Sunday, October 4, 2009

Funday

***

It was nice to have the day off, so to speak. I was able to flip around and watch a bunch of different games. I'll be writing up some thoughts on them later in the week.

Seeing Denver beat Dallas 17-10 was really great. The Cowboys didn't play well and Denver was able to make them pay for it. Dallas did drive to the 2-yard line late in the game, but they weren't able to get in the end zone.

Dawk had a solid game for the Broncos' D. His highlight was a typical Dawk kind of play. Romo had hit a WR late in the game and the guy got loose in the middle of the field. It looked like the guy might score. Dawk took a good angle and made a sure tackle to get him down at the 20.

Buck had a good game, but got hurt. I hated to see that. He ran well and also had a good game as a receiver. Hopefully his ankle injury isn't too serious.

I hope the Eagles fans who were so hard on Kolb for his picks against the Saints saw what happened to Sanchez and the Jets. Sharper had a pair of INTs, including a 98-yard pick 6. A CB picked off a pass late. I'm not fully sold on the Saints D, but they are really good when playing with a lead.

HOW GOOD

Our records since 2006.

2006 ... 10-6
2007 ... 8-8
2008 ... 9-6-1

We're winning. We've got playoff wins in 2 of the 3 years. What we need to see now is the team take the next step and win 11 or 12 games. A division title would be nice (we did that in 2006), but I want to see us play at a consistently high level. Winning 11 or 12 games would certainly show that. 2-1 is a good start. The next few games are very winnable. Gotta post some W's.

Winning the Super Bowl is also acceptable, of course.
_

10 comments:

roconnor said...

It seems like Buck and Dawkins really could've helped the Eagles this year -although McCoy's done some good things in the blocking game and Harris hasn't been exposed.

That Denver win was pretty nice.

Do you think Wade finishes out the season in Dallas?

izzylangfan said...

Well, yes the Eagles could have used a runner like Buck and a safety like Dawkins. But the question is at what price. Based on price I think it was reasonable to let those wonderful guys sign elsewhere. But where the Eagles brass' decision making comes into question (I'm not saying they did badly, but there is some room for discussion here.) in my view is the draft strategy of not picking in rounds three and four and l think we also let one go in round 5. We obviously could have used some depth at running back and MLB. And I was surprised the Eagles didn't go for two tight ends.

Cliff said...

Well, we did use our 5th round picks. We got Ellis Hobbs (via trade), Macho Harris, and Cornelius Ingram. We used our 4th round pick to get Jason Peters.

The 3rd round pick was turned in to a couple 5th rounders and a 2010 3rd rounder.

We addressed the depth at the RB position with our 2nd round pick and UFA Buckley, not to mention the addition of Weaver.

MLB is where I agree with you, but Bradley wasn't gone for the year in April. On the day of the draft, we had Bradley, Mays and Gaither as MLB options. We drafted 2 LBers, one who was okay in the pre-season at MLB.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

So I realize you talked about the Cowboys, but I have a question about another division rival, the Giants. From what I have seen, they have a really good defense, particularly due to their defensive line. On offense, although none of their WRs scares me like Burress did, it seems they have been able to get solid production from their WRs and still have the obvious weapon in Jacobs.

On the other hand, after four weeks into the season, the teams they have faced are not exactly top tier teams. They beat the Redskins (2-2 with the other lose coming against Detroit), the Chiefs (0-4), the Bucs (0-4), and the Cowboys (arguably the strongest team they faced at 2-2 but also the team to give them the most trouble).

So my question is, how do you rate the Giants so far? Are they really as good as they seem, or has playing poor teams made them look better than they really are?

Thanks

Unknown said...

What I'm curious to see is if Steve Smith can keep up the ridiculous pace he's on production wise. I can't tell if he's just playing out of his mind right now or if he's legitmitely an elite reciever now. Or maybe he's just carving up some bad defenses, I just don't know.

Dallas losing to Denver is shocking to me. Denver was 3-0, but needed a miracle to win the first game, and beat up bad opponents in the next two. Beating Dallas is legit, and I think it speaks volumes about which direction each team is headed.

Unknown said...

Tommy, on a completely off topic note, something has been bugging me for a while. Everyone feels (outside of Patriots fans and players I'm sure) that the Raiders got absolutely jobbed on the tuck rule play. I'm sure everyone is aware of the arguments surrounding the call, and one of the prevailing arguments is that well it was a rule that no one had ever heard of and it sucks that it had to finally be applied in such a critical situation, but the refs technically were following the rulebook. This is where I take issue. I've seen the replay as many times as anyone else, and to me the thing that I see every time I watch it is that as Brady is finishing his pump fake, his other hand is actually coming up to and is touching the ball by the time its knocked out. Now I'm not sure what the exact wording of the rule is, but I would have to imagine that a pump fake would have to be considered over and the ball would have to be considered live if the quarterback is actually touching the ball with both hands. My theory is not only was it a stupid rule inexplicably applied at the most inopportune time, but it was actually applied incorrectly in this case anyhow, making it a double whammy of misfortune for that Raiders team.

The only call I know of in the modern NFL era that I would consider to be a bigger referee messup would be that Vinny Testeverde keeper where he got stopped at the 1 and the side judge ruled it a touchdown. Seeing the replays of that make me wonder what the qualifications are to become an NFL official, because clear vision isn't one of them.

izzylangfan said...

The officials are going to make mistakes. But why can't a penalty call be challenged. The officials are making bad calls all over the place and the emphasis should be to get it right. This is in the case where a penalty is already called not to claim a penalty that should have been called. In the case of a called penalty the flow of the game has already been interrupted.

There a bunch of phantom pass interference calls or calls where the receiver pushes off and the defender gets called for interference. And this past weekend there were too many calls for head to head contact by the tackler that were amiss. It is just humanly impossible to tell the difference when the tackler leads with his shoulder but the heads bump only incidentally or just come close but don't bump. Put the officials on the line for their crappy calls. Let them be challenged where appropriate.

Cliff said...

Someone mentioned Steve Smith... he's the WR I fear the most on the Giants. At the risk of sounding funny, Steve Smith reminds me of Steve Smith. The difference between the two is that Steve Smith has a Manning throwing to him and Steve Smith has Jake Delhomme.

We shut down Steve Smith, so I hope we'll be able to have the same success with Steve Smith.

Unknown said...

Personally I can't stand NFL officiating Izzy and I consider it miraculous when a game goes by where the officials don't completely botch some call or another. Remember that flagrant facemask on Chris Clemons against the Saints right in front of the official, the one that lasted for like 3 full seconds and no flag was thrown? Its a travesty that in this day and age things like that can still have an effect on the outcome of the game, but you see it week in and week out. After that play I was literally standing screaming like a madman at the television. I'll be watching a game I don't even care about and go berserk at a bad call. If you were watching the Chiefs-Giants game this weekend you saw the personal foul on the unnesscessary roughness against one of the Chiefs players for a hit on Steve Smith. I was so fucking livid after that call I had to walk around outside afterwards to calm myself down. The Chiefs defender put a solid shoulder on Smith to break up the pass and got flagged for it. Now I knew the Chiefs were going to lose either way, and was actually kind of intrigued by the Giants offense, but when a ref makes such a blatantly bad call like that one I just lose it. The fact that the league can't shell out enough money to employ full time officials, despite billions of dollars in revenue is unfathomable to me.

The only thing that makes me more nuts is when crappy announcers side with the bad call despite showing replays over and over that visually illustrate what a miserable call it is. Daryl Jonhston was going on and on about how blows to the head were a serious concern to the NFL this season, despite the fact that replays clearly and unequivocally showed that he hit Smith square in the chest. Normally I like Daryl Johnston as a commentator a lot, but if I had been in the booth with him at that moment, I would have been screaming at him over and over "HE HIT HIM IN THE FUCKING CHEST YOU FUCKING IDIOT!".

Stuff like that gets me going lol.