We Need Some Perspective

Perspective, it’s a hard thing to find and even harder to keep. That’s what I’ve been thinking in the wake of Sunday’s NFL openers. I know the NFL is perennially hard to figure but this year could be more ridiculous than most seasons. Maybe it’s the shortened pre-season….but I don’t really think so.

The most strikingly surprising game to me, I suppose, was Sunday night’s Jets-Cowboys game. I had expected the Jets to cover whatever deep routes the Boyz would run and do a pretty fair job of stopping their running game too. I had expected a low-scoring game, one that the Jets would squeeze out in the end using their running game behind that terrific offensive line.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, on just about every count, except that the Jets did manage to win. But, winning the way they won is almost inconceivable. Could the Jets repeat that late-game performance on any other Sunday?

No way. Gimme a break, a blocked punt for a touchdown followed almost immediately by a “gimme” interception ? And then a long, long field goal, given the circumstances, to win the game in regulation. In what other game will that Jets safety Leonhard stop Jason Witten on the 2-yard line only to have the opposing quarterback then fumble the ball away on the one?

Everything I thought was so was not. The Jet offensive line was, all in all, non-existent in the first half. It was the old “weakest link in the chain” ploy used by the Cowboys to put a big rush on Mark Sanchez. But the Jets couldn’t “ground and pound”. It was LaDainian Tomlinson and pray for rain for the better part of the second half. Thank God for “LT”. (We all know he’s not LT but WTF)?

I must throw a bone here for Mark Sanchez. Except for that unfortunate fumble that put seven on the board for the Boyz, Sanchez was great. Who can throw on the run as accurately as he does? Who can avoid the rush as he did and find all those different receivers downfield, both throwing from the pocket and, once again, on the run.

While I’m giving out bones, how about Plaxico? He didn’t do anything spectacular, I guess, but just Plax being Plax was plenty good enough. The same could be said for Santonio Holmes being himself. That’s some receiving corps the Jets possess, especially when you add Derek Mason into the mix. But will that kind of game put Rex into the grave before his time?

Primary running back Shonn Green was not Shonn Green, or maybe he was just Shonn Green with no blocking. Look out, Shonn! Here comes another big hit. If the run game doesn’t improve in a hurry, this season could really get strange.

Think “Cardiac Cards”, if anybody but me can remember that far back. When you think about it, the Jets do have the personnel to be that kind of a team. And that kind of game can be really entertaining. But “ground and pound” it’s not.

One game is a poor indicator of future performance in the NFL though, especially in a season with an abbreviated pre-season. Did any running backs have a big day? Not really. Four backs exceeded 20 fantasy points for the week (which is, after all, pretty analogous to real live performance). They were the Chargers’ Mike Tolbert, the Eagles’ LeSean McCoy, the Bengals’ Cedric Benson and the Bears’ Matt Forte. All those teams won.

There were several other 100-yard rushers though, most notably Darren McFadden’s 150-yard tally for the Raiders. So, all in all, the teams that truly wanted to run the ball were pretty successful at it. Those teams showing less commitment in that regard were correspondingly less successful. Our New York Giants could very well be put in that category.

And the Giants could be put in another category as well. If there were an award for “most uninspired”, the Giants could have been right at the top of the list. I couldn’t even watch them. I didn’t expect them to stop the Redskins and they didn’t disappoint me. That they would do so little on offense was a surprise. That their offensive line would be dominated was shocking.

The Giants show every sign of being an unhappy team, a team that’s not having a good time, so much so that they really don’t care much whether they win or lose. And you can put this year’s version of Eli Manning on the top of the list of the truly uninspired. Ahmad Bradshaw carried 13 times for 44 yards. Manning was 18-32 for 268 yards and just one INT but it was a huge one to put it mildly.

But are the Redskins much better than we thought? Were the Bills much better too? How about the Carolina Panthers?

The Bills were really bad at stopping the run last year. The Chiefs, their opponents, had a bigtime rushing game featuring Jamaal Charles, another fantasy wunderkind. Of course it was the Bills and Fred Jackson who piled up the rushing yards. The Chiefs did almost nothing in any phase of the game. Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Bills quarterback, was phenomenal . Are the Chiefs as bad as they looked? They were a playoffs team last year. Are the Bills that good?

Another vastly disappointing team was the Atlanta Falcons. Their QB, Matt Ryan, ballyhooed last year as “Matty Ice” and armed this year with the addition of a supposedly Superman wide receiver, Julio Jones, did nothing through the air, relatively speaking. He certainly didn’t target his rookie much.

But worse than that, the Falcons coaching staff didn’t seem to understand their predicament. They played a very conservative game when the situation demanded some verve. They showed nothing. Matty Ice was the most timid player on the field.

I know one thing. Drew Brees was himself. Was Cam Newton himself? Can we expect that terrific performance to continue?

We need some perspective.