Sean Payton has climbed into the top spot this week after his team had a riveting come-from-behind win in Miami, and by come-from-behind we mean they were trailing 24-3 late in the second half and won the game 46-34. That means for the rest of the game, they score was 43-10 New Orleans. Just sick.
1. Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints—Sorry Josh McDaniels, but while you were on bye Payton’s team had a remarkable comeback against the Dolphins on the road. They appear to be the 2007 Patriots, and for that we have to give the coach top props.
2. Josh McDaniels, Denver Broncos—We know the Broncos upset the Cowboys and Patriots, but the next two weeks they face Baltimore and Pittsburgh. We’ll see if the boy wonder is still sitting pretty after that.
3. Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts—The rookie coach is still waiting for his first loss. Good for him.
4. Brad Childress, Minnesota Vikings—Okay, so the Vikings are human. However, I think Childress’ investment will pay off this weekend in Green Bay.
5. Marvin Lewis, Cincinnati Bengals—Regained confidence by thrashing the Bears and remained tied for first with the Steelers in the tough AFC North.
Honorable mention: Bill Belichick, Patriots; Mike Smith, Falcons; Gary Kubiak, Texans; Ken Whisenhunt, Cardinals
A few changes in the works…we’ve eliminated all New York Giants now from contention until they get their act together again. Well, IF they get their act together again. Drew Brees is an animal, and Cedric Benson and Matt Schaub have also entered the Top 5…..
1. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints—Now Brees has a thrilling comeback to add to his 2009 resume, and coming back from down by 21 on the road was enough to vault him into first here over Peyton Manning, who was good but not great in beating the Rams.
2. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts—Can Manning do what Brees did? We’re not sure, and that’s the only reason we have him sitting a notch below the Saints’ QB this week.
3. Cedric Benson, Cincinnati Bengals—He climbed over Adrian Peterson again, this time stunning his former team with a career high 189 yards. And let’s not forget his former team is the defense-minded Bears.
4. Matt Schaub, Houston Texans—He leads the league in TD passes with 16, and he has the Texans playing out of their minds at the moment. If the team had a few more wins, he’d be ranked even higher here.
5. Jared Allen, Minnesota Vikings—Allen was mostly held in check by the Steelers, but we’ll let that slide. I’d hate to be Aaron Rodgers this weekend.
Honorable Mention–Elvis Dumervil, Broncos; Andre Johnson, Texans, Tom Brady, Patriots; Brett Favre, Vikings; Adrian Peterson, Vikings; Vernon Davis, 49ers
Okay, so we can finally separate Josh McDaniels and Marvin Lewis after the former beat San Diego to reach 6-0 and the latter lost a tough home game to Houston. Here is our current power rankings for NFL Coach of the Year:
1. Josh McDaniels, Denver Broncos—Seriously, 6-0? The schedule keeps getting tougher, but it doesn’t seem to faze this team or their confident coach. Dude is a mini-Belichick, the first “offspring” to be worthy of that title.
2. Sean Payton, New Orleans Saints—After beating the Giants to reach 5-0, we can start talking about the very real likelihood of the Saints reaching the Super Bowl for the first time, and this guy is a big reason why. It’s still amazing that he managed to pay his defensive coordinator a quarter mil of his own cash to lure him, but it seems to have been worth it.
3. Jim Caldwell, Indianapolis Colts—Just like his QB, you can’t fault Caldwell for the bye week.
4. Brad Childress, Minnesota Vikings—Now 6-0, there should be no question that Childress did himself and the city of Minnesota a huge favor bringing back #4. He sure wasn’t going to be 6-0 with Tarvaris Jackson, was he?
5. Mike Smith, Atlanta Falcons—A tough win against the Bears, and this team is not fading any time soon. Really, the Falcons and Saints are two of the best teams in the NFC and it should be interesting when they meet.
Honorable mention: Tom Coughlin, Giants; Bill Belichick, Patriots; Marvin Lewis, Bengals
There was some shifting in the ranks after Week 6 games, and now we have three Vikings in the Top 5. Here is how we’re seeing things now, subject to change again after this weekend!
1. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts—We can’t let Peyton slide down just because he didn’t play last week. And he’s likely to stay here with the Rams looming on Sunday.
2. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints—After dissecting the Giants’ stingy pass defense on Sunday, it’s safe to say Brees and his Saints are not only for real, but they are legitimately the top dog in the NFC and maybe in all of football.
3. Brett Favre, Minnesota Vikings—He’s done nothing to let us think he’s not worthy of MVP consideration. 278 yards and 3 more TDs against Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and company is Favre’s latest line.
4. Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings—He hadn’t rushed for 100 yards since the opener against Cleveland, but Peterson managed to bust through for 166 all-purpose yards against the Ravens and he took over the NFL’s rushing lead from Cedric Benson, who laid an egg against Houston.
5. Jared Allen, Minnesota Vikings—Check out this year-to-date stat line—27 total tackles, 7.5 sacks, 3 forced fumbles, one fumble return for a TD and one safety. The dude is a one-man wrecking crew on an already stout defense, and this makes three Vikings contending for MVP.
Honorable Mention–Cedric Benson, Bengals; Elvis Dumervil, Broncos; Andre Johnson, Texans, Steve Smith, Giants, Tom Brady, Patriots
With the news that Fred Taylor is going to undergo surgery, the crowded New England backfield suddenly becomes less crowded. In the first four games, Taylor accounted for 36% of the team’s touches (45 carries/124 total RB touches).
If there was some question how this work would be divvied up amongst Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk and Laurence Maroney prior to Week 5, there shouldn’t be any further confusion. Against the Broncos, Morris had 19 touches for 107 yards, including two catches for 39 yards. Faulk had seven touches for eight yards, while Maroney had five carries for 21 yards. In the first four games, Faulk averaged 6.8 touches, while Maroney averaged 8.8 touches. (It’s important to note that Maroney had 12 touches in Week 1, a game that Morris missed because of injury. Since then, he has averaged just 7.7 touches per game.)
For his part, Morris averaged 7.3 touches in Weeks 2-4, working himself back from injury, so in Week 5, he essentially received all of Taylor’s workload. This makes sense, since the two are pretty similar players. Both are hard-nosed runners that thrive between the tackles, though Morris is better at catching the ball out of the backfield. And he has always been a Belichick favorite because he’s willing to do whatever it takes to help the Patriots win. For the foreseeable future, that job will entail being the Patriots’ RB1.
Is there a chance that the Pats go with the hot hand? Sure, but Faulk is nothing more than a fine third-down back, and probably won’t get the chance to get hot on first and second down. As for Maroney, I realize that he’s just 24, but is there anything in his recent past that would indicate that he’s capable of carrying a big workload for any length of time? It might not be a bad idea to handcuff the two (Morris and Maroney), but if Week 5 is any indication, Sammy Morris is the New England RB to own going forward.
He has a rough schedule, but it’s not often you can pluck a #1 RB off the waiver wire. If he’s available, grab him.
In their latest ‘toon, Bang! Cartoons tackles the ever-growing issue the NFL has with trying to protect its quarterbacks, namely the Patriots’ Tom Brady.
Following their 27-21 loss to the Patriots in Foxboro on Sunday, several Ravens players ripped the officiating, particularly two roughing the passer calls on Tom Brady.
“Without totally going off the wall here, it is embarrassing to the game,” linebacker Ray Lewis said. “[Tom] Brady is good enough to make his own plays, let him make the play. When you have two great teams that are going at it, let them go at it. Both of their touchdown drives had personal fouls that kept drives alive. Did that win or lose the game? No, but it got them 14 points.”
Asked his biggest gripe, Reed said: “It just felt like everything was kind of all over again. You hate to come into a game where you have to play against a team and the officials. Like I said, nothing to take away from their team, nothing to take away from the officials. We have to help each other out in a way to where it’s near as perfect as we can be. Like I said, it’s a game of inches. We have too much going on with this game, from where it’s come to in 2009, 2010, to say we can’t be a little bit more precise with things.”
Reed was specifically referring to Willis McGahee’s fourth-and-1 run in the fourth quarter in which he was stopped for no gain, and the Patriots’ fake field goal in the fourth quarter.
“When Willis had his fourth-down try, it probably wouldn’t have been a first [down], but it probably should have been a little closer,” he said. “The [Patriots'] spots, the guy stepped out of bounds. Even though we got the penalty on that fourth down when they faked the field goal, the guy stepped out and he reached the ball. Certain things like that. Like I said, you have to play the game.”
I hate that this needs to be said because it shouldn’t matter, but for the record I’m not a “Patriots hater.”
That said, New England has gotten some calls in the last two weeks that have been questionable at best. The two roughing the passer penalties yesterday were cheap and there was a play last week in the Patriots’ win over the Falcons where Atlanta receiver Michael Jenkins and a New England defender were both jostling in coverage and the refs called pass interference on Jenkins, which wiped out a touchdown. Brady was also able to throw a touchdown pass last week to put the game away thanks to one of his offensive lineman bear-hugging John Abraham to avoid a sack.
It appears that the refs are calling penalties based on Brady’s injury last year, which is ridiculous. Just call the game – don’t throw a flag every time a defender is within a mile of Brady’s knees.
All of these calls could have gone either way…they’ve just been going the Patriots way so far.
If Ozzie Newsome doesn’t get Joe Flacco some receivers, he’s going to wind up wasting his young quarterback’s talents.
Baltimore receivers dropped two passes inside the Patriots’ 20-yard line at the end of New England’s 27-21 win on Sunday, which cost the Ravens an opportunity to stay undefeated.
Derrick Mason’s drop on 3rd and 4 from the 14-yard line with 35 seconds left was bad, but also forgivable considering the defender bumped him from behind right as the pass hit his chest. But Mark Clayton’s drop on the very next play was inexcusable because Flacco hit him right in the numbers and it served as the death nail for the Ravens.
But let’s give credit where credit is due – this was an impressive victory by the Patriots, although not so much defensively. Baltimore racked up 363 total yards and moved the ball at will, but Tom Brady found a way to move the ball against a good Ravens defense despite not having a running game.
One thing New England did do well defensively was confuse Flacco with various blitzes, which often caused him to throw off his back foot and not set his feet. Leigh Bodden produced a big interception in the red zone at the end of the first half because Flacco couldn’t set his feet while rushing to get the ball out of his hands. That’s just a case of Bill Belichick’s front seven getting the job done.
The Pats still have plenty of flaws, but they’ve beaten two playoff teams in the Falcons and Ravens the past two weeks and face the winless Titans and Bucs in two of their next three games. If they can beat the Broncos in Denver next week and pick up wins over Tennessee and Tampa before their bye, they’ll be 6-1 and filled with confidence heading into the second half of the year.
NFL Fanhouse ranked the six best and worst organizations in football.
Top 3:
1. New England: OK folks, start with the rants. Yes, they cheated, but so do other people. Don’t argue with three Super Bowl titles since 2001 and an unbeaten regular season in 2007. Bill Belichick has built by taking players who fit his system over one-dimensional stars. Yes, they’ve been a little less successful drafting lately, and there’s a brain drain — Scott Pioli to Kansas City, Thomas Dimitroff to Atlanta, Josh McDaniels to Denver, Eric Mangini to New York and Cleveland, and (whoops) Charlie Weis to Notre Dame.
2. Pittsburgh: Continuity means three coaches over 40 years, with a record six Super Bowl wins. Dan Rooney, his son Art and the rest of the front office has hired superbly and drafted well. They know luck plays a part — if the Giants hadn’t been able to trade for Eli Manning, they would have drafted Ben Roethlisberger and maybe the Steelers wouldn’t have won two titles in four years. But they get premier players with low picks and develop talent — when it doesn’t gel at first, it still seems to work in the long-run, like with James Harrison, cut and re-signed a bunch of times until he developed into the league’s most dangerous pass rusher.
3. Baltimore: One title this decade and little change at the top, other than the dismissal of Brian Billick after the 2007 season. Who replaced him? John Harbaugh, who fans didn’t know and wasn’t on anyone’s “hot list.” Record so far: 16-6. The continuity comes from Ozzie Newsome, who has been running the personnel operation since 1996 after going straight from a Hall of Fame career on the field to the front office. Twenty-five teams passed on Ray Lewis before Newsome took him and 23 passed on Ed Reed. Joe Flacco looks like the next great QB (if Matt Ryan isn’t already it).
Bottom 3:
30. Oakland: For nearly 40 years after becoming coach in 1963, Al Davis was an innovative thinker. Now he’s an embittered owner, repeating out-of-date slogans, wasting money on players nobody else wants and letting his staff intimidate critics. If he let his CEO, Amy Trask, hire a football guy, it could be consistently better. The Richard Seymour deal was Snyderesque, mortgaging a first-round pick for a declining star. .
31. Cleveland: Why did Randy Lerner jump so quickly to hire Mangini, who treats his players like high school kids? The Browns are 54-110 since returning to the NFL in 1999. Enough said.
32. Detroit: Matt Millen is a very good broadcaster.
I feel bad for the Ford family in regards to the Lions, because they’re a very loyal group that is willing to stick by their hires even when things get rough. That said, they stuck by Millen too long and he wound up dragging the franchise into the depths of hell.
What’s amazing about Oakland is that Al Davis does have an eye for talent. He just operates off emotion and makes decisions on a whim. The Raiders would be much better off if he allowed some else to run the day-to-day operations, but that will never happen.
The Patriots are back right? They rolled over a good Falcons team today and they’re back. They’re ready to take control of the AFC East again and stomp everyone in their way.
Uh, not quite.
The Patriots definitely deserved to win Sunday because they were the better team. But the Falcons should be embarrassed by their effort, because they were outplayed and outcoached in every phase of the game. Simply put, Atlanta wasn’t ready to go into New England today and earn a victory.
This game is a perfect example of how stats sometimes lie. Tom Brady threw for 277 yards and a touchdown on 25 of 42 passing, but if he were more efficient, his numbers should have been dazzling. The Falcons were brutal defensively. They generated zero pressure, allowed Brady to sit back in the pocket for minutes at a time and were completely unimaginable in their play calling.
Brady had all day to throw and yet he could only muster 277 yards. Don’t be fooled by his stats – he wasn’t that impressive today as he consistently overthrew open receivers and benefited from the horrendous play of Atlanta cornerback Chris Houston and one of his offensive lineman holding on a fourth quarter touchdown pass to Chris Baker to seal the game. (Seriously, John Abraham was molested as the New England O-line bear-hugged him and the refs did nothing.)
