combination of Freeney and Mathis provides an incredible amount of bite and big play potential when the Colts line up in their standard four-man line.

Freeney, though he’s been fighting injuries the last couple years, is consistently one of the fastest rushers off the edge.

To his sizzle you can add Mathis’ pop. Mathis may be the premier strip-sack artist in the game. He’s not necessarily the most consistently dominant force on that side, but if he gets to the quarterback, it’s very likely he’ll knock the ball out.

It’s going to be especially difficult because the Patriots will still be without left tackle Matt Light.

In Light’s place has stepped rookie Sebastian Vollmer. Vollmer is an interesting story. A bruising 6’8”, 315 lb lineman from Germany, Vollmer only started playing football when he was 14 yet has developed considerably, especially this season.

Under offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia, he’s managed to protect Brady’s blindside despite being thrown headlong into the starter’s role with Light inactive.

Still, Freeney’s speed and considerable library of pass rushing moves can give even the most talented tackle fits. Vollmer’s size advantage will give the Patriots the opportunity to run hard to that side, but in pass protection he’ll have to be especially good if Brady and the offense want to get anything going.

Vollmer and the rest of the line did well to protect Brady from Miami’s pass rushers this past weekend, but they’ll face an even tougher test this weekend.

How they fare will go a long way to determine how successful the Patriots are as an offense.

Brandon McGowan and Gary Guyton versus Dallas Clark

One of the more puzzling personnel decisions last week—next to Miami man-covering Randy Moss once again—was Houston’s attempt to use rookie linebacker Brian Cushing to cover Dallas Clark one-on-one all game.

Clark’s final line? 16 targets, 14 receptions, 117 yards.

Cushing managed to defend one pass but was largely a victim of Clark’s rare combination of size and speed.

Yet, despite Clark’s considerable talent, he’s not the first top-tier tight end the Patriots have faced this year and, unlike Houston, the Patriots are somewhat better equipped to stop Clark.

Clark is most effective because he combines the speed of a wide receiver with the size and blocking ability of a classic tight end. It’s a wonderful hybrid position that has developed over the last two decades as passing games have become easier to execute.

Already this season the Patriots have faced two such tight ends: Tony Gonzales and Kellen Winslow.

While those two are perhaps less speedy than Clark, the Patriots covered both by having safety Brandon McGowan play man-to-man and shading help to his side.

The question is whether McGowan has the athleticism to stay with Clark the same way he shut down Winslow and Gonzales. The Patriots may also utilize speedy linebacker Gary Guyton, who ran the fastest 40-yard dash of any linebacker at the 2008 combine, to assist in the coverage.

It’s especially interesting to watch because both McGowan and Guyton entered the league as undrafted free agents and have played their way into starting roles. 

It’ll be fun to see how well they stack up against the 2003 first-round pick. If they can’t clamp down on Clark, it’ll be difficult for the Patriots to keep the ball in Manning’s hands long enough to reach him.

Colts’ Tackles vs. Adalius Thomas and Tully Banta-Cain

The Colts have played a kind of revolving door at tackle in the last couple years as Tarik Glenn gave way to Tony Ugoh and now Charlie Johnson.

Now Johnson and Ryan Diem mostly manage the outsides of the line and, despite their lack of quote-unquote pedigree, they’re performing as well as any line in the league in terms of pass blocking.

Much of that has to do with Manning’s ability to sense pressure and release the ball quickly, thus avoiding sacks, but even Manning can’t get all the credit for a line that’s only given up seven sacks and not allowed its quarterback to be hit a single time as he throws (according to ProFootballFocus.com )

Similarly, the outside linebacker spot has also gone through a great amount of recycling as Mike Vrabel, traded to the Chiefs, has been at one time or another been “replaced” by Pierre Woods, Shawn Crable, Derrick Burgess, and Tully Banta-Cain.

After making a good show of moving to the 4-3 defense, the Patriots have since returned to their more familiar 3-4 alignment (at least in base, which they’re only in about half the time according to ESPNBoston’s Mike Reiss).

That’s been predicated by circumstance, of course, but also by the fact that Banta-Cain and Thomas have been so good.

They’re not putting up gaudy numbers, necessarily. Banta-Cain has just 3 sacks, second on the team, and 10 QB pressures to his name, but he has consistently been a disruptive force to opposing quarterback this season, allowing an improved secondary to really take advantage and make some big plays.

Still, this will be the toughest test the Patriots have yet faced, trying to put pressure on a passing game that has been, to this point, nearly untouchable.

With a matchup with the New Orleans Saints looming just two more weeks down the line, it’s certainly a strong indicator of where the Patriot pass defense stands as a unit.

Laurence Maroney vs The Colts run defense/The World

This is less to do with the Colts specifically, but it’s been a weird season for Maroney.

Coming into this year you’d have an easier time finding an honest debate on health care than a New England fan supremely confident in Maroney’s abilities as a running back.

Even now that he has posted 248 yards and three touchdowns in the last three games, few are buying Maroney as a legitimate threat. 

Yet there he is, earning the praise of his coach, having just skewered the Dolphins (a pretty good run defense) for 82 yards and a score.

This week he gets to take on a banged-up Colts defense that, without Bob Sanders, is just not the same against the run.

It’s odd to hear him talk about “self-scouting” himself, talking about how he needs to be more patient behind his blocks while it seems like he’s always running on sand every time he hits the line.

You can’t argue with the results, though, as Maroney has seemed to balance hard running with patience at the perfect time with Fred Taylor and Sammy Morris held out with injuries.

The Patriots aren’t going to be a running team any time soon, that’s for sure. But they need to close out games with long, clock-killing drives that only short passes and solid first-down runs can.

If Maroney can do that for this team, he may finally get the respect as a runner that he looked like a lock to earn way back in 2006.

Still, three games a franchise back does not make, especially if he doesn’t continue to consistently show the burst and vision that he’s lacked in his career to this point.

Peyton Manning vs. Bill Belichick

This storyline has already been overblown somewhat just two days into this week, but it’s clear that each has succeeded at the expense of the other this decade.

Manning began his career against Belichick by going 1-7 including the playoffs, but has since turned it around winning four of the last five matchups.

It’s telling because Manning may go down as the premier quarterback of this era in terms of his ability to read a defense, make adjustments, and execute.

To call his 2009 season so far “vintage” is underselling what is already shaping up to be another MVP campaign.

As I wrote in my take on the MVP candidacies of the major contenders last week, I think Drew Brees deserves consideration for the award as well, but if Manning leads his team to a win on Sunday and finishes with 13 or more wins against a tough schedule, he deserves it.

Back-to-back MVPs—and perhaps another title—would certainly give him an even more credible case for being called the QB of the decade.

Brady has the titles and certainly the respect, but he doesn’t have the legacy of being the overwhelming football mind the way that Manning does.

I don’t know if I buy any of the “team of the decade” talk, but anytime you can see an all-time great quarterback run his offense against an all-time great coach trying to stop him, you have to tune in.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Fun Part’s Over: Tom Brady and Patriots Now Face Real Test

Generally, after eight games, you know what each team is about.

Injuries may heal or multiply, suspensions can be lifted or handed down, and players can still emerge or fade down the stretch.

But beyond all the vagaries the second half of the NFL season brings with it, pundits and fans alike generally understand what their team is going to be.

This year, in New England, that isn’t the case.

Depending on which game tape you review, the Patriots are a team that can’t run, can’t pass, can’t defend, and can’t play special teams…or they’re a team that can pass on anyone, run through the toughest defenses, and will swarm you and make game-winning plays on special teams and defense.

But over the next three weeks, the Patriots will face the toughest stretch of games they’ve had in years.

They begin by facing the undefeated if underwhelming (the last two weeks) Colts, then the plucky New York Jets, followed by the still-undefeated New Orleans Saints.

It’s an incredibly tough stretch.

The Jets have a top five defense and know they can beat the Patriots. They have the players in guys like Bart Scott and Darrelle Revis who can neutralize the big-play threat the Patriots bring.

The Colts will be without Bob Sanders, which hampers their ability on defense, but New England will have to somehow manage to stop Indianapolis when Peyton Manning is completing more than 70 percent of his passes.

New Orleans may be the toughest game. They have the defenders who can make the big plays, even if consistently they don’t necessarily jump out at you as a great defense. But the Saints are, by far, the most impressive offensive team in the NFL this year. Every week they seem to put together offensive games that are without comparison.

Today, they took on the Panthers who, in yardage terms, are the best passing defense in the NFL. They hung 30 points on them, with Brees throwing for 330 yards.

The Saints can beat you with the big play, they can beat you through the air, they can beat you on the ground. They’re a tough nut to crack.

But it’s the combination of these three games that will be the first real litmus test of the season for New England.

It may seem almost unthinkable after the Patriots systematically worked through their last three opponents, but every one of these games could be a loss.

Lose all three and New England will be sitting at 6-5 with a tough road to the playoffs and few believers left.

Win all three and they’ll have taken down two of the best teams in the league, their closest division rival, and can coast through to the playoffs with the league singing their praises.

Taking things “week by week” is the mantra of the Patriots under Bill Belichick, and that’s how they’re likely to approach it, but there’s no denying the entire regular season seems to boil down to these three games.

It starts next week against Indianapolis.

The Colts have done a phenomenal job of working in both the short and long ball. They’ve done that largely out of necessity, since their two real receiving threats are Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark with Marvin Harrison no longer in town.

Despite not having a second wide threat, the Colts have managed to keep defenses guessing the wrong way and adapt to any situation.

San Francisco and Houston have managed to keep them out of the endzone for the most part, but between the 20s, the Colts have dominated.

I’ll go more in-depth with the personnel matchups on Tuesday, but how the Patriots shut down Clark and Wayne will go a long way to determine how successful they’ll be against the undefeated Colts.

In the meantime, the Patriots and New England fans can sit pretty atop the AFC East knowing they have a virtual stranglehold on the division lead after beating the Dolphins.

While the Patriots closed the game out without too much trouble, it was far closer than the final 27-17 scoreline would lead you to believe.

The Dolphins again found success utilizing the Wildcat/option against the Patriots, with both their touchdowns in the game coming from those formations.

The Patriots have been able to stop conventional offenses quite well, with the best example being their game against Atlanta. Against athletic teams that bring more unusual looks on Sunday, the Patriots have had trouble.

It doesn’t mean much going against the Colts, Saints, and Jets, who tend to run more conventional, if differing, offenses, but down the line it has to be said that more teams than just Miami noticed they can make the Patriots nervous by changing things up a bit.

Still, that New England managed to contain what has been a solid Dolphins offense to just the two touchdowns is certainly a good sign. That they slowed on offense coming out of the bye week maybe is not.

It’s just another thing to question about this Patriots team.

That’s been the story of the season so far, though. Questions, questions, questions, with few answers coming.

The previous two weeks the Patriots looked as good as ever, but did so against teams who, while talented, were winless.

There aren’t a lot of those kinds of teams in the Patriots’ future, with their toughest part of the schedule right in front of them.

But with a mammoth stretch for the rest of the month, it won’t take us long to get some answers and figure out exactly where this team is and where it might go. 

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Brett Favre And Co.: the Five Best NFL Acquisitions of 2009

Every offseason in the NFL, teams that seem just on the cusp of becoming great aggressively go after the players they feel will be the final piece of the puzzle; guys with singular talents who can turn a potential 10-6 team into a real contender.

At the very least, teams are always looking to make a splash by signing the guy they feel will help them make the leap to the next echelon of NFL clubs.

Before this season guys like Derrick Ward, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Terrell Owens, and Jay Cutler all had that vibe of being poised for big things with their new digs.

Yet after eight weeks of regular season play, things haven’t worked out quite as well for those guys.

On the flip side, many acquisitions that may have seemed solid, but not great at the time have paid huge dividends for clubs.

It really is a tough old league.

With that, let’s look at what I view as the five most important acquisitions of this past offseason and the way they’ve helped their clubs best through these first games.

5. Gregg Williams/Darren Sharper/Jabari Greer, New Orleans Saints

This is a tough one for me because to my eyes defensive football, more than any other phase of the game, requires the combined efforts of eleven different men to be successful.

Have the Saints been a great defense this year? Not entirely. But they’re much better than last year and already have won games on the back of their defensive effort, largely due to the work of these three new faces.

Gregg Williams was viewed by many pundits, myself included, as a poor fit for New Orleans because his hyper-aggressive “kill anything that moves” style of defense simply didn’t fit the personnel that New Orleans had on the roster.

With the addition of safety Darren Sharper and cornerback Jabari Greer, that style of defense has become a possibility for New Orleans.

Sharper has already pulled down a mind-blowing seven interceptions while also playing solid in coverage and coming up against the run. Like other ball-hawk safeties in the league, he’s getting so that teams fear throwing in his direction, although as a safety he’s harder to avoid. 

With Sharper’s contributions the Saints have already caught more interceptions through seven games (16) than they did all of last season (15).

Greer, on the other hand, seems to have the ball thrown at him constantly.

Among corners in on at least 75 percent of their team’s defensive snaps, nobody has held quarterbacks to a lower rating than Greer. In 56 throws sent his way, or into his zone, Greer has only allowed a single touchdown all year.

If not for the contributions of these three guys and what they’ve done to help New Orleans pass defense, the Saints could kiss hopes of a perfect season goodbye.

4. Tully Banta-Cain, New England Patriots

News reports emerged not too long ago that indicated that Tully Banta-Cain had been cut right before the trade deadline.

To put it lightly, people were mystified.

Wasn’t this the guy who the Patriots had brought back from San Francisco after he began his career in Foxboro?

Wasn’t this the guy tied for the team lead in sacks? The only real pass-rushing presence on the field?

Wasn’t this the guy Derrick Burgess was supposed to be?

It was. And the Patriots had released him only so they could re-sign him to a long-term deal mere weeks into the regular season.

Whatever it was that Tully Banta-Cain didn’t have in New England and San Francisco didn’t see developing, the Patriots spotted it early.

The Patriots don’t make moves until absolutely necessary. Just ask Vince Wilfork.

That they went and got a deal done as soon as possible, rather than wait until after the season when multiple teams might go for Banta-Cain, says a lot about what he’s done this year in games and in practice.

Now, Banta-Cain is only one of a number of acquisitions on New England’s “way better than expected” 2009 defense.

Leigh Bodden, Shawn Springs, Brandon McGowan, the aforementioned Derrick Burgess, and Banta-Cain were all brought in to help revamp a defense that had gotten too old and too slow way too quick.

Now, the Patriots have yet to really play much in the way of talent offensively, but they shut out both Tampa Bay and Tennessee while also throwing a spanner in the works of Atlanta’s offense.

A lot of that is due to the guys not named Banta-Cain, as well as the old vets like Ty Warren and Vince Wilfork.

But with injuries mounting and Burgess largely inactive, Banta-Cain has been the one true pass-rush threat the Patriots have.

As I said before, defensive football requires a real team effort. If you’re missing one piece, you can have Night Train Lane out there and you’re going to get thrown on.

Banta-Cain is one of those pieces.

3. Rex Ryan, New York Jets

Sometimes it’s all about attitude.

With Rex, and the whole Ryan family, that’s certainly the case. The Jets have been a floundering team for much of this decade. Not always terrible, never really good enough to emerge from New England’s shadow.

You could always sense that they had the talent, but there was beginning to be this sense of malaise that just crept into that locker room every year as they sputtered to respectable, but not elite, finishes.

This year, Ryan brought a swagger to the team that, despite a tough stretch of losses to some very solid teams, hasn’t dissipated.

The Jets have a tough schedule. They always had a tough schedule, but many people ignored it after their hot start. I wouldn’t make the same mistake of ignoring the contributions of the Jets’ new head coach.

But their win over New England, though it was before Tom Brady’s reckoning or whatever you want to call it against the Titans, was a legitimate win.

Ryan out-coached Belichick, his players outplayed the Patriots, and his team steamrolled the Patriots, their biggest divisional obstacle this year.

I’m not a huge believer in the intangibles that a person brings. Chemistry rarely seems to mean much in an NFL locker room unless there’s a real poison pill and that only seems to rear its head when teams are losing.

In the NFL, it doesn’t matter anyway. Losing with guys you like and losing with guys you hate is still losing.

But Ryan has brought tangible benefits as well. First, he aggressively went after Bart Scott, whom he coached with Baltimore. Bart Scott, to my eyes, was the prize of last year’s free agent class and Ryan wooed him expertly to bring him to New York.

Scott hasn’t had a perfect season, but he’s a piece you can build around in New York and Ryan’s the reason he’s there.

Beyond that, Ryan’s fun to play for and he’s beginning to gain a reputation as a coach that is going places.

For the Jets, I’d say they’d consider it money well spent.

2. Kyle Orton, Denver Broncos

Did anybody think that Chicago got the short end of the deal here when they made the move to acquire the ever-petulant Jay Cutler before the season?

But through seven games it’s the Broncos who are laughing with a 6-1 record and the inside lane to a division title.

It would be easy to say that Orton has continued to manage games, to work within the confines of McDaniels’ system to achieve success that, coupled with their superb defensive effort, has led to wins.

That’s the general consensus, I feel. It’s also wrong.

Orton hasn’t blown the doors off the joint, true, but he’s also been more than a mere game manager.

A more apt word would be “clinical.” Orton seems to have lost the happy feet that always seemed to show up at the worst time in Chicago.

He plays with a sort of ease now as he seems to see the field better, avoiding the costly mistakes that derailed his career previously.

This year he’s thrown only a single interception and has dropped his interception/attempt percentage from an ugly 2.6 to 0.4 percent, best in the league.

He’s done that, though, by also occasionally allowing the ball to fly. It’s easy to not throw interceptions in the NFL. It really is. But by not taking risks you simply aren’t going to win football games.

Every now and then, you have to try and fit a ball into a space that seems too small. You have to try and float it over that linebacker to your receiver streaking across the middle.

You have to take risks. Orton has done that.

The Broncos took big risks by going after a rookie head coach and shipping their franchise quarterback out the door.

So far, those risks have paid off.

1. Brett Favre, Minnesota Vikings

Let’s face it, this team wouldn’t be 7-1 with Tarvaris Jackson.

Put me among those who think that Jackson actually could be a very serviceable quarterback somewhere, but not to the level that Minnesota needed this season.

The Vikings are a test case in alchemy.

Throw a bunch of ingredients together, boil in media attention and criticism, hope it doesn’t all explode, and pray you can turn a team that seems ohsoclose into a real title contender.

It has been largely done on the backs of guys the Vikings have brought in the last couple years, as well.

Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, Bernard Berrian, Jared Allen…and now, Brett Favre.

Favre is not a long-term solution. That much is obvious. But the Vikings aren’t thinking long-term. They knew they had a defense that could win a Super Bowl.

They knew they had an offensive line and a running game that could win a Super Bowl.

What they didn’t have was a guy who could come in and make plays when necessary and avoid mistakes whenever possible.

So far, that’s the Brett Favre they’ve gotten.

The key to this team is going to be health and home-field advantage. Right now, Brett is enjoying a career renaissance and it has to, at least in some small part, be attributed to the fact he’s in a dome again.

The last half decade we’ve watched as Brett struggled in cold weather down the stretch.

If the Vikings keep winning, that won’t really be a problem.

And after the season is all over, after a king’s ransom for a former rival QB in his 40s, and, perhaps, after a Super Bowl trophy, the Vikings will know they made the boldest move and it paid off in a big way.

 

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NFL MVP: Who’s Leading, Who’s Lagging, and Who Should Be Turning Heads

After just barely two months of regular season play we’ve already seen players rise and fall, teams championed one week and dismissed the next, and a host of MVP candidates fall by the wayside.

But as interesting as the twists and turns of the 2009 season have been, the MVP race is shaping up to be an historic one.

We’ve got great running backs you’d never expect, one quarterback who could shatter the single season yardage mark, another QB who could lead his team to an undefeated season, and another QB is on pace to throw more passes in a single year than anyone before him.

Add to that the fact that the single season interception mark for a defender might also fall (outside shot) and it’s looking like one barn-burner of a competition for MVP.

Let’s look at the top couple candidates and their cases for being named the league’s best expense, while also throwing in a few dark horse candidates who could really turn it on late with easy second-half schedules.

(NOTE: All stats are prior to Week 8 unless otherwise noted)

 

No. 1 in the Book: Drew Brees

Brees is small for an NFL quarterback at barely over six feet. He can barely see over his offensive line. He was once compared, by Union-Tribune columnist Tim Sullivan, to the writer’s dinged, dented, and worn-out Dodge:

“I’ll get around to getting a new car right after Marty Schottenheimer gets around to getting a new quarterback.

For now, I’m content with the Breesmobile.

There’s a parallel here somewhere, and a certain amount of obstinacy. Like Schottenheimer, I’m wondering why I should go to all of the trouble of breaking in a brand-new model when the old one is almost adequate”

Sullivan wrote that back in 2004 , when the Philip Rivers/Drew Brees controversy was still fresh.

I think it’s safe to say the 29-year-old Drew Brees won’t be described as “almost adequate” too often this season.

Still, Brees is used to being disrespected, even when he puts up the numbers. Last season, for example, he threw for 5069 yards, a whole 15 yards short of Marino’s record. And he did that without a healthy Marques Colston for much of the year.

How many MVP votes did Brees garner for coming 200 yards closer to the record than any QB since Marino set the record (including 2001 MVP Kurt Warner and 2007 MVP Tom Brady)? Nada. Not a single vote . This in a year when Chad Pennington had four votes out of 50.

This year, he’s going to be impossible to overlook.

Not when his quarterback rating (a flawed statistic, but useful as a baseline comparison) is a plump 106.9 for the season and he’s on pace to, once again, throw for more than 4,500 yards and, despite all the odds, his season is likely to get much better.

Plenty of teams feast on easy early schedules, driving their stars to MVP-calibre stats. Sometimes it’s just a matter of beating what’s in front of you, sometimes a player benefits from that early opening and fades down the stretch. There are guys in this very list who will fall into each category.

But let’s look at who Brees has put up such fantastic numbers against this season:

Week 1: Detroit

Week 2: @ Philadelphia

Week 3: @ Buffalo

Week 4: New York Jets

Week 5: Bye

Week 6: New York Giants

Week 7: @ Miami

Now Detroit is a bit of a soft game for most QBs, but Buffalo, the two New York teams, Philadelphia, and Miami all have pass defenses which are certainly talented and have performed well.

Miami and the Giants can always get after the passer while Buffalo, the Jets, and Philly are all superb cover teams.

It may be why Brees’ is “only” throwing for 283 yards/game right now with “only” 14 touchdowns (though that number is skewed by the 6 he threw against Detroit, throwing for exactly 0 scores against Buffalo and the Jets).

The rest of the year the best pass defense he’ll have to face is Carolina (twice), but Carolina is giving up heaps of points, though they yield few yards in the air.

What’s more enticing is the fact that of the remaining 10 games on the Saints’ schedule, seven are played in domes. The other three are played in Carolina, Washington, D.C., and Tampa—hardly the most difficult travel or weather conditions for a QB to throw in.

With all the toughest defenses he’ll have to face likely behind him, a healthy and athletic set of receivers, and a solid running game to rely on, Drew Brees can make a real run at any number of single-season records this year, virtually ensuring the MVP candidacy that he more than earned last year.

 

No. 1 in Your Hearts: Peyton Manning

I’m putting Peyton’s odds on par with Drew Brees here because, statistically, Manning is having another phenomenal year right on par with his 2004 season and, let’s face it, Manning does have the reputation of owning that team. 

He’s leading the league in yards per game, completion percentage (72.6%!) and quarterback rating while blasting through his early season schedule.

(Just to track back to how ridiculous it was that Brees received no recognition for last season, Manning is still on pace to barely crack 5,000 yards and would fall short of Brees’ 2008 mark if he keeps it up, yet blows the league average away prior to this weekend.)

Manning still has to face some tough defenses down the stretch, as well. He has the Jets and Buffalo in the final two weeks as well as Denver in week 14, but he also has the benefit of playing at home and in warm weather through most of the rest of the year.

Still, his defense should improve with Bob Sanders returning and he and Reggie Wayne have that same type of connection that Manning used to enjoy with Marvin Harrison.

He’s also got some extra help from his receivers, at least compared to Brees. According to Stats LLC, he’s benefited from nearly 300 yards more after the catch than his counterpart from New Orleans.

Again though, when the name P. Manning is on the ballot and his team is undefeated, he’s going to give most voters a myopia that only breaking Marino’s record could cure.

 

Already Being Overlooked: Aaron Rodgers

Call this the “dark horse candidate that nobody is noticing.”

The only numbers that seem to be associated with Rodgers’ name right now are these:

Two losses to the Vikings. Sacked more times than any other quarterback (25 total). Meager 4-3 record after yesterday.

If you polled the average, casual fan right now you’d probably think his former teammate Favre’s having the better season. 

First in the league in yards per attempt (the most underrated stat there is for a quarterback) with 9.3 yard per throw, a full half yard better than anybody else and nearly two yards better than Favre.

Sixth in total yards (Favre’s eighth, just 14 yards behind…after 45 more throws). More dropped passes (19) than any other QB has had to endure except Carson Palmer.

Mammoth 110.9 QB rating (again, a flawed stat, but it’s flawed for everyone, its flaws are less magnified given a larger sample size, and it’s well-understood so I’ll stick with it), second in the league, just 4 points behind Peyton Manning, despite being sacked 23 more times than the Indy man already this year.

65.8% completion percentage, with just two interceptions.

The reason I compare him to Favre so much in this little writeup here is because I will stake that, barring a minor statistical miracle like Green Bay winning out their season schedule while the Vikings go into the tank, Favre will finish with more MVP votes than Rodgers.

Based on the stats both have put up thus far, that would be a huge mistake.

 

The Rest of the Pack

I originally was going to through each other candidate in-depth but, having looked at the numbers and based on history, I don’t see anybody but a QB coming out of the field right now.

Still, let’s look at some of the guys who certainly deserve some recognition for the great work they’ve done so far. I’ll go through just some guys I feel deserve more recognition for their phenomenal work thus far.

Safeties Darren Sharper/Brandon Meriweather

Both have taken on leadership roles for teams who had poor pass coverage last year, yet both teams have improved markedly in that department through great offseason acquisitions.

Meriweather only has two interceptions to Sharper’s league-leading six (prior to Week 8, as Sharper is still playing as of this writing), but both are just dominating those around them.

Hanging on QB rating still, Sharper is holding opposing QBs to a 28.7 when they throw at him, Meriweather to a phenomenal 19.4, both top-10 in the league for safeties.

Meriweather already has 21 tackles, seven assists to Sharper’s 14 and two. Just great work all around from two guys playing at a very high level.

CB, Jabari Greer

Sticking with New Orleans, people just keep picking on this man. The offseason addition from Buffalo has been thrown at 46 times, seventh-most in the league. Yet despite that, he’s allowed just 150 yards total from all those passes, has missed just two tackles, has personally defensed eight passes, and has one interception.

Outstanding. Simply outstanding.

OLB, James Harrison

I’m going to be a bit unfair here and not separate between 3-4 and 4-3 OLBs, but Harrison destroys any of his 4-3 compatriots anyway, so it doesn’t have much real effect.

In the OLB game, pressure on the QB is key.

There are guys who have more sacks. There are guys who have more QB hits. There are guys who have more QB pressures.

Nobody (although DeMarcus Ware is right behind him) has his combination of the three.

Now, he does play for a better defense than most other OLBs, but he’s likely earning his second consecutive Defensive Player of the Year award.

Key word: earning.

RB, Cedric Benson

It’d take a miracle for this to turn into an MVP season, but comeback player of the year (were it a non-Tom Brady recovery year), much?

Benson is out to prove something to someone. I haven’t seen somebody this out for blood since Twilight. Not that I saw Twilight or anything…Moving on.

Pop quiz: who leads the league in yards, yards after contact, and attempts?

If you answered Adrian Peterson, you’d be wrong. It’s Cedric Benson. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, I listed his name maybe five lines above this in bold.

But still, I mean…Cedric Benson. If he keeps this up for the rest of the season, I won’t have to say it (well…write it) like that anymore.

RB, Adrian Peterson.

Is he necessarily earning it (relative to his peers) yet? Not especially.

Could he? Certainly, he’s as capable as anybody of destroying the second half of his schedule.

Do I care that he’s not really leading any single category? Obviously not.

He’s the most exciting player in the league. You’ll tell your kids about the time you saw him play. You’ll tell your wife. She’ll roll her eyes. You’ll tell your husband. Then you can high-five about how awesome Adrian Peterson is. He’ll bring your family closer together.

But on the level, he’s one of the few players in the league you simply can’t turn away from.

Seriously, just watch this . Oh, and you may want to check out this.

But the best one? This.

Jimmy Hoffa didn’t get buried that deep in the turf.

Just watch at the 20-25 second mark. That was the Steelers sideline he was standing on as he screamed like he just beheaded someone. Now that takes gumption.

Actually, he may have actually separated head from body. Did anyone check on William Gay after the play or was there even enough for a positive identification?

So that’s who I’m looking at for MVP so far. Of course there are other candidates, so feel free to shout them out in the comments.

Unless you’re Adrian Peterson, you don’t have to crush William Gay’s body into a fine powder before doing so.

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NFL Expansion: The Case Against the Far Side of the World

With the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers playing to a sold-out crowd in London last night, one of the hot topics of discussion has been the idea of putting an NFL franchise somewhere in England.

I’ll get to my review of the game later in the week (The cliff’s notes: penalties are becoming a big problem for every unit, special teams continues to be hit-or-miss, and the running game seemed incapable of building on a solid week against Tennessee. It’s going to be a big bye week for the Patriots), but for now, let’s just chew on the fat from the game: the idea of expansion.

Now, I’m a big fan of history. There’s a reason George Washington once cautioned us against entangling alliances with foreign nations and—I’m a little hazy on the exact details—I’m pretty sure it was because he knew being stuck on an airplane for six-plus hours was a chore.

Don’t get me wrong, I am consistently impressed with British citizens and their understanding of American football. It’s more than a curiosity; for some, it’s a bit of a passion.

I compare it to many Americans, myself included, and their enduring love of the Premier League.

For instance, I’ve been a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC since I was laid-up one summer as a kid and caught some ancient replay of one of their games on television. I know my Arsenal and Premier League history as well as anybody, but I don’t expect an EPL team to be playing all their home games in the states anytime soon.

The Premier League would be in an even better position to generate an audience overseas than the NFL. It’s an international game that is a known quantity and appeals to a wider demographic than any other, would instantly give Americans a team to rally around that plays at the highest level, and it would generate more copy than a Megan Fox sex tape. 

The downside, though, is obvious—for either league. The travel would instantly create a huge competitive disadvantage for whichever team was away, the quality of the product would slip, and without a guarantee of success, it’s a huge financial risk to anybody brought on board.

Furthermore, the NFL, at least in the current climate, has expanded enough as it is.

I don’t mean that there aren’t enough good NFL teams because, despite what many pundits have said about the bottom four or five teams in the league, the middle has greatly improved itself.

I made this argument earlier this season, but I actually think there are more quality football teams this season than there have been in the last few years.

I don’t think the Saints, Vikings, Colts, or Giants are any worse than teams in past years who steamrolled the league, I just believe they are facing more competent teams this year who can give them a game.

But the league should be concerned less about the quality of the product on the field than the quantity of fans in the stands.

The NFL instituted the local blackout policy as a way to ensure that games were always going to be sold out and ratings would remain high. But with so few regular season games compared to sports like basketball, baseball, and even hockey, there’s a desperate need to make the most of them.

And yet, nearly one-third of the league’s teams live under the constant threat of possible blackouts with such an unsettled economic situation.

While many teams have been able to avoid blackouts with extensions provided by the league, one has to wonder if—in a country where the league is not a priority—such blackouts could be avoided.

Still, travel is always getting faster and more comfortable. The Patriots were able to fly nearly painlessly, according to player interviews from several media organizations, by flying with seats that extended to become beds.

With the ability to comfortably sleep through travel, a six-hour flight doesn’t seem so bad. Unfortunately, though, a 12-hour flight would drag on anybody’s system, asleep or not. 

Even the economic situation will, eventually, find itself a solution. And I do believe that in a more certain economic climate, with money to burn, it makes sense to try and establish the sport in new places.

But the biggest flaw the argument for expansion has is the simple fact that the NFL has yet to exhaust its potential in North America.

Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Toronto, San Antonio, Virginia, and Portland could all support an NFL franchise, and that’s just the areas that have seen substantial population growth in the last eight years.

L.A. certainly could use an NFL team, the Vegas metro area has a population growing far faster than cities like Detroit or Jacksonville, as does San Antonio and Virginia in counties not named Alexandria and Arlington (Redskin territory).

It just makes no sense to overlook the huge potential of American cities that currently go without to pursue expansion.

Especially compared to sports like soccer and baseball, the NFL has to seriously grow its global brand. England is as good a place as any to do it, but there are far less risky, far more deserving, and far more sensible places to put an NFL franchise than London.

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NFL: Through First Five Weeks, Best Teams Still Unknown

I’ve watched the NFL long enough to know that, even in the salary cap era, it doesn’t take long for the strong to separate themselves from the weak.

Yet this year, that doesn’t seem to have happened to the degree we might be used to.

What is most puzzling is that, going into Week Five, there were still five undefeated teams, a mark that’s among the best in NFL history.

But despite what seems like a record pace, all but one of those teams—Indianapolis, Denver, the Giants, New Orleans, and Minnesota—have looked extraordinarily vulnerable in at least one of their early games.

Going undefeated through Week Five is nice and all, but it’s a little early for the cracks to show, by normal standards.

The Colts, Broncos, and Vikings alone already have had to depend on long pass plays late to win games they were thoroughly outplayed in.

Denver managed that feat in historic fashion with their tip-drill-esque victory against the Bengals.

The Colts were outplayed by Miami in just about every facet of the game on Monday night in week two before managing to squeak out a victory thanks to Pierre Garcon’s phenomenal run after catching a short Peyton Manning pass.

The Vikings even needed a Hail Mary pass from Brett Favre before pulling out a victory against the 49ers.

The Giants and New Orleans have looked the better of the undefeated teams but the Saints’ only truly convincing performance came against the Jets, who also lost to Miami, and the Giants haven’t really played anybody of consequence yet.

The Saints look improved on defense despite not making many moves this offseason in that regard. They may have to score 35 points a game if they want to keep up this pace, but they just might do it.

Luckily for us fans of the league, the Giants and New Orleans happen to be pitted against one another next weekend. But until then, we’re left to wonder: what happened to a good old fashioned barn stormer? What happened to teams rolling in against a good team and just blowing the doors off the joint?

The truth is that there are a lot more teams in the league that are on level footing than there have been in years.

Now, the numbers point to the fact that when it comes to playoff implications, it’s unlikely any of the five teams listed above are going to miss the playoffs, but the possibility’s now there for one of the most interesting stretches of the last few years.

If you keep up with the weekly features on the league, specifically the power rankings that every media outlet seems to do, there’s a pretty interesting trend: teams at the top who are anything but convincing, as I talked about above, and teams at the bottom who are convincing but just not winning football games.

Take Miami and Tennessee, for a perfect example. Miami started the season 0-3, losing to the Falcons, Colts, and San Diego—three pretty good teams—but arguably played well enough to win a couple of those games.

Miami proved their supporters right last night, taking it to the Jets in Florida and earning a great deal of validation in the process.

The Tennessee Titans are a bit more of an enigma, as they currently sit winless, bottom of their division, largely a victim of a schedule that put them up against the Colts, Jaguars, Houston, the Steelers in the season opener, and the Jets. 

I don’t think I’ve seen “most talented team without a win” written so much in all my life.

The Titans have really dug their own grave, but they are a good team that’s just had the misfortune of playing better ones. 

It’s true all across the league. The Patriots are 3-2 and could easily be 1-4, the Bengals are 4-1 and could be 5-0 or 2-3, the Colts could be 2-3, etc.

The Giants are really the only team that I would take, hands down, against every other team in the league right now.

There’s a lot of reasons for this new trend. The league-built methods of ensuring parity—the salary cap, the draft, and the like—are part of it, for sure.

Part of it has also been that several of the best coordinators in the league who made unsuccessful leaps to head coach, or were languishing in other capacities across the league, have returned to the coordinator game.

Cam Cameron in Baltimore, Scott Linehan in Detroit, Mike Nolan in Denver, Dom Capers in Green Bay, Dan Henning in Miami, Gregg Williams now in New Orleans, each of them seems perfectly at home with their current responsibilities.

There are others who deserve mentioning, of course, but across the league there are a lot of guys who are doing a great job of utilizing the talent they’ve been given and putting their teams in a position to win. 

Cam Cameron has brought a conservative physicality to the Baltimore Ravens, with a heavy emphasis on the run game. Doing so has allowed his young quarterback to blossom while still giving the Ravens the opportunity to win games.

Scott Linehan is in a tough position, but so far he’s managed to put together a pretty good offense despite working with a rookie quarterback and having to play catch-up for much of the game so far.

Ditto for Mike Nolan who has Denver’s defense playing simple, effective football on their end while taking calculated risks. For example, against New England, Nolan and the Broncos often put Champ Bailey on players other than All-World receiver Randy Moss, keeping their safeties over the top to limit Moss while daring Brady to try them deep.

Moss’ bad back seemed to really limit him this week and while the Broncos looked like they were in for a long day at halftime, they clamped down in the second half, forcing the Patriots to go 0-7 on third down in the second half.

Dom Capers and Gregg Williams have brought aggressive schemes to their new teams and have already seen dividends. Williams looked like he would have to just tread water this year, trying to implement a blitz-heavy style with a team that didn’t seem built for the transition.

Tell that to the Jets, who saw a Saints defense that has taken a lot of heat in the past 18 months pressure them right out of the game.

That’s just part of the story, but whatever you want to chalk the abnormal parity up to, 2009 is already shaping up to be one of the best seasons to watch that I can remember.

And we’ve still got 12 weeks to go.

God, I love football.

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Braylon Edwards Trade Adds New Dimension To New York Jets, AFC East Race

News broke early today that Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards, recently caught up in a bit of controversy between himself and a friend of LeBron James, has been traded to the New York Jets.

It’s a curious move by any standard—you simply rarely see receivers of his caliber traded a month into the season—but even more curious given the circumstances.

While Browns coach Eric Mangini has assured the media and fans that the trade was not the result of his recent misconduct, one has to wonder why they would make the move now, especially a week after giving Derek Anderson, whose superb arm strength makes a deep threat all the more valuable, control over the team once again.

Edwards’ best season came in 2007, when he finished with nearly 1,300 yards as both he and Derek Anderson enjoyed breakout seasons.

Since then, both have struggled, with Edwards catching just 55 passes in 2008 and just 10 so far this season.

For the Jets, the price was rather steep. They gave up a conditional third round pick, a fifth round pick, special teamer Jason Trusnik, and receiver Chansi Stuckey.

That third rounder will even become a second rounder, should Edwards catch a certain amount of passes. While the number’s undisclosed, one would have to imagine it’s higher than his career-best 80 catches.

The Jets have lacked a complementary threat to Jerricho Cotchery this season after Laveranues Coles made his way to Cincinnati in the offseason.

Cotchery is a fine receiver, but it’s difficult for any single player to pose much of an offensive threat by himself. Tight end Dustin Keller is second on the team in receptions, but has had to do more blocking work this year and has caught just 12 passes in four games. 

On the field, Edwards is a bit of an unknown. He’s been in the league for five seasons now and has been relatively healthy throughout, though he slumped considerably last year after his breakout 2007 campaign.

I’d expect to see him play a role more as a big-play downfield threat, similar to the way Santonio Holmes complemented the more consistent Hines Ward in recent years. Cotchery’s success so far this year, with 23 catches for 356 yards and a touchdown, should mean that New York will still continue to get him the ball regularly.

But Edwards is a big-play threat. In each of his first four years in the league, Edwards has had at least one play of 70 yards or greater.

Off the field, the move seems to indicate that the Jets are looking to keep the pressure on the rest of the division after losing to the Saints this past weekend.

Given that the Jets, somewhat unexpectedly, stand atop the AFC East, they obviously feel that now is the time to make an aggressive move.

It’s a stiff price for a guy who has made just one Pro Bowl, is in the final year of his contract, and has run into some trouble recently.

The Jets can franchise or renegotiate with Edwards, of course, and at 26 he still has plenty of upside, but for now two draft picks and two players is a lot to pay for a one-year player.

To my eyes, this is a shot over the bow of the New England Patriots and the rest of the league that the Jets are serious about challenging now, and that the first four games are merely a sign of things to come.

The Jets now have two really prime receiving threats, a great running game, a very good, proud offensive line, and a defense that has proven as tenacious as its coach.

While the timing is a bit odd, it’s not a totally surprise move. The Jets have looked for a deep-play threat since Coles and the team parted ways, but with Plaxico Burress now in jail and Brandon Marshall and his coach making nice in Denver, Edwards was really the last premier receiver available.

The question now is whether the Jets can get him the ball, and whether the Browns can get an already struggling offense off the ground with their best two receiving threats of this decade playing in Tampa Bay and New York.

 

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The New England Patriots’ Offensive Line: Unsung Heroes of 2009

I’ve got a little quiz for you: if you talk about the best rushing teams in the league, what teams come to mind?

Baltimore surely does, with their gaudy 156.7 yard per game average this season after leading the league in attempts last season.

The Giants may have an offensive line that is full of relative unknowns to the casual fan, but they led the league last year in running the ball. And Brandon Jacobs is surely a household name by now.

Miami’s “Wildcat” deserves credit, the Minnesota Vikings and Adrian Peterson, of course, and you can’t forget Michael Turner and the Atlanta Falcons.

If you look back to last season though, it might surprise you to find one name tailing just behind the top five in rushing: the New England Patriots.

After the drubbing they took following their loss in the 2007 Super Bowl, the New England offensive line has had a hard time reclaiming their reputation as an elite unit.

Yet last season the Patriots blocked for a patchwork group of running backs, probably none as naturally talented as the headliners of the other aforementioned teams, leading the team to a superb 4.4 yards per carry average.

I’m not cherry-picking stats here, either. Last season the Patriots were sixth in yards per carry, sixth in total yards, fourth in attempts, sixth in yards per game, first in rushing for first downs, and only fumbled four times all year.

The only number they really lagged behind in was plays longer than 20 and 40 yards, a sign they simply lacked the game-breaking backs other teams benefit from—something clearly not hindering their overall game.

It’s just madness that I keep hearing about the running game in New England being a “liability” or, worse even, that they lack an elite offensive line.

This year, rushing attempts are down quite a bit as the Patriots heavily favored the pass these first three weeks as they try to get Tom Brady involved in the offense.

Thus far in 2009 they have attempted 142 passes, the most in the league, versus just 82 rushing attempts. 

While they had a much more balanced attack against the Falcons, and were more successful because of it, it’s a different game plan than last year, when attempts were firmly split down the middle between run and pass.

Going into this year though, with Brady back, obviously the onus would be on the offensive line to not only be better overall at pass blocking than last year (48 sacks allowed in 2008), but to also do as much as possible to prevent a repeat of last year’s injury to Brady.

So how has the offensive line responded?

They haven’t allowed a sack in two games, and have only given up one sack total so far.

Only one other team has equaled the Patriots’ effort on the front line: The New York Giants, who have passed the ball 48 fewer times.

It’s rare that a single unit can be so good at two completely different jobs. (Something the Giants also deserve credit for)

Pass blocking requires superior footwork and excellent technique. It requires teamwork, unbelievable natural strength, and a knowledge of the offense’s responsibilities that’s second only to the quarterback’s.

Pass blocking is often a job that requires channeling the aggressive movements of the defensive linemen, shifting blocking responsibilities and making snap, tactical decisions about who, when, and how to block.

If you try to finesse a lineman who is bull-rushing you, you’ll get run over. Try to aggressively shove a defensive linemen who is giving you a speed move and he’ll blow past you.

Run blocking, however, is an entirely different animal.

Run blocking is about unparalleled aggression, asking a lineman to burst off the line, tearing through 300 pound defensive linemen to open running lanes for his back. It’s heavy on heavy.

Now, there are technical aspects to run blocking, of course. Pulling/trapping guard, draw plays, counters, etc.—they all require timing perfected only through endless repetition, but they differ greatly from the tasks asked of a linemen who is pass blocking.

And it’s no simple thing to be successful at both, either.

Look at the phenomenal run blocking units in the league like Minnesota and Carolina. They’re not terrible pass blocking teams, but they hardly stand out from the pack, giving up nine sacks each this season. 

Now, I’ll allow that Brady gets the ball out quicker than most, and certainly had to against the heavy pressure brought by the New York Jets in Week Two, but he’s also done it without Wes Welker, his usual safety valve.

Julian Edelman is a serviceable replacement, but some have even gone so far as to call Welker Brady’s “safety blanket.”

Maybe, after a stellar start to the season, another group deserves the title.

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