Category: External Sports (Page 338 of 821)
Here’s how I would rank the 12 playoff teams heading into the Wildcard Round. If you disagree, then f*#k you.
No wait, that wasn’t very nice. I’m sorry. Merry NFL Postseason to all of you. It’s the best time of year…
1. New England Patriots
Thanks to Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, the Pats look indestructible and bound for Dallas. But the one concern I have is whether or not this team will start reading its own press clippings again. It happened earlier in the year when they lost to the Browns and then again late in the season when they took on the Matt Flynn-led Packers and were almost beaten at home. It’s the playoffs, so I don’t think Belichick has to worry about his team getting a big head but you never know. Other than that, yeah…Patriots for world domination.
2. Atlanta Falcons
I don’t fault anyone who thinks the Falcons will go down in flames over the next two weeks. Their defense is still a question mark, their offense looked putrid against the Saints last Monday night and they rarely blow anybody out. But one thing this team has going for itself is that it’s been in a ton of close games this year and is battle tested. They also have home field advantage (Matt Ryan is 20-2 as a starter in the Georgia Dome) and will be well rested. They also kept things vanilla offensively last week against the Saints, which I think was smart given how New Orleans may very well wind up being their first postseason opponent.
3. Pittsburgh Steelers
With Troy Polamalu in the lineup, the Steelers own the best defense in the playoffs (with Green Bay and Chicago being right behind them). The offensive line is still a concern, but this team scored 68 points the past two weeks (albeit against Carolina and Cleveland) so things can’t be that bad. The Steelers aren’t flawless by any means, but teams shouldn’t fall asleep on them either.
4. Baltimore Ravens
There are some pretty damn good wildcard teams in this year’s playoffs, headlined by the Ravens. They’re currently on a four-game winning streak and thanks to the outcomes last week, they’ll be making a trip to Kansas City this weekend instead of Indianapolis (where they’ve struggled mightily). Baltimore proved last year in Foxboro that it doesn’t mind playing on the road and as long as their secondary holds up, don’t count the Ravens out for making a Super Bowl run.
5. New Orleans Saints
Even with their Week 17 loss to the Bucs at home, this is still a dangerous team. They know what it takes to win a Super Bowl and they employ one of the best offensive minds in football in head coach Sean Payton. Injuries and Drew Brees’ interceptions are two major concerns, but playing on the road throughout the postseason should keep the Saints sharp and focused.
Late last week, FantasyPros announced that I was 2010’s Most Accurate Expert, and as a part of the competition’s post-mortem, I was asked to answer a few questions for the site’s founder, Dave Kim.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your site, The Scores Report, and how you got started in the fantasy business?
John: The Scores Report is a national sports blog. We cover all the major sports, but my focus is on fantasy football during the NFL season, and then my focus turns to the NBA and college basketball once the season is over. I started writing for Bullz-Eye in 2005 and shortly thereafter began covering fantasy football on BE and then on The Scores Report.
Q: Can you briefly describe your process for coming up with your player projections/rankings?
John: I have an engineering background, so statistics play a big role in my rankings. I calculate strength of schedule each week, and use matchups to put my rankings together. I don’t do player-specific projections, at least not yet, so my rankings probably have more “feel” than some of the more math-driven rankings that are out there. This allows me to create rankings that reflect my own opinion on each player, including the level of trust that each player has earned. In other words, if a player is a risky start but has considerable upside, I generally won’t rank them ahead of a solid start with little upside. If I have one player ranked ahead of another, it almost always means that I would personally start them in that order as well. I wouldn’t want to advise my readers to start someone that I wouldn’t start myself under the same circumstances.
Three weeks ago the football world was buzzing about the electrifying Eagles, who are led by their electrifying quarterback, who pumps more electricity into a stadium than an electric generator.
But lately the high-flying Eagles have been grounded. After scoring 28 points in 7:28 to shock the Giants in Week 15, they’ve managed just 27 points in the past eight quarters against doormats like the Vikings and Cowboys.
Suddenly, Andy Reid’s squad looks rather vulnerable.
What happened? For starters, Michael Vick traded in his Superman cape for one of Batman’s yellow Speedos. (What?) After not throwing an interception in over 200 attempts, he’s thrown at least one pick in his last five starts and six in total. Granted, the Eagles still went 3-2 over that span and he has thrown 10 touchdowns to go along with those six picks, but he clearly isn’t the same invincible player he was earlier this season.
And really, that was to be expected. Nobody outside of Tom Brady could sustain the numbers that Vick was putting up earlier in the year. The law of averages were bound to catch up with him, which they eventually did. The bigger problem is that he’s taking too many hits and he’s failing to diagnose where opponents are blitzing.
Marvin Lewis seems to confirm Palmer’s return in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Will Carson Palmer be back? Barring a major change in heart, which looks unlikely to happen, one of Lewis’ major priorities will be finding complementary parts for Palmer.
“It’s important to recapture the spirit of our football team,” Lewis said. “I told him (Palmer) yesterday privately that it’s important to me that I will help him be the player that I know he is and I believe in him and he’s important to me.”
This is good news for a few of my early sleepers heading into the 2011 season: WRs Jerome Simpson, Andre Caldwell, Jordan Shipley and TE Jermaine Gresham, who is just the 7th tight end in league history to catch 50+ passes in his rookie season. Palmer played pretty well with this group over the final two games, throwing for 574 yards and five TDs against two pretty good defenses (San Diego and Baltimore). It appears that he may be better off if he doesn’t have his wideouts chirping in his ear.
I’m not sure how much longer Simpson will be a sleeper after the third-year wideout caught 18 passes for 247 yards and three TDs over his final two games of the season. If both Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens are gone next season, Simpson is a good bet to finish as a top 15 or 20 fantasy WR. Caldwell and Shipley are going to hold more value in PPR leagues, and they could cancel each other out if the Bengals go to a more run-oriented attack.
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑