I am so glad the NFL season has begun. Between cheering on the Bears, Fantasy Football, and the rest of the drama that follows the NFL, it is just glad to have it back. I spent the entire day Sunday watching the RedZone Channel, so I'll run through some of my favorite moments (good and bad) from the weekend. I will hand out some awards as well.
Bears 30, Falcons 12 - What a great way to kick off the season. On Friday, I was listening to Keyshawn Johnson, Chris Mortensen, and Mike Tirico on the radio. Mort picked the Falcons to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. All of them talked about how they were not high on the Bears. They agreed that the Falcons would win on Sunday.
Well, well, well, well... This is one great example of the media getting on a team's jock hard, while not giving respect to a solid, yet potentially unsexy, team. The Bears' D looked great and why wouldn't they? They willed the Bears to the NFC title game last year. They have most of the same piece back. I'm extremely happy to see them hold a potentially efficient Falcons' offense to 6 points. The Bears' offense actually gave up the one Falcons touchdown in the game. The Bears' D on Sunday was a perfect example of Lovie Smith's "bend but not break" philosophy.
Jay Cutler looked great besides one mistake (INT returned for a TD.) That mistake was probably more on the O-Line, but it is still unacceptable. Ultimately, though, it was meaningless. Matt Forte is my hero- pay that man his money!
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| "Kid's got alligator blood..." |
In the end, the Bears just upped the expectations on this season. They have a tough challenge in the Saints next week- the blood is already flowing toward my genitals in excitement.
Coach Tellian Award - In high school I was a basketball player. I have never played a game of football in pads. One reason for this was that our high school football program was wretched. My senior year, the entire program went 0-30. That's right- the Freshmen, JV, and Varsity squads went 0-10 a piece. Ouch. Midseason, Coach Tellian, the mastermind of this program, offered me the starting Tight End position in passing while I was walking to my next class. What a tool.
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| He literally looked like this. |
This award goes to the worst coaching decision of the week:
Sean Payton - His decision to run Mark Ingram with no time remaining while down by 8 to the defending Super Bowl champs is inexcusable. When you have one of the best QBs in the NFL, and said QB has over 400 yards passing and 3 TDs, you should put the ball in elite QB's hands rather than a rookie. The Saints deserved to lose that game due to such a poor decision.
Matthew Berry Award - I admit I watch ESPN's Fantasy Football show each Sunday morning. The Talented Mr. Roto has occasional good advice. He also occasionally spews out the worst liquid diarrhea of fantasy tips. This award is in honor of the poor side of Berry's advice.
Me - I benched Steve Smith (CAR) at 9:30am Sunday. He sat active all week, and I psyched myself out and put in Ronnie Brown. I figured Cam Newton would be inaccurate and throw mostly to his TEs, while Ronnie Brown might get some touches to steal points away from LeSean McCoy (the guy I was going against had Vick and McCoy in his lineup.) It was a terrible gamble that lost me the week. What I do know now is that if Arian Foster comes back healthy, my team is pretty damn good. This makes me feel good.
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| Steve Smith reminding me who scored the most points on my team... even though he was on the motherfuckin' bench. |
Jim Harbaugh Award - I love that Harbaugh once ran up the score on USC while coaching at Stanford. This prompted Pete Carroll to ask him, "What's your deal?" during the post-game handshake. Hilarious! Now they get to play each other twice a year!
Jim Harbaugh! His San Francisco 49ers took care of business against the Carroll's Seahawks. Alex Smith showed some grit and Ted Ginn returned a punt and a kick! If nothing else, congrats to my friends that cheer for the Niners. This game has to give you at least a little hope.
Munson Award - The movie "Kingpin" is hilarious. Woody Harrelson played Roy Munson- a bowler who constantly looks like he has the world at his fingertips, only to make a bad decision or two and get the crap beat out of him (or in one case, his hand cut off!) During the movie, people start using the saying "they really munson'ed that" to describe someone screwing up. This team really "munson'ed" their game this week.
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| The look of a champion. |
Dallas Cowboys - I'm watching the game as I write this post. The Cowboys had total control over this game. There is no way they should have lost this game. Tony Romo fumbled near the goal line. They had a punt blocked for a Jets TD. With 8 seconds left, the center snapped the ball to Romo when he was unprepared. The Cowboys are garbage and it will be a LOOOONG season if they continue to make these type of dumb decisions. Yikes.
Bad News Bears Award - This award goes to the team that played the worst, but still won.
San Diego Chargers - Wow. I started the Chargers D in one fantasy league on the premise that they have a good defense and that their massive weakness on special teams was worked on and fixed. A solid 12 seconds into their opening game against the Vikings and I'm convinced that Norv Turner allowed the Chargers' special teams to complete all their drills on Madden rather than on an actual field. Despite the Chargers' best efforts to lose the game, they ended up beating Donovan McNabb's Vikings. I'm happy with the end result, but the game was fucking awful.
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This season looks to be pret-ay, pret-ay, pretty good. The Lions, Bills, Bengals, and Redskins should be awfully proud of themselves. All of those teams came up with big wins that will help excite their fan-bases. It is just great to have football back.
