Month: September 2007 (Page 9 of 17)

ND embarrassing

It’s one thing to lose to a rival on their home turf – it’s quite another to get shutout, shellacked and downright embarrassed much like Notre Dame was in a 38-0 defeat at Michigan Saturday.

“My confidence isn’t shaken,” Weis said. “But as an organization, we haven’t done a very good job.”

No, you’ve done an absolute abysmal job Charlie. A bad job would be starting off a season 0-3, but showing a fight. An absolute abysmal job is going 0-3 and losing by a combined score of 102-13. An absolute piss poor job is getting shutout by one of the worst defenses in the nation.

The one thing I’ll credit Weis for, however, is the way he always takes responsibility. As a good coach does, he never points fingers and never puts it on the kids. Also, I realize Weis is working with a freshman quarterback and a very young team. However, these are the players he recruited and he’s in his third year. Ty Willingham was fired after three years and he was the one who recruited the players Weis took to the slaughterhouse last year. Is Notre Dame going to hold Weis under the same standards as they did Willingham? Doubtful.

Although hey, at least they didn’t lose to Appalachian State at home, so Weis has that going for him I guess.

Big East does it again

It didn’t fail last year and it won’t this year – the Big East teams will fall again. People cried last year that West Virginia, Louisville and Rutgers were ranked too high. Well what happened? Louisville knocked off West Virginia, Rutgers upset Louisville and Cincinnati beat Rutgers. End of national championship discussion.

Without failure, the first Big East team fell Saturday, as the #9 Cardinals were upset in a thrilling 40-34 battle in Kentucky. Brian Brohm (28 of 43 for 366, 1 TD) was fantastic once again, but unfortunately the future No. 1 pick won’t be playing for a national title this year.

And as much as I love to watch Ray Rice, Steve Slaton and Pat White play, West Virginia and Rutgers won’t be playing for a NC either. The theory that Big East teams will knock each other off is just too sound.

Friday Injury Update: Week 2

It appears that Kevin Jones is getting closer to returning to action. Reports about his availablility for week 2 are conflicted, but fantasy owners would want to stay away until he proves he’s healthy and the Lions prove they’re going to give him the ball. This is bad news for those that own Tatum Bell (but not KJ) as it looks like his status as a decent RB2 may be coming to an end. We can only hope that the team doesn’t go RBBC…It looks like Eli Manning is expected to start against the Packers on Sunday. Green Bay has a tough defense, so he should be avoided if at all possible. With that news, Derrick Ward and Plaxico Burress become better starts…Cadillac Williams has practiced some this week but will be a game-time decision on Sunday. He hasn’t taken any hits, so he’s at best a shaky RB2 right now…Daunte Culpepper will start for the Raiders. He faces a tough Broncos pass D, so you’d we wise to stay away…Thomas Jones is listed as questionable and it looks like he will play, but with a tough matchup against the Ravens, he should be avoided if possible…It appears that the Vikings will bring Chester Taylor back slowly, so if you have Adrian Peterson on your roster, you should probably start him.

Yeah, they cheated us too!

Members of the Steelers and Eagles are starting to wonder aloud if the Patriots cheated to gain an advantage over them too. In a recent article posted on YAHOO! Sports, Eagles defensive backs Sheldon Brown and Brian Dawkins noted that the Patriots seemed to know every time they were going to blitz in the 2005 Super Bowl.

Brown said he noticed a difference in New England’s playcalling in the second quarter. After the Patriots gained only 45 yards in the first quarter, they had 286 over the next three.

My first reaction to this was that the Eagles are making another excuse why they lost (i.e. Donovan McNabb was sick). However, do they have a legitimate gripe? Isn’t Bill Belicheat and New England often hailed as making the best halftime adjustments? Maybe they have been cheating and the three Super Bowl victories are nothing more than a farce. It would help explain why the Pats seem to be the only team that gets away with an obvious lack of superior talent, yet still consistently win.

There are two things that stop me from wanting NE stripped of all its successes over the decade, however. One, is like McNabb said in the article, just because you have the answers to the test, doesn’t mean that translates into execution. And two, I want to believe that a team like the Patriots can win the way they do – by first building the perfect system and then implementing the players. I want to believe that Belicheat really is a genus and this is the way it’s supposed to be done (not the cheating of course, but the winning without high draft picks and what not).

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