A Disappointing NFL

Disappointing. That’s what this year’s NFL season has been thus far. There are just too many bad teams, very bad teams, to be honest.

Let’s take this past week’s slate of games. The Jets beat Oakland 38-0. The Chargers beat the Chiefs 37-7. The Colts took the Rams 42-6. The Pack killed the Browns 31-3. The Pats trounced the Bucs in London, of all places, 35-7. The Bengals walked all over the Bears 45-10, but it was somewhat of an anomaly, the Bears just having a very bad game. The Skins only lost by 10 to the Eagles but they were never really in the game.

So… of 13 games on the schedule (6 teams had byes), there were 7 totally boring games. The losers were never in it, not for one moment. There wasn’t even any anticipation of the game being close. Worse still, of the 6 teams on byes, 3 of them are awful, Detroit, Tennessee and Jacksonville. If they had played, it would have been a bleak Sunday indeed.

Why is the disparity so bad this year between the haves and have nots? It’s ownership in most cases, and not in a financial sense so much as in an intellectual sense. The bad teams have made bad decisions, on players, especially quarterbacks, and also, and maybe even more importantly, on managers and coaches, and thus on game plans. They’re bad, and they don’t have good prospects for ever being good, not soon anyway. Maybe in the next life.

Take the Skins, please. Dan Snyder’s been the owner for quite some time. His tenure has been marked by frequent changes, in head coaches, in players, and their quarterback is awful. Jason Campbell’s only gift is height.

The Raiders are next in line for some bashing. Al Davis is behind the times. He’ll never catch up. Every year, he drafts the fastest player he can and hopes for the best. His head coach just beat up one of his assistants. His quarterback is the worst in the league, Jamarcus Russell. He too is tall and beefy…..and that’s about it.

The Tampa Bay contingent let their good head coach go and elevated a fellow who turned a good pass defense into a sieve. The QB they’re playing now, Josh Johnson, runs around a lot, and yes, pretty much like the proverbial chicken with his head cut off.

Detroit is perhaps the poster-boy for horrible ownership and management year after year. There may be hope for the Chiefs, who will slowly recover after years of Herman Edwards’s tutelage. Tennessee will come back too, but will Vince Young really be their savior at that all-important quarterback spot?

There may be hope for the Jaguars but their long-time head coach, Jack Del Rio, will never win any contests for coaching acumen. The Rams too can have hope for the future; it’s just the immediate present that will be extremely challenging. Even the Bills may eventually right themselves, but I don’t know precisely why I feel that way, maybe because they always wind up being at least mediocre.

You hear a lot that any team can beat any other on any given day. That point is proven too, but only every once in a while, most recently by the Eagles losing to the Raiders. Every once in a blue moon, even a good head coach seems to lose his mind in the heat of a losing battle. In that particular game, Andy Reid forgot he had a running game (once again) even though he was facing a team with no run defense. Color him hard-headed.

What’s most upsetting to me are those franchises who spend big money on bad quarterbacks, or those who year after year will draft a wide receiver with their number one pick. Other franchises will ignore their obvious problems. Some teams never field a decent pass defense; others can never stop the run, year after year. It’s friggin’ inexplicable. But troubling.

The Giants fix their problems right away. So do the Jets. They’ve been right on their big acquisitions at quarterback, and at most other places too. Both Coughlin and Ryan are good coaches with good staffs. Every week, New York fans of either the Green or the Blue can feel that their respective teams will be in the hunt. Problems that develop, such as the Giants pass defense or the Jets offensive headaches of the moment will be addressed.

Football is unique, of course, with respect to the number of injuries that occur every week, and some are very serious injuries to key players. The Jets, for example, just lost Kris Jenkins and Leon Washington for the season. Those two can’t really be replaced. Their effects will be reflected in the final standings.

Oakland couldn’t take advantage of the Jenkins loss but other teams almost surely will. The Jets were also smart enough to protect their young quarterback and rely on their running game. They were also quick to pick up another defensive lineman; not all teams would have been so quick to assess their reserves and react. It’s a very good sign of their commitment to winning.

The Giants’ pass defense problem is more problematical. Injuries in the secondary are playing a part but their linebackers don’t really seem to have the speed or coverage ability that will be needed against the better passing teams. Their last two losses to the Saints and Cards were entirely predictable but they’ll still prevail against lesser squads.

The Jets have to face Miami again next week while the Giants have the Eagles on tap. Neither game will be a gimme by any means. The Jets were victimized by the Fish not too long ago while the Eagles are one of those strong passing teams, one of those teams quite capable of ringing the G-Men up for a few to several touchdowns.

How both teams react to these challenges will be quite telling, I think, both to guage their intellect and character.

So How Bad Is It?

How bad is it? As the fat guy Clemenza said in The Godfather, “pretty damn bad”. I say this because the Mets are opening a 3-game set against the Dodgers and they’re still banged up as bad as ever. That doesn’t bode well against Joe Torre’s crew. Pitching and batting, they’ve got it all, and Manny too. Some teams have all the luck.

An analysis of the at-bats for the two teams leading the NL East, the Phillies and the Mets, points to how bad things have really been for our locals. The Mets have only one guy with 300 or more at-bats, David Wright. The Phils have three, Rollins, Victorino and Howard, and four more of their players have 250 or more at-bats. That would be Werth with 289, Feliz and Utley with 282, and Ibanez, who hit the disabled list a couple of weeks ago, with 250.

For the Mets, after David Wright, Carlos Beltran, who hasn’t played in a very long time, seemingly forever if you’re a Mets fan, has a comparatively measly 241 at-bats. Just three other Mets have over 200 at-bats. That would be Castillo, Murphy and Church, not exactly a Murderers Row.

Surprisingly enough, it’s bargain pick-up Gary Sheffield with the next highest number of plate appearances with 185. The other comparative workhorses are Alex Cora, Fernando Tatis, Jose Reyes (in just 36 games) and Omir Santos, all of whom have 142 to 162 at-bats and have appeared in from 36 to 54 games out of the 80 games in which Wright has played. So, all in all, the only regular has been Wright.

And thank the good Lord for that. Wright’s batting .326 with production numbers to match. But of the steadier healthier players this year, only Church and Sheffield have been even somewhat productive with a .290 BA for Church and a remarkable10 homers and 31 ribbies for the dour Sheffield.

The good news is that, in one of those ridiculous statistical anomalies, this banged-up Mets team currently ranks second in the National League in batting average. Their .270 is exceeded only by the Dodgers who collectively bat .272.

The bad news is that it’s a noticeably unproductive .270. The Metsies have scored only 355 runs, ranked 20th among all major league teams. That basically means that not only do the teams with higher batting averages score more than our lovable locals but even the thirteen teams with lower averages all score more than do the Mets.

I would have assumed that it has been the Mets pitching that has kept them respectable. That’s not necessarily the case however. Although their collective team ERA is 4.26, that ranks just seventh in the National League. An even more interesting stat is that their team WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) ranks 14th in the National League. That means that they’ve either been lucky or very good defensively or that their pitchers on average are better in the clutch.

It also means they have more heart-rending moments than just about any other team in baseball, with runners always on base and either strikeouts or double plays required to take them out of troublesome situations.

Without even looking it up, we know the Mets haven’t been very good defensively, or has it just been Murphy? A glance at the actual figures shows the Mets in the middle of the pack defensively but in runners left on base, they rank third, behind only Boston and Philadelphia. And when you think about individual pitchers, Pelfrey’s seemingly always getting out of trouble, Hernandez, Maine and Santana too. So the Mets do seem to have something going for them.

And looking ahead they could get better. Beltran, Reyes and even Delgado will probably return. Oliver Perez, the flaky starter who can dazzle at times, will probably be back. I won’t belabor the point but things can’t really get worse for the Mets and they’ve managed to at least nominally stay in the hunt thus far.

The schedule doesn’t look that intimidating either. In the National League, the only really threatening team is the Dodgers. After this coming series with them, the Mets will face the Reds for 3 games. Then there is the long awaited All-Star Break. Immediately after the break, all their opponents are beatable, especially with a rejuvenated team.

The likes of Atlanta, Washington, Houston, Colorado….these are beatable teams, infinitely beatable. So is San Diego, likewise Arizona. It looks like the Mets could have clear sailing for 33 games before having to face the Phillies again, then the Marlins and the Cubs, who’ll probably be leading their division by then.

But if the Mets can take 22 out of those 33, they should be 18 games above .500 with all of September still left to play, with their regulars rested, with their bench having gained experience, including all those AAA guys playing like AAA guys right now but not necessarily later.

The full complement of the Mets should be very hard to beat. After all, Omar did fill all the holes. He got the depth he needed and he picked up the required relief pitching. He and this Mets team just ran into an incredible string of bad luck. Judging from the schedule, that luck could turn the other way in an awful hurry.

So how bad is it really? It’s easy to despair when the Phillies just kicked your butt and you’re off to face the best team in the league. But if the Mets can play tough headed into the break and not totally lose heart, the post-break picture looks exceedingly nicer.

So as bad as it looks, things are looking up. Could things go the other way and even get worse? Sure. It’s possible but it sure as hell isn’t likely. This could be the year the Mets rise from the ashes after years of coasting through regular seasons only to lose in the end.

And it’s just around the corner, Mets fans.

NFL Coaches - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Bad coaching seems to be running rampant in the NFL this year. Some of them have been bad for years. Herman Edwards of Kansas City comes immediately to mind, of course, and Jack DelRio is most certainly another, despite winning some games with some terrific personnel in Jacksonville.

Some are just recently bad. Lovie Smith of “da Bears” would seem to qualify this year and the Cowboys Wade Phillips would almost certainly be another. Oh yeah, I think you can throw San Diego’s Norv Turner in there too. Anybody who’d hire Ted Cottrell as his defensive coordinator wears blinders.

All this comes to mind as I tonight witnessed te Green Bay Packers get totally annihilated by the sometimes equally inept New Orleans Saints. Any defense that surrenders over 50 points in a game is just not doing the job, I’m sorry to say. I don’t care how good Drew Brees may be.

The Vikings absolute man-handling of the Jaguars was ridiculous. Atlanta’s destruction of the Panthers was almost beyond belief. How can you let Michael Turner score four touchdowns? Didn’t the first three give you a clue?

The Cowboys destroyed the 49ers too, which, maybe you could say was predictable but why let Owens catch all those long balls? Was anybody watching the game unfold, or was Singletary busy watching the behavior of his tight end?

In order to see just how bad the coaching problem is in the NFL, if anything could be worse than the referee-ing, I’ve gone down the list of teams and their respective coaches(courtesy of SportsFrog.com) and classified them as either good, bad, or ugly as follows:

The Good

1.Arizona Cardinals – Ken Wisenhunt – took a chronically bad team and made it good, had the courage to start Kurt Warner over Matt Leinart.

2.Atlanta Falcons – Mike Smith – maybe a great coach, judging by the great shape of every aspect of the Falcons game, running, passing and defense

3.Baltimore Ravens – John Harbaugh – he’s given that great defense a reason to believe, he recognized some good things in QB Joe Flacco and nursed him and his team to victories.

4.Indianapolis Colts – Tony Dungy – if all the titles don’t sway you, what about his handling of this team after all those injuries?

5.Miami Dolphins – Tony Sparano – great job this year marred only by his single coverage all game long on none other than Randy Moss on Sunday. Geez.

6.New England Patriots – Bill Belichick – maybe the best coach of them all – unless you totally surprise him, as Miami’s “wildcat” did earlier this year

7.New Orleans Saints – Sean Payton – injuries hurt him this season but his team is hanging in there, and his defense appears to be getting better.

8.New York Giants – Tom Coughlin – his better treatment of his players had to be forced on him but you apparently can teach an old dog some new tricks.

9.Pittsburgh Steelers – Mike Tomlin – seems to have retained all the good things about the Steelers, except maybe for the absence of a big jaw.

10.Seattle Seahawks – Mike Holmgren – top three or four – injuries decimated receivers this year.

11.Tennessee Titans – Jeff Fisher – his teams have always been ready to play; this year he had the smarts to make Kerry Collins his starter and let Vince Young watch.

12.Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Jon Gruden – remarkable consistency and great Chucky face.

13.Washington Redskins – Jim Zorn – despite looking foolish in the season’s first game vs. the Giants, he and the Skins have come on strong.

The Bad:

1.Chicago Bears – Lovie Smith – stayed too long with Rex and has seemingly no head for offense at all, not to mention defending the pass.

2.Green Bay Packers – Mike McCarthy –mishandled Favre situation, signed Rodgers for six years and team can’t stop the run OR the pass as evidenced by last night’s Saints debacle.

3.Houston Texans – Gary Kubiak – does this team EVER get better?

4.Philadelphia Eagles – Andy Reid – yeah, I know, blah-blah-blah re coaching record, but what has he done lately? When will his team get some real receivers and running backs? And then there’s the McNabb-Kolb thing, time to go home for a while.

5.St Louis Rams – Jim Haslett – this team seems to have quit, ‘nuff said.

6.San Diego Chargers – Norv Turner – good team-underperforms in all areas.


The UGLY:

1.Jacksonville Jaguars – Jack Del Rio – I still recall the “ax incident” and good personnel that plays either badly or inconsistently.

2.Kansas City Chiefs – Herman Edwards – good motivator, terrible bench coach, terrible time management, as coach, makes a great cornerback.

3. Oakland Raiders – Tom Cable - anybody who’d coach for Al Davis has to be listed in this category despite impressive recent win over Shanahan’s Broncos.

4.Cleveland Browns – Romeo Crennel – has totally botched the QB situation, and now a quick hook on Brady Quinn.

5.Dallas Cowboys – Wade Phillips –his team displays no toughness in bad times; even in good times can play with no heart.

6.Minnesota Vikings – Brad Childress – excellent personnel plays very inconsistently on a consistent basis, terrible offense when the run is stopped, terrible bench decisions.

Jury Still Out:

1. Buffalo Bills – Dick Jauron – inconsistent teams but injuries too, QB Trent Edwards may someday turn the corner.
2. Carolina Panthers – John Fox – not convinced that this team is as good as its personnel, plays inconsistently very often.
3. Cincinnati Bengals – Marvin Lewis – hard to like but cursed with head cases and injuries.
4. Denver Broncos – Mike Shanahan – yeah, I know, what a surprise, but his teams are always very strange and play that way, witness last loss to Raiduhs..
5. Detroit Lions – Rod Marinelli – winless but horrible personnel and losing culture will be hard to overcome.
6. New York Jets – Eric Mangini – over-thinks situations, bad bench coach despite good team, we’ll see if he can advance in playoffs.
7. San Francisco 49ers – Mike Singletary – not enough time in job, could be great with right staff.

For those teams listed as bad or ugly, ask yourself if you couldn’t imagine that team being a lot better with a different coaching staff. Happy Thanksgiving!