1/7/2013 Weekend Water Cooler

Let's start with the NFL games:

Seattle at Washington 24-14

The only game with any intensity of the weekend despite the two teams with little history. The big story of this game was RGIII's knee. The Skins opened up a 14 point lead early and then it all went to hell, (or more specifically that mysterious shed on the sidelines). Griffin aggravated his knee injury and Washington struggled to move the ball the rest of the game (this is putting it lightly). A lot has already been said about whether he should have been in the game, all I will say is that a healthy RGIII and I think the Redskins win this game.
On the Seattle side they were able to run the ball effectively and Russell Wilson completed enough passes to move the ball. Usually a running QB acts as an extra blocker for the running game because someone has to account for him even when he doesn't have the ball, in this game Wilson threw several actual blocks. I can't remember a game with a quarterback throwing that many blocks. Also as noted by my friend "Wilson never gets hit". This is true and surprising for a quarterback who runs as much as he does.
Kudos to the refs for letting them play, even on a obvious offsides where FOX put the 'flag' indicator up on the screen only to find one hadn't been thrown.

Indianapolis at Baltimore 9-24

Ray Lewis' last stand. The Colts were able to move the ball some but never get in the end zone.  They may simply have been too young.  They gave good effort but just didn't have what it took.  Lewis returned from injury and led the defense with 13 tackles and played about as well as you'd expect.  A much tougher task awaits the Ravens Saturday in Denver.

Minnesota at Green Bay 10-24

Joe Webb was not ready to play a playoff game. That really is a full analysis of this game in which Adrian Peterson appeared to be the only player going at full speed on either side.

Cinncinnati at Houston 13-19

Arian Foster ran wild. Owen Daniels had a nice game. The Bengals were awful. Well actually the Bengals offense was awful the defense played pretty well and actually scored their only touchdown.

Other News:

• NHL is coming back.
• Lakers lose, this is becoming old hat now.
• Alabama taking on Notre Dame in the only bowl game that matters. I'll take Notre Dame to pull the upset!!

Now get Hydrated!!

-P

Drinks on G!

Earlier today Ray Lewis announced that he will retire after the season.  As a Steelers fan I have always wanted to beat the Raven but was always a fan of Lewis.  Ray is actually one of my favorite players of all time. Right up there with Brett Favre and Hines Ward.  I think it was a travesty that Lewis did not win the MVP award after the 2000 season which in my opinion was the greatest defensive season by anyone in the last 20 or so years.  Feel free to disagree.  The great end to his career would be hoisting the Lombardi trophy one more time. I don't think that will happen but he has still had one hell of a career.

So with the regular season over here are the results of the season long pick off. G finished 127-82 while I finished 134-75 which means drinks on G this Friday! (the first round). Happy hour will be at 6pm at Mario's Eastside Saloon in Shadyside.

-P

This is it!

The NFL season will come to a close this Sunday. There are many games left of meaning. Capped of by the de-facto NFC East championship game between the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys.  It would be easy to say that the Redskins are competing ahead of schedule as no one really expected them to make the playoffs this season. The Cowboys on the other hand have been expected to win for a while now, and many times have been deemed as one of the most talented rosters in the league; records be damned.  There is far more pressure on 'America's Team' to win this one. Tony Romo and these Cowboys havent done well with pressure though. Sunday night we will find out who is up to the task.

In other news one of the main stories of this season has been Adrian Peterson's improbable run at Eric Dickerson's single season rushing record.  Peterson as we all know blew out his knee in week 16 of last season. Peterson currently needs 208 yards to break the all time record. The last time he played this week's opponent the Green Bay Packers he gained 210 yards. The Packer have said they will make it a point to keep Peterson from the record. The chase for history is really only an aside in this game however as a Vikings win will mean the postseason and the Packers look to get a bye week if they win.  Regardless of the outcome I believe Peterson should be the league's MVP. A lot of people would say that should belong to Peyton Manning who is having his own fabulous comeback season in Denver with the Broncos. I just look at one item to say it should be Peterson; he is averaging more yards per rush than his quarterback Christian Ponder is per pass. This for a team with a legitimate shot at the Playoffs. Hand him the award.

On  to the Picks:

Season to date:
P:121-72
G: 117-76

Here are the Happy Hour details where the loser will buy the first round:

Mario’s Shadyside Jan 4^th 6pm

away	Home	P	G
CLE	PIT	PIT	PIT
TB	ATL	ATL	TB
NYJ	BUF	BUF	NYJ
BAL	CIN	CIN	CIN
CHI	DET	CHI	DET
JAC	TEN	TEN	TEN
HOU	IND	HOU	IND
CAR	NO	NO	NO
PHL	NYG	NYG	PHL
OAK	SD	SD	SD
ARI	SF	SF	SF
STL	SEA	SEA	SEA
GB	MIN	MIN	GB
MIA	NE	NE	NE
KC	DEN	DEN	DEN
DAL	WAS	WAS	DAL

Earned it.

Let's start with this Mark Sanchez earned his spot on the bench, specifically by leading the league in turnovers.  So it has just been announced that Sanchez will start at quarterback for the New York Jets this Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. I will give those of you finding this out for the first time a minute to recover. Alright!? Well of course not. This decision makes no sense. Mark Sanchez has to be the only quarterback I can remember who was benched twice in the same season and then was still given yet a third chance to start.  The decision to go with the unproven Greg McIlroy last week did not make sense either, but at least there was an element of the unknown there. McIlroy was of course mostly awful and unprepared as he was sacked 11 times in a loss to the San Diego Chargers.  This is what most would expect when starting a quarterback who was inactive for all but one of his team's games (13 of 14). Meanwhile the quarterback who the team traded for this off season  and has been listed as the team's number 2 QB all year will yet again not get a chance to start.

There are so many levels of this to get into. First off why did the Jets go out and acquire Tim Tebow at all?  At this point the only believable reason I have heard is to sell tickets, and paraphernalia.  They say it was to help them win games.  This however cannot be the case, simply because it is very difficult to help teams win from the bench. For the most part Tebow simply has not played.  I for one cannot figure out why the Jets went out and got one of the most polarizing figures in sports only to leave him on the sidelines.  Tebow has become a distraction to the Jets. In the off season most thought that Tebow would be a distraction, a lot of people myself included thought that Sanchez would suck (he did, worse than even I thought) and that the fans would call for Tebow to start (to a degree they did).  Rex Ryan stuck to his guns and said Sanchez was his guy. Until he could no longer do so, remember the now infamous "butt fumble" and a thrashing in fron tof the whole country on Thanksgiving did not get Sanchez benched.  It appears Ryan never had any intention of really using Tebow so why acquire him?

Next how can anyone say that Sanchez still gives the Jets the best chance to win? Or that Tebow has no shot to succeed in the NFL? This is a list of quarterbacks who have been given a chance to start this year whom I believe have been worse than Tebow, (note all of these players currently have a worse QB rating than Tebow finished last season with: Matt Cassel, Brandon Weeden, Chad Henne, Jake Locker, Brady Quinn, John Skelton, and Ryan Lindley.  This list could also include Christian Ponder and Blaine Gabbert who also have been subpar at the position.  The one QB omitted for emphasis is of course Mark Sanchez he of the 67.9 QB rating. To say the Tebow doesn't deserve a chance at this point is ridiculous. The man was willing to do whatever was asked of him for week after week and was passed over when the opportunity should have been his only to be passed over again the very next week.

Tebow deserves a shot, dare I say he earned it.

-P

Rookie Of The Year

Almost a year ago to the date I wrote about Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III.  I think everyone expected them to have at least some success after going #1 and #2 in this past April's draft. Now however another rookie QB has bullied his way into the conversation. Russell Wilson lasted all the way into the 3rd round of the draft due to concerns about his height. He then proceeded to beat out highly sought after free agent pickup Matt Flynn for the starting job. He now is leading one of the hottest teams in the league and a offense that has gone for half a hundred in back to back games. So the question is of these three who should be rookie of the year?

Luck is probably the most valuable to his team of these 3. The Colts do not have the running game that either  the Redskins or Seahawks possess. He is however the 31st rated QB in the league.  Griffin set the world on fire a couple of times, but has a dangerous propensity to get hurt. Kirk Cousins was able to step in and lead the offense almost as well. Wilson was already discussed above. So who do you think should be the ROY?

  On to the Picks
Season to date:
P:110-68
G:107-71

away	Home	P	G
ATL	DET	ATL	ATL
CIN	PIT	PIT	PIT
NO	DAL	DAL	NO
TEN	GB	GB	GB
IND	KC	IND	IND
BUF	MIA	MIA	BUF
SD	NYJ	SD	NYJ
WAS	PHL	WAS	WAS
STL	TB	TB	TB
OAK	CAR	CAR	CAR
NE	JAC	NE	NE
MIN	HOU	HOU	HOU
CLE	DEN	DEN	DEN
CHI	ARI	CHI	CHI
NYG	BAL	NYG	BAL
SF	SEA	SEA	SF

Season is almost over , stay on the look-out for Happy Hour details

-P

Cleaning out my notebook

So it's been a little while time to clean out the notebook a little bit.

Steelers:
We have all seen the impostors that the black and gold ran out there last week at the cornerback position against the Cowboys. It seems so simple and easy but they need Ike Taylor back, and I mean like yesterday.   Swaggin' please get well.

NBA:
While I still believe the Miami heat are the favorites to win the NBA title its hard not to be impressed with whats going on in NY, OKC and LA.  Who would have ever thought that when you talked about Los Angeles having a NBA title contender we'd be referring to the Clippers and not the woeful Lakers. Yes, I did just refer to one of the most storied franchises in all of sports as woeful. If the shoe fits....Apologies to the  Spurs and Grizzlies.

College Hoops:
It's very early in the season but, one of the things I love about college basketball as opposed to its football counterpart is that due to the existence of a playoff we get to see competitive match-ups before the conference season begins.  By the way it was a great game between Butler and the #1 Indiana last week.

College Football:
Between now and the title game between Notre Dame and Alabama we will be subjected to about 30 games worth of meaningless football. Its just to much. Other than die hard fans and alumni there is little reason for these contests.

MLB:
The Angels went out and aquired Josh Hamilton, while the crosstown Dodgers inked Zack Greinke.  The LA market is flush with cash and has been on a wild spending spree. There is still a chance both could miss the postseason just as they both did last year.  Meanwhile Toronto is looking to get back into the fold in the most competitve division in all of sports the AL East. Aside from their theft from the Marlins they acquired NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey. I still don't know if they have enough to win the division or even make the postseason.

Boxing:
So Paquiao got knocked out. We all saw it, then we all saw him get killed on social media, at least after a few minutes we were able to ensure he hadn't been killed in the ring.  This loss almost certainly ends any chance for a fight between him and Mayweather.  Which means we need the young group of up and coming boxers to step up. I'm looking at you Canelo and Broner.

Putting on the Rex...

So Rex Ryan has announced that Mark Sanchez will remain the starting quarterback for the New York Jets. This comes after Ryan pulled Sanchez from their last contest against the Arizona Cardinals.  I have heard some try and defend Sanchez by saying that the Cardinals possess a very good defense. That may be the case but that does not explain Sanchez ranking 32nd in the league of all QBs in both passer rating and ESPN's total QBR statistic.  Sanchez has been for lack of a better word awful. To wit this is the performance of the quarterback who was beating the Sanchez led Jets: Ryan Lindley was 10-31 for 72 yards and one pick.  Re-read that performance and I use the word performance lightly, the Jets were about to be beat by a team that gained 137 yards all game.  Rex Ryan should have long went another direction at QB but has stubbornly stuck to his guns.  Does he not at least owe it to his team to find out if another quarterback can be more successful?

On to the picks:

last week: P:9-7, G:6-10 which brings our season to date to:
P: 99-62
G: 99-62

four weeks left all tied up

away	Home	P	G
DEN	OAK	DEN	DEN
SD	PIT	PIT	PIT
STL	BUF	BUF	BUF
DAL	CIN	DAL	CIN
KC	CLE	CLE	CLE
TEN	IND	IND	IND
CHI	MIN	CHI	CHI
PHL	TB	TB	TB
BAL	WAS	WAS	BAL
ATL	CAR	ATL	ATL
NYJ	JAC	NYJ	NYJ
MIA	SF	SF	SF
ARI	SEA	SEA	SEA
NO	NYG	NYG	NO
DET	GB	GB	GB
HOU	NE	NE	NE