Terminal Thursday Thoughts

I've talked about this all week, and this is my last scheduled post of the cycle, so let me start and end with the reminder: if you're reading this blog and want it to continue more or less as I'm doing...

COMMENT ON THIS POST THIS WEEK!

The issue, of course, is that as much as I love doing this blog, as much as crunching numbers to quantify and align teams at their supposed performance levels is fun for me to do...the time and effort it takes to do the thorough job for all of the teams I feel need to be covered each week is more than I have available to me, at least when you combine that with my regular (read: "paying") job, caring for my children, and the deteriorating condition of my health (which has zero to do with this blog). 

In the past, I've had people from Idaho, California, Nevada, North Carolina and Washington who've contacted me about what they've read, and I've known through that kind of anecdotal evidence that we were reaching people, that what we were doing was valued by someone out there. It's not like we need a thousand regular readers, but if we don't have any, which is what the lack of comment feedback suggests, we're just "spitting into the wind", as they say.

If that's not the case, we need you to tell us so.

CONTACT us through the comment section on this or either of the other two posts over the last two days (our regular UPS and DOWNS column, and our PROPHECIES in PHOOTBALL overview of the weekend's procedings (which starts today with the Giants and "Redskins" - an article on line today suggesting the life expectancy of the latter name is close to becoming a finite, definable number). 

Here's a thought we were having ourselves that 538 picked up this morning - there seem to be a bunch of "good teams" in the NFL who have started their season 0-2, usually an indicator that the playoffs are out of reach for most. Consider this list of teams: Seattle, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Houston, Detroit, NJ Giants, and Philadelphia. History suggests that ONLY ONE of those seven teams will make it into the post-season! (I've not "forgotten" New Orleans and Chicago. That was intentional.) The chart below in the 538 article shows that of the 7-8 teams over the last two years to go 0-2, only one made the playoffs each year.To make the postseason, most of the time it'll take at least ten wins - and you only have fourteen games left to do so it. A tall order, given that something's not going well to begin with (or you wouldn't be 0-2!). 

(By the way, my thought is that the best bet for a playoff team out of this group is the winner of the Indy/Houston race, as Jax and the Titans are unlikely to reach more than eight wins apiece.)

The Eagles And Ravens Are Screwed
By REUBEN FISCHER-BAUM and CHADWICK MATLIN

We’re two weeks into the NFL season, and nine teams are 0-2. But these winless squads are not created equal: The Seattle Seahawks, last season’s NFC champion, are clearly in better shape than the terrible Chicago Bears. Still, two games is an eighth of the season, and two early losses can wipe out even the best teams’ margin of error for the rest of the season.

So, how bad is it to start 0-2? And which of these nine teams have already screwed up their playoff chances?

Another felon released in the NFL

Brandon Spikes was released by the Patriots today after his damaged car was found abandoned on I-495 in Foxborough a day earlier. Last week, the Chicago Bears released Ray McDonald after the latest of his domestic assault and dog attacks and other abuse and violent behaviors. No team seems to have the slightest interest in signing the talented McDonald, either.

What's the NFL coming to when you can't play in the league just because you're a certified felon with a large and recent history of unsafe behavior and no sign of changing?

(Good on ya, NFL!)

NFL ROUND-UP!

In the league that never sleeps, there's been lots of shuffling since we last looked in at the National Football League. Let's take a peek:

*Will the last one out of San Francisco's locker room please turn out the lights? Holy catfish, has that team become a mess all of a sudden!

*Philadelphia is definitely charting its own course - getting rid of DeSean and LeSean, two very talented players who DON'T fit the "Chip Kelly way", apparently. And while Stephen A Smith is known for saying ridiculous and outrageous things, and is being taken to task for his latest...I'm not so sure he's wrong. Those guys don't fit the way you do things, Mr. Kelly...but Riley Cooper does? Weird.

*Jeff Legwold has a great roundup of the major transactions and signings on ESPN today, including the departure of the Stupendous Stomper himself, Ndamukong Suh, to the Miami Dolphins for a contract said to be worth $114 million - only the fifth non-QB ever given a nine-figure contract. Notably (in my opinion), one of those other four was also a defensive lineman with an anger management problem, Albert Haynesworth, who was definitively not worth the contract. (The others include notables like JJ Watt, who so far is worth every penny.)

*Here's a notable non-trade: Jay Cutler is your 2015 Chicago Bears quarterback! Now...to make it work...

*While this is actually connected to the subscription part of ESPN ("Insider"), the visible-to-everyone section is a good tracker in itself to help you keep track of where every NFL free agent ends up.

Interesting Super Bowl Fact #5

Seattle won last year's Super Bowl by a score of 43-8, a winning margin of 35 points.

New England has three Super Bowl titles...won by a combined total of 9 points. (A field goal victory each time - 20-17 over the Rams, 32-29 over Carolina, and 24-21 over Philadelphia.)

If you count wins AND losses, Seattle's SMALLEST margin was 11 points, in a loss to Pittsburgh (21-10) in 2006.

Meanwhile, in the Belechick era, the LARGEST margin in any of their FIVE Super Bowls was 4 points, when the Giants beat them 21-17 in a game that every Pats fan has beaten out of their memory for sanity's sake.

(Of course, if you go back pre-Belechick, there WAS that one time in 1986, when Da Bears beat the Pats 46-10, in a game that wasn't even THAT close...)

Mike Ditka: I wouldn't want my kid playing football.

This short article is part of Peter King's regular Monday Morning QuarterBack column, the Taj Mahal of NFL weekly writing, on SI.com. If you don't read it weekly during the season, you can't really call yourself an NFL fan. 

We've touched on the dangers of concussions quite a lot here at Following Football, but this HBO feature includes some items on the famous 1985 Chicago Bears team that are downright frightening...

The Ditka stuff on HBO might surprise you.

On Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, HBO’s “Real Sports” with Bryant Gumbel will air a segment on the 1985 Chicago Bears, and in particular how several of the players from that team have suffered (and are suffering) from cognitive problems after their starry football careers. Quarterback Jim McMahon, whose head-trauma problems have been well-documented, gives this harrowing account about his current life with his live-in girlfriend: “The forgetfulness … I’d leave the bedroom, tell her I was going to the store, get a dip or something, and she’d come in there a half hour later, and I’m still standing there, wondering what I was going to do. And she said, ‘You were going to go to the store.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay.’  So I’ll go to the store, and then I’ll have to call her and say, ‘I don’t know how to get back home.’”

Ditka (Brian D. Kersey/Getty Images)

The Bears lost a safety from that era, Dave Duerson, to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2011, and an autopsy showed “moderately advanced” CTE, the brain malady that scores of deceased football players have been found to have. The coach of that team, Mike Ditka, has been outspoken that the league should be doing more—even more than the recent $765 million settlement with former players over brain trauma—and continued that with Gumbel. “What I would say to the commissioner, to the owners … You got an obligation and responsibility to those guys because you wouldn’t have a damn job right now if it wasn’t for those guys.”

When Gumbel asks Ditka, in effect, if this could end up being the ruination of the sport, Ditka says: “Let me ask you a question better than that. If you had an eight-year-old kid now, would you tell him you want him to play football?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Gumbel. “Would you?”

“No,” Ditka said. “That’s sad. I wouldn’t. And my whole life was football. I think the risk is worse than the reward. I really do.”

That’s Iron Mike Ditka, folks. Should be a piece well worth watching Tuesday night.

PREDICTIONS for Week 15!

Here we go! After a break-even week during the last regular season week of FBS games (although, remember that to our credit, we don't just have to be on the correct side of the line - we have to be closer to the actual result than Vegas was! Much harder to do!), we strive to call the quarter finals for the FCS playoffs and Week 15 of the NFL season...

[By the way, overall during these past five weeks since we've had the full Following Football ranking and rating system in place, we've gone 32-29 overall against Vegas' predictions, with three draws. Feelin' purdy guud 'bout thay-at!]

THURSDAY
Arizona @ St. Louis - Sagarin and FF both have Arizona winning this game (we say Cardinals by three; Sagarin ratings say 1.7); while Vegas is picking the surging Rams to win by 4.5 points. Winning team takes the point. And that winner is US! Arizona won the defensive battle 12-6, won game number 11, and proved that for this team, like other defensive powerhouses in the past (see: Ravens, Baltimore), it doesn't matter who's at quarterback.

FRIDAY
Chattanooga @ New Hampshire - we all think Chattanooga by 1-2 points. All of us were wrong - New Hampshire 35-30.

SATURDAY
Navy @ Army (actually a fairly neutral site game in Maryland) - Vegas, the Sagarin ratings, and Following Football are all picking the Naval Academy to win by 12-18 points. Navy took most of the first half to get going, so the margin of victory was only seven, 17-10. But it made for a good game!

FCS Quarterfinals - We differ with Sagarin on all of these (casinos don't set lines on FCS games)...North Dakota St over Coastal Carolina, but we say it'll be close (7 points) while the computer says it's 16.5 points NDSU's way. Cut off is halfway (below 12)...We pick Sam Houston St to beat Villanova on the road by 3; Sagarin says it's a tossup (technically, Villanova by "0.02 points"!) We'll take any SHSU victory as our point...Finally, some northwest pride: Sagarin chooses Illinois St by 8 over Eastern Washington in Cheney; we don't think they'll survive the fire-red turf and are picking EWU to win. Winner of the game or overtime, we get the point. NDSU by exactly seven! Sam Houston by exactly three! Eastern Washington by... Um, bye-bye, actually. Lost, 59-46, so that point goes to Vegas, but otherwise it's FF 3, Vegas 1!

SUNDAY
Only the games where we disagree somehow... hmmm....on most of these, we're all three pretty close (within three points)...Pittsburgh by 1-3 - by seven, 27-20...New England by 7.5 to 9 - more like 41-13, Brady!...Kansas City by 9-10 (Sagarin's a little higher), and so was reality: 31-6, KC, getting revenge for three weeks ago...Indianapolis by 7-8 - exactly right: 17-10 Colts...Baltimore by 13-14 (again, Sagarin's a bit higher on these big-spread games) Ravens by 8, 20-12...Green Bay by 5-6 - Buffalo's defense stifles GB with style, wins 21-13...Carolina by 6-7 (with Cam Newton questionable, we're surprised we still agree) - actually, TB stayed close, losing 19-17...Cincinnati/Cleveland is within a point either way (and it depends on how you count a first-time starting QB for the Browns) Cincy 30-0 over Manziel. Coaching error to start him, in our opinion...Denver by 2-4 - won by 12...Detroit by 8-9 - won by two...Seattle by 10-11 - on the nose!...Philadelphia by 3.5 to 5 - a landmark win for the Cowboys!

Two games we disagree on - we have the Giants  over Washington by 3.5; Vegas says it's 7. Split the difference and say five is the tipping point - Whoops; casinos were right here; margin was eleven...and we actually think Tennessee will beat the Jets by 1; the casinos are saying New Jersey by 2. (Sagarin kinda agrees with us; Titans by "0.3"...) Winner takes the point. And that turned out to be the casinos when the Jets pulled one out of the fire with a 16-11 victory. We're all tired up! FF 3, Vegas 3! It will all depend on the Saints and Bears! Can't remember the last time we actively rooted for Chicago, but here's goes! Rah! Rah! Sis boom bah! 

MONDAY
We REALLY disagree here! - The casinos argue New Orleans will win by 3; we agree with Sagarin that the Bears should be 2.5 point favorites. Winner takes the point! AARGH! Saints win. We lose, 4-3. Bah, humbug. Da Bears looked "turrible" Monday night.... Don't know what you DO about the QB situation there, with Cutler contracted through another few years.

So, in the end we have a total of seven games to wage war on - three FCS playoffs, one NFL game Thursday night, two Sunday afternoon, and one more on Monday night. Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You tied me on predictions last week. Prepare to die...

What's it like to be a fan of a hopeless losing team?

Dan Steinberg wrote about the Redskins' loss to the Buccaneers last weekend in this piece for the Washington Post. Undoubtedly it applies to plenty of places - Bottom Eight college teams, perennial fifty-loss NBA teams, even the opponent of DC that particular day, Tampa Bay. 

Meanwhile, halfway across the country, Chicago fans exhibit the same resentment and disenchantment over their seemingly hopeless situation in this piece for MMQB by SI's Robert Klemko. The tie-in for losing NFL teams, most of the time, is frustration with a quarterbacking situation, for one reason or another. The Redskins paid dearly to get the rights Robert Griffin III; the Bears thought they had their franchise quarterback for the next decade in Jay Cutler. Both players are now targets of the overflowing hostilities of the hometown patrons, tired of watching their mistake-prone team lose consistently to the star QBs they see on TV every week - Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Wilson, Luck, Stafford, Roethlisberger,...

The truth remains: if someone always wins, year after year, somewhere there's most likely another team that always loses. Year after year...after year.

Pending a Steeler rout tonight, we present our Week 11 NFL rankings!

As with the college teams, we're confident enough about the progressing season to actually rank the NFL teams #1-32...

A1. Arizona Cardinals (9-1) - Hard to deny them being the favorites right now!
A2. New England Patriots (8-2) - They've now beaten all three AFC division leaders.
A3. Green Bay Packers (7-3) - Fifty points twice in a row, destroying the Eagles yesterday.
A4. Denver Broncos (7-3) - Hard for Manning to be effective throwing w/ no one 2 throw 2

B5. Dallas Cowboys (7-3) - IF Romo is healthy AND DeMarco stays healthy...
B6. Philadelphia Eagles (7-3)
B7. Detroit Lions (7-3) - No disrespect in their loss yesterday.
B8. Indianapolis Colts (6-4) - On the other hand: where's the running game?

C9. Kansas City Chiefs (7-3) - Since 0-2 start, they're on a roll...
C10. Cincinnati Bengals (6-3-1) - IF the "good Andy" shows up, they look like this...
C11. Baltimore Ravens (6-4)
C12. Miami Dolphins (6-4) - The pieces are all there: as Tannehill matures, they'll be great.

D13. Pittsburgh Steelers (6-4)
D14. Seattle Seahawks (6-4) - Give them time; if they're healthy and clicking in December...
D15. San Francisco 49ers (6-4) - See previous comment...

D16. Cleveland Browns (6-4)
E17. San Diego Chargers (6-4)

E18. Buffalo Bills (5-5)
E19. Houston Texans (5-5) - JJ WATT for PRESIDENT! But if there's only one of him...
E20. New Orleans Saints (4-6) - Yeah, but they're losing at home now...What's next?
F21. St. Louis Rams (4-6) - #21 with a bullet: Jeff Fisher's got them looking good!

F22. Chicago Bears (4-6) - Roll the D20 for Cutler's performance: good, mediocre, or AAH!
F23. New York Giants (4-6)
F24. Atlanta Falcons (4-6) - Of the four NFC South disasters, they have the most potential.
G25. Carolina Panthers (3-7-1)
G26. Minnesota Vikings (4-6) - If they can get even mediocre play from Bridgewater...

G27. Washington Redskins (3-7)
G28. Tennessee Titans (2-7)
H29. New York Jets (2-8)

H30. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-8)
H31. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-9)
H32. Oakland Raiders (0-10) - For a team on a 16 game losing streak, they're ALWAYS competitive. Anytime there's a spread of more than two TDs, take it: they'll cover. They won't WIN...but they'll cover.

Put yourself in Marc's shoes...

What do you do if you're Marc Trestman, coach of the Chicago Bears, and your team has just given up six touchdown passes in the first half to, admittedly, the best quarterback of his five-year generation? 

Picture yourself in the visiting locker room at Lambeau Field last night. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers have decimated your team in the first half: seven drives, six touchdowns (the seventh would've been a TD if the ball hadn't been fumbled into the end zone. That's right - it could have been worse.). 

You thought you'd prepared well. Trestman said as much after the game. They'd had a terrific bye week (that's right: they had two weeks to prepare to be this bad!), a great practice and walk-through Saturday, and they thought they were going to do great things on the field last night.

Instead, they became only the second team in NFL history to give up fifty points in back-to-back games.

(The other? The 1923 Rochester Jeffersons. But of course you knew that...)

The defense takes the blame for most of that - the defense of the team known for decades as the "Monsters Of The Midway", the home of Dick Butkus and Mike Singeltary. George Halas turned over in his grave so much last night, we should've hooked an electromagnet to him and at least powered the stadium scoreboard.

But the offense was just as bad. They scored zero in the first half. The two TDs they had in the second were almost tokens handed to them by the generous defense. 

If you're Coach Trestman, what do you do? 

There are still good pieces there: Matt Forte (who still isn't getting used enough), Brandon Marshall. Jay Cutler may be may be erratic, but at times he's very good. The defense is nowhere NEAR as bad as they've let on the last two games, but - holy catfish, did you see the mistakes they made in coverage last night?

What do you do? It seems unlikely that the Bears, at 3-6, will go the way of those legendary Rochester Jeffersons, who were in the middle of a four-season winless streak when they gave up those two half-centuries ninety years ago. They folded after that 1925 season. 

The Bears won't fold anytime soon, but they've got to stop playing like they have. 

And as for the professionals...

The Canadian Football League wraps up its regular season Friday and Saturday with four games that will settle the remaining playoff questions - Ottawa @ Toronto (a typical Redblack game: Ottawa will give Toronto all it can handle before losing to the Argos late); Calgary @ British Columbia (the game hinges on how seriously the Stampeders take the game - if it's a chance to rest the starters, the Lions win); Montreal @ Hamilton (the BIG GAME of the weekend, this will determine the Eastern champ - we think Hamilton wins, but by less than the eight points they need to dethrone Montreal as division champs); and Edmonton @ Saskatchewan (the Roughriders are fading fast - take the Eskimos to win big).

In the NFL, tonight's Cincy/Cleveland game will be fascinating - the Bengals deserve to be a TD fave at home, but they're so strange...Sunday's KC @ Buffalo could go either way, but they're two teams that both have potential to bust some chops this season...Same with Miami @ Detroit...We are fascinated by the Dallas/Jacksonville tilt in London - Tony Romo has to fly across the Atlantic with a bad back? Good luck, man... San Francisco @ New Orleans feels like an elimination game; loser has NO chance at the playoffs (except NO plays in the pathetic (this year) NFC South...Can Oakland keep Denver close, like they have Seattle and others? Possible...We don't see St. Louis staying within 7 points of Arizona in any universe, with any quarterback, this season...Similarly, there's no way that Chicago can stay within a touchdown of Green Bay unless the weather makes the game unplayable...Carolina @ Philly? Wow. Do you have less faith in the fading Panthers, or in the legendary Mark Sanchez? Admittedly, he looked good in relief last week, and reports are he's ten times more comfortable with Chip Kelly and Philly than Rex Ryan and New York...but if Sanchez is your guy, you're NOT Super Bowl bound. I'm jus' sayin'...

Don't blame US if the pro tiers for Week 8 are imbalanced!

Blame the teams! We literally gave up trying to make the number of teams in each tier balance and went back to our guiding principle: Put teams that would play even games on a neutral field in the same tier. That means the chart looks more like a bell-curve than a flat line, but so be it! By the end of the season, it'll straighten itself out!

So, here we go: Quintile A is comprised of the teams we think are in control of their own Super Bowl destiny - they'd probably be favored over teams from B and C teams without issue; they'd be favored by double digits over Quintile D teams, and the E teams should find a way to call in sick...

Denver Broncos (6-1, firing on all cylinders)
Arizona Cardinals (6-1, sneaky good - finding a way to win every week)
Philadelphia Eagles (5-2, no shame losing 24-20 at Arizona!)
Dallas Cowboys (6-2, and we'll give them a pass for the OT loss last night)
Indianapolis Colts (5-3, but would you want to face Luck in a big game?)
New England Patriots (6-2, we had to move them back up - Brady's too good)

Quintile B has the teams who can still justifiably argue they are championship contenders, although they'd be underdogs playing the above six...

Green Bay Packers (5-3, more for Aaron Rodgers' health than anything else)
Detroit Lions (6-2, but if it takes THAT to beat the Falcons...)
Pittsburgh Steelers (5-3, can't exclude them after Big Ben's performance Sunday!)
Cincinnati Bengals (4-2-1, still as fiery a contender as there is)
Baltimore Ravens (5-3, and in charge of their destiny)
San Diego Chargers (5-3, though they proved against Denver they're not top notch yet)
San Francisco 49ers (4-3, struggling, but it's hard to ignore the teams they've beaten)
Seattle Seahawks (4-3, see previous comment!)

Quintile C is the middle of the pack:

Buffalo Bills (5-3, we think they're above average, but they don't yet...)
Kansas City Chiefs (4-3, and maybe, just maybe...)
Miami Dolphins (4-3, on any given day...)
Carolina Panthers (3-4-1, and like all the others in group C, has the tools...)
New Orleans Saints (3-4, fabulous if they're at home. IF.)
Houston Texans (4-4, give us eleven JJ Watts and we can rule the world)
Cleveland Browns (4-3, beating the Raiders shouldn't count)

Quintile D teams are already giving up hope for this season...

Chicago Bears (3-5, they should be higher if we go on potential)
St. Louis Rams (2-5, but every once in a while, they rise up...)
New Yorkersey Giants (3-4, but really they're not that good)
Atlanta Falcons (2-6, how can a team look that good in the first half...)
Minnesota Vikings (3-5, and if Bridgewater pans out, on their way up...)
Washington Redskins (3-5, promoted after winning in Dallas, even if it's overtime)

Quintile E teams are the bye weeks in disguise:

Tennessee Titans (2-6, but that's deceptively good...)
New Yorkersey Jets (1-7, Geno Smith put up one of the classic terrible stat lines in history)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-7, does the guy in the Bud Light commercial want to change his living room and backyard back to how they were before?)
Jacksonville Jaguars (1-7, how did they ever win a game?)
Oakland Raiders (0-7, but they've at least been competitive!)

AFL Comparison #3: Carlton Blues

The Carlton Blues are the first of ten (count them: ten!) AFL teams from the state of Victoria in Australia - essentially, the region in and surrounding the city of Melbourne. The reason for this is that the AFL grew out of the previous VFL, or "Victorian Football League", which was (as the name suggests) originally comprised only of such teams. (The "National" Basketball Association in the US comes to mind for comparison; no longer is it comprised solely of American teams.) Carlton is one of the oldest, celebrating its 150th year of existence, making it many years older than the leagues it's played in. 

In recent years, the old Blues have been more legend than threat, sneaking into the final eight last year only when Essendon was disqualified at the last minute (more on that in the Essendon piece coming soon!), and was well out of contention again this year, although they have merited playoff appearances in recent years. They are known as a tough team, one that plays a hard-nosed, traditional brand of footy. And they wear dark blue...and have a big "C" on their uniforms...and are located in the epicenter of the football nation. Hmmm...

Their American counterpart: The Chicago Bears

The NFL's "Monsters Of The Midway", George Halas' Chicago Bears, "bear" a striking resemblance to the Old Blues - similar history, similar recent frustrations, similar reputation that precedes their true mediocrity of the present day team. While Jay Cutler's talent and the usual strong defense has the Bears again looking upwards, their most recent Super Bowl title is almost thirty years old now. But "Da Bears" are always going to be a centerpiece of American football conversation, just as "Da Blues" are in Australia: except for Collingwood and possibly Hawthorn, Carlton boasts the highest patron membership numbers in the league, despite their lack of recent success.