Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Dwarf's NFL Musings - Week 14 Edition

Hey...

Before we kick things off, just a little note. Our thoughts, here at The Dwarf's Musings, are with Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, and his family. Hunt is currently battling cancer, and the 74 year-old has been under severe sedation for the past week. Carl Peterson, the Chiefs' president, says everyone is "praying for a miracle". Hunt has been one of the best owners in the NFL for many years, and his loss would be a huge one for the league as well as his friends and families. So, Mr. Hunt, our thoughts are with you.

Now, you had to be in front of your television set on Sunday night, because Drew Brees put on a quarterbacking clinic. As good as his numbers were (26 of 38, 384 yds, 5 TD's, 0 INT), his performance looked even better than that. In his weekly 'Monday Morning Quarterback' feature on cnn.sportsillustrated.com, Peter King wrote this week that he thought Ladainian Tomlinson could score 40 TD's this year, the way Brees is playing, he would still give the MVP to Brees. I agree. What Brees has done is almost single-handedly turn around a franchise that was going nowhere. Sure, they changed the coaching staff, they added Reggie Bush and Marques Colston through the draft and somewhat revamped their defense, but this is Brees' ship. He is the captain and he is the one guiding it. When he signed with New Orleans, Brees instantly made this team and this offense better, and he gave them instant respectability. Sure, no one could foresee what was to come (although one of our faithful readers, Veillotron, did predict a very good year for the Saints), but we all knew the Saints were finally on the right track. In any case, wth the receiving corps that he has, and his unchallenged command of the offense, on top of his amazing statistics ( 318 of 479 for 4033 yds(1st in the league), 25 TD's (1st in the league), and only 10 INT's for a rating of 101.2 (1st in the league)), Drew Brees is my MVP through 14 weeks.

Last week, we mentioned how close Ladainian Tomlinson was to breaking Shaun Alexander's one year old record for touchdowns in a season, standing at 26 through 12 games. Well, little did we know, he would go on to not only tie but break the record in his thirteenth game, with a 3-TD performance against the falling Broncos. With 3 games to go, Tomlinson has now totaled 29 TDs this season, which is ridiculous. If he scores only 1 TD/game for the next 3 games, which would be well below his current average, he will finish with 32 TDs, or 2 TDs/game. Consider this: 3 years ago, the record for TDs in a season was 24 (Emmitt Smith), while the record for TD passes in a year was 48 (Dan Marino), so twice as many. This year, Tomlinson has 4 TDs more than Drew Brees the NFL leader, has TD passes. Again, Tomlinson's numbers are just crazy. Congratulations to him and his offensive line!

Random Thoughts from around the league:
  • While Brees and Tomlinson are fighting for the league's offensive MVP, Jason Taylor is making huge strides in catching up to Julius Peppers and Champ Bailey as the defensive MVP. It now looks like Urlacher and Taylor will probably fight it out to the least game. Bailey is still playing great football as the only true shutdown corner in the league, but the Broncos 'D' has fallen off, and so has Bailey's status as MVP candidate. Peppers' play has fallen off. What it will come down to, though, is whether voters are willing to nominate a guy playing on a team that didn't make the playoffs. If they are unwilling to do so, Urlacher will get the title. But make no mistake, the most dominating defensive player in the league, right now, is Jason Taylor. On Sunday, against the 9-3 Patriots, he lined up wherever he wanted, and he wreaked havoc all afternoon. The Belichick-led Pats had their whole scheme designed around Taylor, how to keep him away from the ball, but he helped the Dolphins shutout one of the league's best teams. Truly a great performance by #99.
  • I don't know if you saw Michael Irvin's interview of Terrell Owens this week, but Owens is an idiot. I mean, we all knew he was selfish and had no idea what a team was. But he is really dumb. As in "not the brightest bulb in the tree". That being said, what was really disgusting was how Irvin defended Owens in the following segment. When he first came onboard the ESPN NFL Countdown team, Irvin brought something different to the table, an exuberance that had been perhaps lacking. But now, things are just getting a little out of hand. He needs to go. I hope ESPN does not bring him back next year.
  • Jeff Garcia sure looks like the same guy who was leading the 49ers to the playoffs a few years back, doesn't he? The guy is running around, keeping plays alive, throwing short, throwing deep. You know what stands out: in 3 1/2 games, he hasn't thrown an interception. I really like the Eagles' chances of making the playoffs, and I'll tell you why: Jeff Garcia is a winner. The guy won in the CFL and he has won in the NFL. No matter how bad the defense gets, watch Garcia claw, scratch his team to victories. I believe it will continue this weekend with a win in New York. And next week, Philly will battle Dallas for the division crown. Those next 2 games will be dandies.
  • Vince Young has really impressed me recently. Now, let's give credit where credit is due, and Travis Henry deserves a large part of it, just like Jerome Bettis, Deuce Staley and Willie Parker deserved a lot of credit for making Ben Roethlisberger look so good. But Young has one thing very few QBs have: the undying will to win. The guy just chooses the best moment to make his best play. His overtime run in Sunday's game was a good one, but Mike Vick has probably had around 50 better runs in his career. The thing is, how many of those were in overtime? I think Young will never develop into a great 'statistics' quarterback, but right now, he reminds me of John Elway.
  • Huge weekend coming up in the NFC: the (8-5) Cowboys will play the (7-6) Falcons, and the (7-6) Eagles travel to NY to play the (7-6) Giants. With the Eagles and Giants both having better records in their division than the Cowboys, a Dallas loss would mean that the winner of the Philly-NY game would be wind up first in the NFC East. A Falcons' loss would seriously hamper their chances of getting in, with their last 2 games coming against the Panthers and Eagles, two teams fighting for a wild card shot as well. The other game I will be watching in the NFC: Detroit at Green Bay. Brett Favre needs 7 TD passes to tie Marino's career record. With the last 2 games coming against Minnesota and Chicago, Favre is going to need 3 this week if he wants to make it happen this year.
  • In the AFC, Cincinnati (8-5) at Indy(10-3) will be a dandy on Monday night. The Bengals can really put themselves in a great position in the wild card race with a win. On the other hand, Indy does not want to lose, because that might mean losing their bye week to start the playoffs. Denver (7-6) at Arizona (4-9) could be a good game. The Cardinals have really played well the last 2 weeks, and this game will feature, if nothing else, Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler, two guys from the class of '06. Denver absolutely needs this game to stay alive in the playoff hunt. Finally, check out the Bills vs. Dolphins game. Ok, both teams are only 6-7, and this game has no playoff implication. But Buffalo and Miami have been a combined 9-3 in the last 6 weeks, and both teams are fighting hard and playing well. It could be an excellent game in cold Buffalo.
I will be back on Friday for my NHL Thoughts of the week!

Dwarf out.

16 Comments:

At 12:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

of course irvin will defend owens.....owens IS irvin, only 5 years younger.......headcases will stick together....j'ai jamais compris pkoi il ont changer le team de berman, TJ, sterling pi stu scott......steve young ye platte, irvin me casse les oreilles.....

 
At 9:40 PM, Blogger The Dwarf said...

Yeah... Sterling was good... I liked him.

Still, Ditka can be entertaining, and he's got some good things to say too sometimes. And I Loooooooove Jaws. He is the best in terms of analyzing plays and all... really good.

 
At 10:00 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

There's way too much football and soccer talks in this blog, and not enough about WWE, Tiger Woods and Bob Gainey's daughter mysterious disappearance...

 
At 10:03 PM, Blogger The Dwarf said...

Well, Mr. Mat makes a first post... Do not worry my friend, the talk about Gainey's daughter wll make its way into my Thursday NHL Thoughts, this thursday... check back then... As for the others, well, Tiger's on vacation, and the WWE sorta sucks a little right now...

but for you, old friend, because I'm a sucker for more comments, I will do a little WWE piece during the weekend

 
At 10:59 PM, Blogger The Dwarf said...

Hey Mat, en passant, comment vont les etudes pour devenir Lawyer? Le barreau s'en vient... on espere qui te pognera pas direct dans le front...

 
At 8:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

a classic quote from WWF:

"bret the hitman hart, well you put an S in from of hitman, and that's exactly what i think of him".

and:

"when booker t was in elementary, the teacher would say, what's 2+2, do you know.....booker? and booker t would say, the answer is: thomas jefferson sucka!!!"

 
At 3:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You know, Alundra Blayze, with her looks could star in a T.V. western--if she had two more legs!" -- Jerry Lawler


"Helen Hart is so old, she remembers when the Dead Sea was sick." -- Jerry Lawler.

"Helen Hart is the only person I know with an autographed copy of the bible." -- Jerry Lawler

"The only reason Jake 'The Snake' Roberts doesn't drink and drive anymore is because he is afraid he might hit a bump and spill his drink." -- Jerry Lawler.

 
At 5:57 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Studying isn't really hard, since I truly love matrimonial law...

For Tiger, don't forget the Target World Challenge this week-end. Tiger's actually second at -4.

I wrote the other day a long comment about Tiger's being the player of the year for the eight times of his still young career, but I lost it...

 
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