Minnesota Vikings

Happy Wednesday friends.  As I write this on Tuesday night, I am feeling a bit better, and expecting to be back in my office tomorrow.  Once again, I worked from home today, and started to feel better as the day went on.  I haven't sneezed in awhile, and even went to a Chamber of Commerce networking event for a little while earlier (which is hilarious, if you're familiar with my political leanings.)  

Anyway, I promised some content for today, and content you shall have.  First, I'll start with some thoughts and observations from the two games from Sunday.

1.  New York Jets at Indianapolis Colts 

a.  I lauded the Austin Collie pick when it happened last April, and he's made me (and Bill Polian) look smart.  He's very reliable, and I was almost shocked when he dropped the first pass thrown to him Sunday.  I think Collie's combination of fluidness and precision in his routes are already near the top of the NFL for slot receivers.  I think he's a more sturdily built, quicker version of Brandon Stokley, and I expect him to have an excellent and long career.

b.  Speaking of previously unheralded Colts WRs, how about Pierre Garcon?  He was fantastic Sunday, but I have to clear up an uncommon misconception about him.  Well, it's more like a misconception about his college.  Mount Union College is a perennial Division III powerhouse, and is located in Alliance, Ohio.  Alliance is about 20 miles east of Canton, and is notable for being the site of the historic wedding after-party where I picked up my first woman out of a bar, 2 weeks after getting legally divorced.  (She's a co-worker of the groom, and we ended up dating for a few months last summer; she's the one who broke up with me during halftime of the Hall of Fame game last August, freeing me up to write a lot of words for MHR.)

Anyway, Rich Eisen was saying on TV that Mount Union is in New Jersey, near the Jets facility.  Not so much, Rich.

  Cut To The Chase »

Happy Monday, friends, and welcome to The Mothership.  We've got a couple more teams going fishing, and we'll explore their situations.  We'll also devote some early thought to the Super Bowl matchup.  Finally, since the Senior Bowl is this week, we'll get into that a little bit, and possibly also consider the less important Pro Bowl.  The NFC Championship game isn't over yet, as I start writing this, but I want to get a couple thousand words written before midnight.  Ready..... BEGIN!!!

1.  Both championship games were very interesting on Sunday, after the first two weekends had a lot of blowouts, and a few uninteresting close games.  I would venture to say that the only entertaining game in the first two weeks was Arizona vs. Green Bay.  It was a good Football Sunday, and we'll start by thinking about the losers.

a.  New York Jets - First of all, let me reiterate that anybody who made it to their conference championship game had a good season.  That said, this was not the year New York planned to be in Super Bowl contention, so I think they were already playing with house money on Sunday.  They wanted to win, and I know they believed that they could, but they're still developing into what they ultimately want to become.

First things first, since the MSM will always focus on the QB position first.  Mark Sanchez generally has a ways to go as a decision maker, but he showed a lot of poise during the recent run, and it has to make Jets fans very excited for the future.  He had a good day on Sunday, and the two TD passes he threw each showed a quality that the elite QBs possess.  He showed outstanding touch on the deep ball on the first, and impressive toughness and accuracy under pressure on the second.  My concerns about his ability to play in bad weather aside, it's pretty clear that the Jets have their guy of the future.

  Cut To The Chase »

Happy Monday, friends, and welcome to The Mothership. After a pretty uninspiring Divisional Playoff round, we can only hope for more interesting games next week. I am incidentally re-writing about the first 1000 words because I clicked wrong button, and lost my work. CKEditor needs a save feature.

Anyway, let’s get to getting this big red ship underway. Somebody give me a push away from the pier in the port of Echo Chamber. Ready…. BEGIN!!!!

I'm back again with some more of the same, analyzing the NFC coaching trees.  Check out this piece from a couple days ago, if you're interested in the AFC trees.  Again, this primarily is filling a need I have to test some query programming on the team pages I'm creating, but I hope it's a value-adding read for you.

Dallas Cowboys -- Wade Phillips

Phillips is definitely descended from his father Bum.  Not so many Head Coaches come from Bum, but he is responsible for a distinct school of thought in the 3--4 defense, and that's very significant.  Wade's worked for Dan Reeves and Marty Schottenheimer, but it's fair to say that he was a practitioner for them, more than a learner in development.  We'll say Wade is part of the Bum Phillips Tree.

New York Giants -- Tom Coughlin

Coughlin goes way back to the Parcells Tree, having worked for him in New York during the late 80s and early 90s.  In terms of his approach to discipline and player procurement (size-speed), he's very similar to Parcells.

Philadelphia Eagles -- Andy Reid

Reid is definitely part of the Walsh Tree, having done all of his assistant work in the NFL under Mike Holmgren in Green Bay.  Reid played and briefly coached under LaVell Edwards at Brigham Young University, and there's more verticality to Reid's version of the West Coast offense than most others, which seems to probably be somewhat attributable to Edwards' influence.  Some of it is also undoubtedly attributable to the skill-set of Donovan McNabb, too, though.

Washington Redskins -- Jim Zorn

Zorn is part of the Walsh Tree, having come up under Mike Holmgren in Seattle.  His zealous adherence to the West Coast principles have been part of his problem, because Jason Campbell needs to be in a vertical offense where timing is less of an issue.  Zorn's about to be fired, and probably replaced by Mike Shanahan, who has his own tree. 

Cut To The Chase »