In case you haven't realized this by my coverage or talk about the Bears, I'm kind of a big football fan. Camps are starting soon, and we are less than a month away from the Bears' first pre-season game. I wish it were tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm taking in a lot of football discussion. I've got a few thoughts on the way the dialogue's been going, and I'll get to that after I finish breaking down the NFC South.
Early Predictions:
New Orleans Saints
Atlanta Falcons
Carolina Panthers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I was actually surprised by how much my thoughts shifted on these teams as I went over them. I thought Tampa would be higher going in, then soured a bit on them. I went back and forth on Carolina as the third or fourth place team. I also thought Atlanta could take the number one spot, but between them not making enough changes in the offseason and the Saints keeping a rock-solid team mostly intact I can't rightly put them there. They'll be in a good position to challenge for a Wild Card spot near the end of the season, though. Carolina has a great running game, which is a big part of the reason I have them beating out Tampa, but their problem areas were only given patchwork solutions in the offseason. Tampa was even worse in problem areas, and though this offense will probably thrive, expect the defense to hold them back to third place.
First off for the NFL this season, a rant about player conduct rules. The current culture in the NFL, that has completely permeated not just the league but just about anyone associated with the league, is one of sanctimonious scapegoating. To be fair, this type of hypocrisy of expecting media figures to be paragons of the highest order is present in every form of media, but Rodger Goodell, being the self-righteous ass that he is, has made this culture dominant in the NFL. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for punishing players who actually do something wrong. You shoot a gun off in the team locker room, yeah you deserve to be punished. The problem I have is with this so-called code of payer conduct. As I said, people expect too much of professional athletes. yes, they are in a national spotlight, but at the end of the day they are just everyday people. They make mistakes, and they are entitled to make their own judgements about their own lives. They are not public property, they are not there for our amusement, and their personal affairs are not there to satisfy our own voyeuristic urges. These people do the most monotonous things and are mercilessly ridiculed for it. Micheal Vick recently was celebrating his birthday at a bar when someone he didn't know started shooting, now he's on the hot seat. Ben Roethlisberger has been suspended for being accused of a crime even though his guilt hasn't been proven. The justification is that he shouldn't be trying to meet people at bars, but he's single and still in his twenties, what do they expect of him? Punish the players who are convicted of crimes, but do not punish them for what could be absolutely no wrongdoing on their part, do not hold them to unreal standards because unreasonable fans demand it. Most importantly, though, get down off the high horse, take all the sanctimonious and self-righteous speeches about higher moral standards, and shove them up your pampered white collar ass, Rodger Goodell.
On to rant number two, over and underrated players and teams. I'm going to start out specifically with quarterbacks, as they are always one or the other and never receive proper credit. Many times it's a quarterback being underrated, such as Archie Manning or Dan Marino. Quarterbacks like these have excellent careers, yet never receive proper recognition because they never won a ring playing on bad teams. Other times a quarterback puts up decent numbers, but gets lambasted because of problem areas. Take Jay Cutler last season, 3,66 yards last season, 60.5 completion percentage, 27 touchdowns, those are good numbers. The criticism is piled on, though, because of his 26 interceptions. That's certainly not a good number, and many of them coming in the red zone doesn't help, but there are other factors that go into that. The Bears had no run game, that allowed opposing defences to put more players in coverage. They had problems protecting Cutler, allowing him to get sacked 35 times. Receivers blew routes and allowed incompletions to turn into interceptions. This all piles up, and interceptions are going to happen when things go this wrong. Still, Cutler earns the ire of fans and sportswriters everywhere because he is the one behind center, he is the one who gets blamed for the team's problems.
Conversely, quarterbacks who win championships despite bad play are praised. Eli Manning is a prime example, he won a Superbowl behind an outstanding defense and running game despite putting up average numbers. His completion percentage was below 60, he had about 200 yards less than Cutler, and he only had 23 touchdowns to go with 20 interceptions, yet he is one of the highest paid quarterbacks in the league now. How about Big Ben? During the 2005 Superbowl season he had less than 2,400 yards and 17 touchdowns to go along with 9 interceptions. During the 2008 Superbowl season his completion percentage dropped below 60 and he had 15 interceptions to go along with 17 touchdowns. Quarterbacks get praised on how many Superbowls they win, even if they're not the driving force behind winning the Superbowl.
At other positions, it's not so much being underrated because of rings but being underrated because of having issues. The Bears are perhaps the most underrated team this year, and I'm not even going to say they're going to be a force, although hopefully they will be. NFL Network did a rundown of best players at different positions. I know Brina Urlacher has been hampered by injuries, the most recent one costing him a full season, and given that I wouldn't put him on a list of best linebackers. That being said, he didn't get an honorable mention as did a couple of other players in that category. Julius Peppers was singled out as NOT being an elite end because of a low production season in 09, which was still better than a normal season for most ends. I already discussed Cutler's criticism, and the receiving corps has been lambasted by many sports commentators. Hester may not be a number one, but 700-800+ yards the past two seasons is more than enough to qualify him as an elite number two. Johnny Knox showed great speed last season and proved he could operate in traffic, and Earl Bennett showed he had some great hands. Juaquin Iglesias is reportedly doing very well in workouts after not playing last season, and Devin Aromashodu showed he could be a versatile threat that could make tough catches in his outstanding performance towards the end of last season. This Bears team is UNDERRATED. Does that mean they'll be successful next season? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, this team does not receive enough credit. Lovie Smith said his teams do best when they're pegged as underdogs, I hope he's right, because if he is the Bears are going to the Superbowl this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment