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Football Meteorology For Week 6
Authored by Jeff Risdon - 12th October, 2006 - 1:07 pm
With John Herrera standing to his right dressed in black and appearing not unlike an undertaker, Lane Kiffin sat down at the podium for Sunday's postgame news conference.
Baltimore wants Flacco to be their QB of the future. But the Ravens feel they have no choice but to start him now because Boller and Smith are unavailable. Wrong!
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Last week was a weatherman’s dream: 11 correct, 3 wrong, including two forecasts that came within 2 points of being perfect. Jim Cantore would be proud. If you’re local TV weatherman was right 11 out of 14 days, you’d be amazed and impressed.
This week has quite a few games that befit the current weather here on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan: overcast, low 50s, with a light steady rain and stiff northwestern breeze. Great weather to huddle in front of the television and watch some football with your favorite beverages and a nice bowl of chili; not so great for actually playing football.
Mostly Sunny games: Seattle at St. Louis: The battle for the lead in the NFC West, played in a dome so weather is not a factor. The Rams continue to impress at 4-1, but check their schedule: wins over Detroit, Green Bay, Arizona, and a loss to San Francisco. Those teams are combined 3-13 when not playing the Rams. Seattle comes off a bye still missing Shaun Alexander, which means they’ll probably throw the ball early and often. That matches well against the biggest Rams’ weakness, pass coverage. St. Louis has had the offense clicking with both the run and pass, but Seattle is very adept at taking away one or the other. Can the Rams succeed with a one-dimensional offense? Despite two fairly high-ranked defenses, this has the makings of a shootout. Seattle sends a message that the NFC West is still theirs, 33-27.
Philadelphia at New Orleans: Another match up of one-loss teams in a dome, both coming off emotional divisional wins. Philly has the #1 adjusted offense in the league and showed that they can hit the homerun even without star WR Donte Stallworth. The Saints are better against the pass than the run, and Will Smith is emerging as an impact pass rusher. This game will come down to the performance of the secondaries. New Orleans relies heavily on yards after the catch and on outlet passes, forcing the defense to make open field tackles. That’s not a strength of the Eagles, particularly their LBs. Likewise, the Eagles have shown an ability to throw over the top and exploit safeties that cheat up into run coverage, something the Saints are often forced to do because their front 7 isn’t real tough versus the run. This should be the most entertaining game of the weekend, though if Philly jumps out early it might not be pretty for Saints fans. I’ll take the Eagles 30-24.
Partly Sunny games:
New York Giants at Atlanta: All the good games this week are in domes, a weatherman’s ultimate nightmare! This one pits #1 strengths against #1 weaknesses for both teams. Atlanta is great at running the ball, using Dunn, Norwood, and Vick to carve up defenses behind a very underappreciated offensive line. The Giants have been steadily improving against the run, with strong play up the middle. They’ll dare Mike Vick to throw, even though the Giants struggle badly in coverage and making tackles after catches. The Falcons have great size advantages over the Giants DBs, and Ashley Leile provides an effective field stretching threat they’ve lacked. On the flip side, the Giants have a big-play offense that uses the play-action pass very effectively. Atlanta’s defense has great quickness and sound tackling in the running game, but they’re vulnerable to long pass plays and trickery. Giants WR Amani Toomer and TE Jeremy Shockey are both matchup problems for the Falcons, and QB Eli Manning plays no favorites. I’ve been wrong with the Giants every week this year. I like the Falcons 20-14, which means the Giants will probably win 28-10.
Carolina at Baltimore: Finally an outdoor game, and it looks to be another cold, rainy game for the Ravens after their Monday might loss in Denver. The Ravens do nothing fancy, pull no surprises; they expect to hammer teams with a physical, dominating defense and win the field position battle often enough to eke out a TD or two and a couple of FGs. Carolina is a different team with Steve Smith healthy and Deshaun Foster at full strength, though they will miss RB DeAngelo Williams. The Panthers have had good success against physical, stout defenses (ask Bears fans). Games like this often turn on a special teams play or key turnover, and Baltimore is more mistake-prone in both those areas despite what the overall stats tell you. Carolina slogs through a 16-10 road win in a game where there might not be 100 combined rushing yards.
Cloudy, Rainy, Chilly games Chicago at Arizona: Chicago tops my power poll, and if they’re not on top in any other polls you need to never trust those polls again. They finally showed the running game they’ve been surprisingly missing, with both Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson running downhill and reading blocks well. Their defensive front continues to dominate every single snap, and Ricky Manning Jr. has provided a major lift at nickel CB, which was the biggest chink in the Bear armor last season. Arizona will be without their best overall player, WR Larry Fitzgerald, and starts a rookie at QB behind a terrible pass-blocking OL. That’s an even bigger problem for Arizona because they average just 2.8 yards per carry. The Cards D struggles to cover non-primary WRs and RBs, and Bears QB Rex Grossman has been excellent at finding the openings and using multiple receivers. It’s a major Monday Night mismatch on paper, and it will be on the field as well. Go to bed at halftime when the Bears are leading 24-6, and you can wake up Tuesday to find you missed little in a 34-13 mauling.
San Diego at San Francisco: The 49ers elevated themselves from the bottom 5 overall with their convincing win over Oakland, while the Chargers vaulted themselves into the top 5 overall with their convincing win over the Steelers. The ability of the Chargers to both run and pass on offense (they’re 7th in adjusted stats in both categories) presents major problems for the 49ers, who give up almost 50% conversions on 3rd down and rank 31st in yards allowed per 1st down snap. Other than resurgent CB Walt Harris, the SF defense is completely devoid of playmakers. The Chargers bring pressure on defense from all over the field, not good news for a very shaky 49ers OL that is much worse at pass blocking than run blocking. The Niners do have some hope if RB Frank Gore can have success early and #2 WR Arnaz Battle plays like he did versus Oakland. San Diego 37, San Francisco 10.
Kansas City at PittsburghA matchup of two of the surprise units of 2006: the sputtering Steelers rush offense and the vastly improved Chiefs run defense. It’s been painful to watch Ben Roethlisberger’s struggles at QB for Pittsburgh, but some blame falls on his WRs, who have been far too easy to cover. The Chiefs do a great job taking away the primary options, and right now the Steelers have a complete lack of alternate weapons other than Hines Ward. I do think the Steelers defense will raise their intensity at home against a team lacking a big-play WR. Chiefs backup QB Damon Huard has done a great job in managing the game and making sound decisions, and he’ll need to stay in top form against Dick Lebeau’s complex blitz packages and the playmaking DBs. Last week I stated I couldn’t fathom KC falling to 1-3; I have a real hard time believing PIT will be 1-4, even though the Chiefs are clearly playing better right now. Pittsburgh emerges with a 17-15 win. (Note: I changed my prediction on this game 6 times)
Hide in the basement with provisions Games Tennessee at Washington: The Redskins are another NFC East team with maddening schizophrenia. One week they look like the team that won a playoff game last season, the next week you wonder how they’re not winless, and it doesn’t appear to matter whom they’re playing as to which Redskins team will show up. Tennessee put up a valiant fight last week, but they actually match up well against the Colts, who cannot stop runs up the middle or contain mobile QBs. Washington excels at both, so look for the Titans to struggle to have any sustained offense. Washington will throw early and often at everyone except CB Pacman Jones, the only competent DB the Titans have right now. The Redskins can win this even if their A game is absent, so long as they bring more than the F game they had in Week 5. Washington Ethnic Slurs 27, Tennessee Tuxedos (c’mon, change the name already!) 10.
Cincinnati at Tampa Bay: The Bengals got a bye week to scout the resurgent Bucs offense and its impressive rookie QB (who told you Bruce Gradkowski could play!). Cincy also gets back S Dexter Jackson, who was sorely missed against the run. Tampa has run defense issues of their own, and a fresh Rudi Johnson is just the guy to take advantage. Cincy 24, Tampa 20.
Buffalo at Detroit: The Lions lost their 3 best players (Roy Williams, Damien Woody, Shaun Rogers) on the opening possessions last week and threw away a crushing loss to the Vikings. Buffalo made more mental misjudgments than Tara Reid and Paris Hilton combined in getting annihilated by the Bears. Someone has to win, and the Lions run defense is the best of the four primary matchups, so they’re the choice. Detroit enters the win column with a 27-23 win in a turnover and penalty filled fiasco.
Miami at New York Jets: Miami fell into the bottom 5 with another week of lousy execution and ineffective game planning. The Jets got walloped 41-0 and have yet to win at home or slow down opposing ball carriers, who have chalked up a league-high 11 TDs. Freakish coincidence alert: Miami allows an opposing QB rating of 92.3, which is almost exactly the career rating for Jets QB Chad Pennington (91.9). You don’t win many games giving up a QB rating in the 90s, not when your own QB (that would be Joey Harrington) has a career rating in the low 60s and couldn’t equal that against an inferior Patriots secondary last week. The Jets prevail 19-17 in a matchup of the two weakest WR corps in the NFL.
Houston at Dallas: Drew Bledsoe is taking lots of heat for his mistake-filled game in Philly and his inconsistent performance all season. How quickly people forget that’s been Bledsoe’s MO his entire career and the Cowboys certainly knew what they were getting. What should scare Dallas fans is how easily and often the Eagles threw over the top, because that’s something the Texans have done very well this year too. If the Texans had any defense at all they could steal this one, but they’re still on pace for one of the 10 worst passing defensive seasons of all time and their run D isn’t a whole lot better. Dallas 33, Houston 20.
Oakland at Denver: If you watched MNF, you saw a Broncos defense with a relentless attack and the ability to force turnovers and blanket opposing WRs. They did that to the Ravens, one of the better OLs and veteran-led offenses in the league. The Raiders OL is brutal, and they start a very green Andrew Walter at QB. He couldn’t move the ball against vastly inferior defenses the past two weeks, and Denver is a team that preys on weakness. The Raiders reclaimed the bottom of the power poll last week, and they just might stay there the rest of the year. Denver coach Mike Shanahan will show no mercy to his despised former employer. Denver 34, Oakland 9.
