2005 NFL SEASON THREAD

Lions completely blew. I'm off the kool-aid now. but Gear, please, the Bears weren't as good as that score indicates. The Lie-downs handed that one to them on a silver platter; mistake piling upon mistake. Bears D did live up to the billing though. Very very impressive.

So uh, Minnesota will be FINE without Randy, right?

I'll just copy my prediction for my Carolina Panthers there. Slight misstep with my week one and two predictions, the swapped, but I'm sure I'll be 100% correct for the rest. And I still think Minnisota is going to come back to make the playoffs.

New Orleans - W
New England - L
@ Miami - W
Green Bay - L
@ Arizona - W
@ Detroit - W
Minnesota - W
@ Tampa Bay - W
New York Jets - W
@ Chicago - W
@ Buffalo - W
Atlanta - L
Tampa Bay - W
@ New Orleans - W
Dallas - W
@ Atlanta - W

Regular Season - 13 - 3, NFC South Champion

Playoffs:

Bye
New Orleans - W
Minnesota - W
New England - W

Cinci looks really good. Indy might finally have the whole package. Shaping up to be a fun season already. yay parity.

One thing for sure, the NFC Norris is totally up for grabs..

That said, they certainly look like the best team in the NFC North after two games.

Trust me, I'm Buffalo guy.

Every time I see his name I do a double take, cause there's a friend of mine from UCLA days called Mike Tice. Thankfully they are not the same person.

They do have a very friendly schedule though.

anybody in nyc come by daddy's tomorrow night for mnf doubleheader. i'll be wearing my saints shirt.

That Colts and Jaguars game was one of the hardest hitting games I have seen in a while. There was a half dozen times someone got their helmet knocked off during the game. Byron Leftwich is either tough or crazy, as he got freaking pounded, once having to leave the game and then he limped around for the remainder.

Also Brett Favre passing the 50,000 mark, good on him but holy shit I didn't realize just how far Marino was ahead of his nearest 50k+ competitors in the yardage marker...wtf??! I mean I knew he was ahead but...62,000 yards?? How is he 11,000 yards higher than Elway? I am amazed the man's arm hasn't fallen off.

Marino consistently vetoed any attempt by management to establish a running game.

I MADE THIS UP, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS TRUE

Check it: The Marino era began in 1983. In the 1986 season, the Dolphins ran 1011 plays. How many times did they run the ball? 349.

From 1983 through 1999, Marino's final season, the Dolphins had exactly one 1000-yard back: Karim-Abdul Jabbar (remember him?) in 1996, when Marino was already clearly in decline.

Marino also had the benefit of playing in Miami, as opposed to Denver or Green Bay where cold, wind, and snow can impact late-season game plans.

Granted, when you've got a Marino, you use him.

Here's hoping New England falls into a gigantic pit of suckitude so I don't have to deal with obnoxious post-season behavior this year.

But then Nolan Ryan's career totals would be lower if Bruce Smith kept driving him into the mound every time he threw the ball.

Passing yards include YAC, sure, but what about incomplete passes? Depending on what his completion ratio was, the total yards traveled of passes he threw could be close to 100,000 yds

So 12.4 yards per completion x 8,358 attempts = 103,639 yards at 100% completion.

I wouldn't blame Marino for a lack of a running game or the fact the Dolphins had no defense. Don Shula ran the club all but the very last years of Marino's career and he should get a big share of that failure. Marino's arm kept Shula in a job long beyond the peak of his coaching success. Marino also didn't draft Sammie Smith and some of the other draft bombs that the Dolphins tried to put at running back.

I think Marino is the best QB I ever saw play. Montana won a bunch of Superbowls on teams that were dominating at everything. Montana also made a whole lot of his name throwing six yard swing passes to Jerry Rice and then Rice breaking them for 70 yard TDs. John Elway was a better athlete and could really run when he was young, but I think he gets a bit too much credit for winning those two rings at the end of his career. Marino had the best arm and could throw deep with more accuracy than anyone I ever saw play. I think the Dolphin offensive line was made to look better than it was because he could drop back two steps and throw 20 yard lasers with such accuracy.

That said, I'm not sure that the talent of the backs drafted is the issue. More to do with a line built for pass-blocking and a lack of interest in running the ball.

fwiw, with the golden boy netting 7.3 yards PER PASSING ATTEMPT, even Chuck Knox would have had a hard time calling for a 2.5-yard handoff.

maguire + theismann = utter fucking nightmare. most nfl color guys are awful, but at least there's usually only one per game

Feel free to set me straight on this. I have no statistical analyses to back this up, just a feeling I've always had.

Steve Young was a fantastic athlete, but better than Marino? erm, no. Who was second-best is a more difficult question.

Let's agree that at least part of those years spent as "Montana's caddy" gave a very smart guy an opportunity to learn Walsh's system intimately, setting the table for a seamless transition. It's a luxury few young QBs are likely to have ever again. imho one aspect of Steve Young's greatness was precisely knowing where his bread was going to be buttered (i.e., having a Jerry Rice to throw to) and sticking it out with clipboard in hand.

If not for those concussions, he could have played for 5 more years.

But this is why superhuman (and I mean that) durability is one of the prerequisites for greatness. Curtis Martin > Terrell Davis. Marino's 13 seasons are in and of themselves an extraordinary feat - four times the average NFL career - what he managed to do in those seasons even more so.

Roger, I'm pretty sure the shit-ass quality of the backs behind Marino is the issue.

It's not as though Shula didn't know how to run the ball (Larry Csonka to thread), but he (wisely and rightly) built that offense to capitalize on Marino's abilities. The backs were there to keep defenses just honest enough and occasionally to punch it in at the goal line (though frankly not too often, since that would have pissed off the golden boy, who did like to get his numbers).

Miami could have had Earl Campbell and Jim Brown in the backfield; you still can't gain yards on the ground if you don't hand off the ball. 66% of the time, Marino's Fins didn't.

That's all I'm-a say about that. Hell, I'm a Buffalo fan. I think Jim Kelly was the greatest QB ever. A Fucking Leader Of Fucking Men that guy was, raised on the same West PA dirt as Marino. Didn't have the laser, though his arm was plenty strong, but was the last NFL QB to call his own plays, and never acted as though he was bigger than the team.

The classic Kelly gesture was walking off the field on a failed third down effort, ripping off his chin strap in disgust at himself for letting down the fans and the team. No one has ever done it better.

The classic Marino gesture was walking off the field on a third-down incompletion, pinch-faced with rage and pointing a finger at whichever receiver was hapless enough to be in the vicinity of the missed throw. Hey, for all I know Marino never DID throw a bad ball, but he was always quick to blame the other guy in public.

Marino was exceptional. Probably the best to have played the position to this day. But he was also greedy and self-centered. I'd like to think that's why Kelly went to more Super Bowls...

thats it baby, the turn around win.

I've been saying for like 2 weeks now, which is like forever, that no one gives the Giants enough credit! That game was a lot closer than the score indicates though.

but, as much as this pains me to say, the giants look good this year. they were one of my sleeper teams as the season started

Not as hard as Dallas can, mind you.

During the player intro clips, I see he's claiming the CFL instead of Itawamba Community College. This makes me sad. (I just realized who Horn reminds me of — Rickey Henderson.)

No, thats great. I'm sorry that I missed it.

http://roger.staubach.com/

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