NFL 2008: Week 11

I just had to touch on a few NFL stories for week 11, with the Monday night game between Cleveland and Buffalo still yet to be played.

First of all, with each successive week, I become more and more convinced that the New York Football Giants are going to repeat this year. Their running game seems virtually unstoppable at this point, and the fact that they are not relying too heavily on one back is extremely important. Since they are spreading the rushing load around, the odds of their running backs being fresh and healthy for a presumed late trip into the playoffs seem high at this point. It is a bit worrisome that top running back Brandon Jacobs did come down with a bit of an injury in yesterday's game versus the Ravens, but since he insists that he could have come back to play if absolutely necessary, I'm going to cross my fingers and judge it as being of little concern.

The Giants running attack was dominating yesterday, totalling 207 yards rushing, and in so doing, becoming the first team to break 100 yards against Baltimore's previously top rated run defense this year. The Giants run offense is doing the important job of limiting the need for the Eli Manning to beat teams passing. The Giants defense is also doing its part, ranking number two overall in the league in total defense, and in the top ten in both rush and pass defense. Being able to control the ball with a solid running game on offense and being able to prevent your opponent from doing so on defense are certainly ingredients for success in the NFL.

Okay, now that I'm done fawning over the Giants, I'll move to a few other things. First of all (or second of all), I'll discuss the Chargers-Steelers game. By now you may know that the Steelers defeated the Chargers 11-10, this game being the first time in 12,000 plus NFL games (or something like that) in history that the final score was 11-10. When I first heard this stat, my initial response was who gives a damn? Do people really have this little to do that they sit around and wait for professional football final scores to see if they have ever been achieved in the history of the game? And then I remembered that the answer to this last question is yes, and that the people who do have such little to do are at the Elias Sports Bureau. But then I later learned that the officials had improperly taken away a touchdown at the end of the game that would have given the Steelers a 17-10 or 18-10 win and I realized that there were other people who would actually give a damn. Those would be fantasy football players and gamblers. I certainly am glad that my fantasy football team wasn't affected by this error, and it is times like this that I am overjoyed that I never got into gambling.

And I guess I should say at least something about the Denver Broncos so that James doesn't whine that I dedicated an entire post to football and didn't discuss the Broncos. The Broncos are in first place, leading an otherwise absolutely crummy division. Good show! Keep up the good work!

And finally, I get to the reason that I really wanted to write this particular post. I'm going to discuss the Philadelphia-Cincinnati 13-13 tie that took place on Sunday. And to be more precise, I'm going to discuss Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb's apparent lack of understanding that ties were possible in the NFL. I find this utterly ridiculous that a starting quarterback on an NFL team did not know that a tie was possible. Now sure, ties don't occur that frequently in the league, the last one having occurred six years ago, but McNabb was in the league six years ago. One would think that even if he didn't know ties were possible when he entered the league that just perusing the scores of games that particular week would have caused him to say, wow a tie - I didn't know that was possible! That's crazy!

But even if that tie had not occurred in 2002, this still seems utterly absurd. Maybe the Philadelphia Eagles just haven't played that many games that have gone to overtime since McNabb has been in the league, but one would think that if they have played any other overtime games, since he is the starting quarterback he would be out there for the coin toss for overtime and he would at least listen to all of the rules that the referee gives. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that the referee does tell the players gathered for the second coin toss that if no team scores after fifteen minutes of overtime the game ends in a tie. I mean, did the guy not watch any pro football while he was in college? Admittedly, I'm a bit of stats junkie and I love ties in the NFL because I think it is funny how they screw up playoff races, but off the top of my head, I was able to remember that there were two ties in the 1997 NFL season, and three of those teams with ties were in the same division. And that division with three teams, and one of those teams, are the division and team on which McNabb has always played for in the NFL. I guess McNabb must have known what record his team had the year before joining the team, but he didn't think to look at their record just one more year back? Unbelievable...

The Brett Favre Saga

Quite frankly, this Brett Favre retirement/non-retirement saga is getting a bit annoying. All you hear about all day long seemingly is whether or not Brett and the Packers are essentially going steady anymore. To be honest, I don't really care, but I got to thinking and I'm pretty sure that there have to be other people who are just as annoyed as I am by this Brett Favre Saga. And so without further delay, here are the top ten people who are pissed off about the Brett Favre Saga.

10. Cabral Williams - Ordinarily I would never have a top ten list that had me at number ten. For the purposes of such a list that would put me in last place, and I don't like to put myself in last place ever. Because I'm a winner. But I put myself here because believe it or not, I think that there are others who are slightly more annoyed by this than I am. Not that they are better than me, because they're not, but they are probably a little more annoyed. And the mitigating factor in the Brett Favre Saga is that as annoying as it is, it is still much more exciting than spending the entire summer worrying about the boring baseball season.

9. Cal Ripken, Jr. - You can see it coming, I can see it coming, so Cal Ripken, Jr. can definitely see it coming. As you may know, Ripken holds the Major League Baseball record for consecutive games played at 2,632. Well, Brett Favre holds the record for most consecutive games started by an NFL quarterback at 253. Knowing Brett (and I don't really know Brett), he won't be satisfied with just taking down Jeff Feagles's (ongoing) NFL record of 320 consecutive games played, he's shooting for Ripken. Now sure, barring an increase in the number of games of an NFL season, and assuming no work stoppages along the way, Favre won't have the opportunity to break Ripken's record until the twelfth game of the 2156 season, but Cal just cannot be happy that Brett just won't hang it up.

8. Fans of the 2156 Green Bay Packers - Now in truth, fans of the prior 140 or so Packers teams will share similar sentiments, but in particular, fans of the 2156 Green Bay Packers (although it is almost certain that none are yet alive) cannot be happy with where this is going. I mean, raise your hand if you would be thrilled if your NFL team was breaking camp with a 186-soon-to-be-187 year old quarterback attempting to lead the team to the championship.

7. Brian Brohm - What looked like an ideal situation, being drafted as the backup quarterback for a guy who had never started an NFL game before, for a team that came extremely close to making it to the Super Bowl last season, suddenly no longer looks so rosy. Tell me, would you want to spend the next century and a half as the third-string quarterback, only coming into the game if both of the guys ahead of you were injured or for mop-up duty during blowout games?

6. Aaron Rodgers - It would seem virtually impossible for anyone to be more annoyed with this Brett Favre Saga than Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has to be annoyed for similar reasons to those of Brohm, but one has to believe that Rodgers's level of annoyance goes a bit higher (at least one level higher as Rodgers is number six while Brohm was number seven). When Rodgers was coming out of college a few years back, there was some discussion that he might in fact be the number one player taken in the entire draft. Unfortunately for Rodgers, that honor went to Utah's Alex Smith. Rodgers had to have been looking to finally show the world that he is a quality player, and in particular to demonstrate this fact to the more than one person (because I certainly did this and I have to assume that there is at least one other person who did so as well) who derived great enjoyment out of seeing Rodgers slip all the way to the number twenty-four selection. And so Aaron Rodgers has to be saying, "Brett, get out of here! Just retire, old man! Let me have a shot!"

5. Aaron Rodgers - Aaron

4. Aaron Rodgers - Rodgers

3. Aaron Rodgers - Hates

2. Aaron Rodgers - Brett

1. Aaron Rodgers - Favre.