NFC East and South

Finally got a proper day to myself, no hassles, no messing about. Right, NFC East.

Actually, before I start, the last one of these I did was on the NFC North and since then the Packers have gone out and picked up Cedric Benson, I'm sure as part of a devious plan to ruin my predictions. Personally I think that's a really good move on their part as Benson is a good runner and a solid body in pass protection, which understandably is something the Packers are quite big on.

Now on to the NFC East. Promise.

Luck of the draw

The main reason I started this blog was to address some of what I perceived to be the major issues that I have with mainstream coverage of the NFL. One of the biggest problems I've always had is the elevation of certain people unfairly onto "Superstar" pedestals, that is to say that certain people are essentially manufactured into personalities that they are not, because it makes good TV and juicy articles on websites. The similar but in some ways opposite of this is to vilify certain individuals unwarrantedly because it sounds good and again generates mountains of comments and page views, regardless of how accurate or not the analysis is.

A Quick Rant

My next full post will be a look ahead at the NFC East, but just briefly I want to touch on something that came up after tonight's pre-season game involving the Broncos against the Bears.

Basically Peyton Manning took the field and did ok, nothing special, then got picked off. But what drives me nuts about football commentating and analysis is how the NFL Network crew, who naturally made a flurry of snide remarks about the receivers not being used to having accurate passes thrown to them during the short lived Tebow era, then proceeded to pour all the blame on the offensive line and the receivers.

Now in that respect, they're right; the Broncos have a bad O-line and their receivers are on their own unique level of terrible. But during the Tebow era it was all described as Tebow's fault and he was the sole cause of all the problems. Now that Manning has arrived however, oh now everyone has suddenly changed their tune. Despite the fact that Manning had a fairly average showing, suddenly it was all the fault of everyone else and Manning was perfect.

This kind of thing just makes my blood boil. When it's Tebow throwing to those receivers, he gets all the flak and the receivers are painted as being blameless. Enter the golden boy Manning and all of a sudden everyone has reversed course. It's total hypocrisy and the trouble is that it leaves an indelible impression on fans who turn to the TV experts for guidance.

And high school coaches wonder why parents are so ignorant to the game, or college coaches wondering why news reporters covering them are the same. There's your reason why. Shit like that.

NFC North 2012

TA DA!

Yes, well, perhaps not quite the fanfare I'd anticipated. Anyway, finally I am back to writing this blog as the football season slowly begins to lurch into action with the Hall of Fame Game tonight between the Cardinals and Dog the Bounty Hunters new favourite team, the Saints. So it's only appropriate that I pick this day to jump back on the saddle and actually produce a meaningful post.

I'm not sure whether the time away has been good or not. I was pretty burned out on football, just sick and tired of watching game after game of draftees in College. But at the same time I kind of regret spending so much time away, as I've really not followed football at all during the off season. I forgot that Raheem Morris had been fired from the Buccaneers for example. Football has lost some of it's lustre, but I'm hoping that getting back to the meat of football will bring that back.

I'm going to ease myself in today by taking a quick look at the NFC North and how I think the teams will get on. Begin!

Back

So it's August now and training camps are back in full swing. The Football season awaits us, finally. To be honest I haven't followed much of the off season goings on for the first time in years, mainly because I'm busy and I'm burned out with all the non-news that is generated about every last little scrap that the press generates.

But now I'm finally getting back in the swing of things and my plan over the course of training camp is to look at each division and assess where I think they're headed this season. So keep an eye out over the coming days, as I'm going to start in the NFC North, go clockwise around the states, and then do the same for the AFC.

It's good to be back and good to be excited about football again.

Update; 07/16/12

It seems bizarre but the blog has actually been attracting more views without me doing anything!

I am here though. Inevitably the blog feel to the way side during the off season, as I suspected it might. Other things consume my time, as they seem to for most amatuer football bloggers who, unlike our over paid, integrity challenged comrades in the mainstream, do not have all day to sit about thinking of ways to turn innocuous comments by football players into overblown media stories.

I have followed some of the off season buzz, but granted not a lot. It seems that most of the hype has surrounded the ludicrous deal that was given to Drew Brees, a deal the Saints can never hope to reap the benefits of. When I look at the offseason free agent market and think what the Saints could have brought in for that kind of money, I'm a little stunned.

I've also had little interest in some of the stupider articles that come out of the offseason. I've seen at least four or five articles belonging to major news sites that were nothing more than simply taking the opinion of a local beat writer and trying to pretend that is factually representative of how an entire football organisation views a certain situation.

There have also been a steady stream of misquotes and twists of what certain players have said about their teams, seasons, or team mates. It really is depressing to read some of the pure drivel that gets written.

And of course, player after stupid player has been arrested or otherwise run a foul of the law. Apparently getting paid millions of dollars a year is not enough to afford a taxi cab. Nor is getting regularly drug tested enough of a hint to some players, as if the advice of their coaches wasn't enough, that they should be staying away from drugs.

Ah well, stupid is as stupid does I guess.

Over the course of the next few weeks I expect the volume of posts on this blog to go up a little as the football season slowly lurches back out of the dark days of summer and into the bright and bountiful months of winter.

Or something like that.

Update 06/24/12

Well surprise, surprise, I'm miles behind schedule. Unfortunately it's one of the sad issues with this blog in that it's something of a hobby and readership has understandably tailed off with the end of the football season, therefore it comes as quite a low priority when things get busy.

I'm toying with the idea of just ignoring the draft from this point on. We're in the third round now and so players from here on in don't tend to get too much playing time anyway, depending on who they are and how badly they're needed.

Instead I might do something that is more interesting to me and that's to break out the diagrams again and focus more on the coaching aspect of football, which is where my heart for football has always layed.

We'll see. Only another three months before football really begins again. Yay...

Update 06/14/12

I'm getting there, slowly but surely. People always say that wins the race, but other than a race between two people on one of those electronic buzzer things where you have to avoid touching the twisted metal thing in the middle, I don't think I've ever known someone to win a race slowly.

Ah well. I am working on the next part of my draft round up. It'll probably be up over the weekend.

2012 NFL Draft: Round 3 - Picks 1-10

(64) 1. Colts select TE Dwayne Allen: I quite like Allen and stand by what I said originally. He’s comfortable both as a run blocker and a receiver. He has good hands, runs some really good, smart routes and is excellent coming straight out of the break and making the catch. Impressive and along with Coby Fleener he makes an excellent tool for supporting new quarterback Andrew Luck in his rookie year.

(65) 2. Rams select CB Trumaine Johnson: Quite why they did is anybody’s guess. He stinks. He’s so weak and afraid to get stuck in it’s embarrassing to watch. He’s fragile and his coverage is generally poor. He just sits off waiting for the quarterback to make a mistake instead of trying to proactively help his team shut receivers down.

Update 05/06/12

So I've had an idea! (Yes, it hurt)

Question; How do you balance the publics need for regular content with your own need to fit the blog in among your regular day etc?

Answer; Split your posts into manageable chunks.

What that means is I'm going to do my round three recap of the draft in chunks, 10-11 players at a time. I've already done the first 10, in fact they've been done for a few days, so I've just got to edit that in a little while and then that'll go up. The the next post will contain 11-21, then the final post for round three will contain 22-32.

Job done, everyone's a winner.