Anyone else into Football?

[_bcspace]

Should the Cards' Arians go for Alex Smith?
Will Philadelphia keep Michael Vick?
My team, the Dallas Cowboys, look to be another 8-8 team as long as JJ is GM.
Cowboy's new DC Monte Kiffin did not have success against the Chip Kelly offense and now he's in Philadelphia same division.
It's been more than five minutes and Rob Ryan has not been hired.

For the first time ever, I rooted for the Redskins after they beat Dallas at the end of the season. I grew up loving this commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8do9Y1rwQeA

But they looked like they had got it together and I love the zone read and I appreciate good football. RGIII was too injured to carry it forward though.

With parity in the NFL, I think coaches become more important which is why you'll be seeing even more upheaval in the future.

That 50 yard QB run TD from a spread option play by SF last week was a thing of beauty. Was as fun as watching the Ducks run it because I understand what's going on. Too bad I didn't get to see that game.

BYU? I think Bronco Mendenhall just saw his replacement get hired as OC. But this is not just any college. BYU could keep Bronco simply because of the way his speaking seems to drip "honor code". The pressure to win should eventually break that.

[_Kevin Graham]

I must be the only Atlanta fan hoping they lose on Sunday. I can't stand Matt Ryan.

[_Bond James Bond]

I'm cheering for Ravens and Falcons because I hate hate hate the Pats and Niners.

[_MeDotOrg]

Okay, it's Championship Sunday. I thought Denver would beat Baltimore, but otherwise the usual suspects. If I knew how to predict football games, I'd be on ESPN (or at least at the betting window). With that caveat...

San Francisco/Atlanta:

Can the Falcons find a way to deal with the Read Option? At least they should have learned from the Packers what NOT to do.

Will the 49'ers be able to put pressure on Matt Ryan? There is no way the Niner secondary can give the Falcon receivers too much time to get open. Got to have a good pass rush today.

Prediction: Niners have too many weapons. If the 49'er rush is working, it could be a long day for the Falcons.

My nagging doubt says that Kaepernick cannot afford to get behind. On the road in a dome is a tough task in a Championship game.

Baltimore/New England - Once again, the Ravens versus the Belichek/Brady bunch. Credit John Harbaugh for a juggling his line up when banged up, a great job of coaching this year. I would really like to see Niners/Ravens (the Brother Bowl) but I fear that New England has a little bit more. Close one to call (you have to be impressed with the Ravens win in Denver), but I like the Patriots.

Please feel free to mock me when it turns out to be a Bird Bowl (Falcons/Ravens).

[_Kevin Graham]

The Read Option wasn't an issue. The Falcons lost because of their sucky QB Matt Ryan who is a choke artist in these situations. Don't let the stats fool you. Julio Jones made Ryan look a lot better than he really is, but when it came to crunch time, Ryan made two crucial turnovers that cost them the game.

[_bcspace]

They just asked one of the 49'ers if they practiced the zone read before Alex Smith got benched. He said no. Didn't get his name or number though.

[_EAllusion]

In 2010 their heisman candidate LaMichael James was running all over the PAC-10 conference and their QB was running up scores to outrageous levels closing out games with scores of 72-0, 69-0 etc. They scored more than 50 points in half their games. That same year James rushed for over 1700 yds averaging well over 100 yds per game and more than 6 yds per carry. Clearly this team was an unstoppable force, right?

But in the BCS game against Auburn, Oregon's famous "triple option" threat was a non factor (which is why no one in the SEC uses it anymore) as James was reduced to 49 yds and only 3.8 yds per carry. Then in their first regular season game of 2011 they played another SEC team, LSU and lost by a score of 27-40. In that game James was again limited to just 50 yds with an abysmal 3.0 yds per carry.

Of course, after losing two straight games to SEC teams, Oregon continued business as usual playing their cupcake schedule and running up high scores to boost their standings in the polls. So after those two losses they scored 69 points in their next game and averaged well over 40 points for the rest of the season before losing a nail-biter to unranked USC and then suffered a close loss to Wisconsin in their bowl game.

Wisconsin lost to Oregon in the Rose Bowl. More to the point you are attempting to make, they absolutely shredded Wisconsin's defense. Granted, after a key loss in the secondary early in the year, Wisconsin's defensive secondary was garbage. If not for that injury, chances are they don't get beat on two hail marys during the regular season. Then they would've played against Alabama in the national championship where I would've liked their chances. But that didn't happen and instead they lost a shoot-out against an Oregon team that displayed no trouble at all moving the ball against them.

[_MeDotOrg]

If you were to ask me which colleges would be sending quarterbacks to the Superbowl, Maryland and Nevada would not be my first two picks. (Okay, Frank Reich was from Maryland).

Sort of feels like the changing of the guard. No Manning, Brees, Rogers, Brady, or the other Manning. Now there's Flacco, Kaepernick, Wilson, RGIII, and Luck.

[_palerobber]

Sort of feels like the changing of the guard. No Manning, Brees, Rogers, Brady, or the other Manning. Now there's Flacco, Kaepernick, Wilson, RGIII, and Luck.

two nits:
Rogers belongs more with the younger set -- he only became a starter in 2008.
Luck was near the bottom of the league in passer rating, terrible completion percentage and TD-INT ratio, cannot be considered one of the elite young QB's.

[_EAllusion]

No one on that list is an elite QB at this point. Several probably will be at some point, but MeDotOrg seems to be confusing winning games with individual performance. Joe Flacco isn't and will never be elite. He has one top tier skill - throwing deep with accuracy - and is otherwise a mediocre to poor QB in every other respect. At this phase of his career, that isn't likely to change and he'll remain a 3rd quartile quarterback.

QB's aren't pitchers in baseball. You can't credit them with wins and losses. Even the degree to which pitchers control the outcome of a game is grossly overstated outside of circles not familiar with advanced metrics, but in the case of QB's, their team's performance is even more dependent on factors outside of their control.