(1)
In
most professions, if you get things wrong on a regular basis you better have
your resume updated and your lucky interview suit pressed because you are going
to need them pretty quickly. Sadly, the
lucky few that get to pontificate on the topic of professional football for a
living don’t have anything in their job description that requires them to be
correct. The only thing that the talking
heads have to do is sound extremely confident when they are making predictions
that will ultimately prove to be wrong.
Week one of the NFL season provided yet another example of why no one
should ever listen to the Todd McShays, Mel Kipers or Mike Mayocks of the
world, when they say so-and-so is never going to amount to anything and this
quarterback will be a franchise centerpiece while another quarterback will hold
a clipboard his entire career. Leading
up to the start of the 2011 season, none of the guys mentioned above, or anyone
else for that matter, believed that Cam Newton would be successful as a
starting quarterback in his rookie year.
There were questions about the circumstances surrounding his transfer
from Florida. There were concerns about
his itinerant college career that took him from Florida to Blinn Junior College
to Auburn. Obviously, the alleged pay-for-play
scandal that erupted during the 2010 college season did nothing to allay the
fears that NFL decision-makers had about Newton. Making matters worse was the long NFL lockout
that forced the cancellation of all the customary offseason training that
rookies normally participate in. Despite
all of the negative attention, the Carolina Panthers made Newton the number one
overall pick. In the end, there seemed
to be a growing sentiment that the Panthers named Newton the starter only to
justify the fact that they picked him number one. It almost seemed as if the media was waiting
for Newton to fail, so that they could collectively scold the Panthers for
making such a foolish decision. The
expectations were so low that just surviving his first NFL game would have
probably been sufficient.
Newton
didn’t just survive; he blew the doors off of his debut. He looked poised. He looked prepared. When things broke down, he didn’t fall back
on his tremendous athletic ability. He worked
through his progressions and bought time when the
situation called for it. The net result
was the greatest performance a rookie had ever had in his first NFL game. In addition, Newton tied the NFL record (422
yards passing) for the most yards passing in a single game in a quarterback’s
first season. Newton flashed a little of
his running ability, including bowling over the left side of the Arizona
defense to score the first rushing touchdown of his career. Newton was far from perfect and he benefitted
from playing a mediocre defense, but he proved that he has the necessary
physical and mental abilities to play the quarterback position at the highest
level. He posted the fifth-highest Total
QB Rating and the eighth-highest QB rating of week one, which were both better
than the likes of Philip Rivers, Mike Vick, Matt Schaub and others. I’m sure that Newton enjoyed making a lot of
people eat their words about him. He has
gone through a lot of change in a short amount of time, but I think that all of
the adjustments have polished his leadership skills and preparation. I think that the media tends to focus on a
few aspects of a player’s background without ever considering that people can
change or that there are other interesting things they can focus on. For a guy like Cam Newton, all of the
attention was on the alleged off-field indiscretions. Rarely did anyone talk about the fact that he
had led two different teams to national championships. The guy might want to become an entertainer
and an icon, but I believe he is building credibility with his teammates, which
is far more important to him. He will
likely never match the rarified air of his debut for the rest of his rookie
season, but he did a lot to start changing the narrative about Cam Newton.
(2) As usual, the first week of the NFL season
provided its share of surprises. We saw
the supposed Super Bowl contender, the Atlanta Falcons, get throttled by the
Chicago Bears. We saw the Kansas City Chiefs
continue their uneven preseason with a beat down at the hands of the Buffalo
Bills. We saw Cam Newton and Steve Smith
light up the desert sky against Arizona.
Out of all of these examples, the biggest surprise to me was Baltimore’s
dominating performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Ravens had been waiting patiently for
this opportunity ever since their season-ending loss to Pittsburgh in the 2010
playoffs. If you remember, Baltimore
held a 21-7 halftime lead in that game before losing the game behind a hail of
second half turnovers. The Ravens’
players didn’t want to dwell too much on the revenge angle, but you can bet
that they relished their most lopsided win since the series began back in
1996.
Baltimore
controlled this game in nearly every way imaginable. It all started with the way that the Ravens
completed flummoxed their nemesis, Ben Roethlisberger. Big Ben came into the game having won seven
consecutive starts against Baltimore, but the Ravens were finally able to kill
their personal boogeyman. Led by Haloti
Ngata and Terrell Suggs, the Ravens forced Big Ben into five turnovers and
sacked him four times. Overall, they
forced a franchise-record seven turnovers.
In addition to the defensive dominance, the Ravens did things on offense
that the Steel Curtain hadn’t experienced in quite a while. Baltimore generated more passing and rushing
yards against the Steelers’ vaunted 3-4 base defense than Pittsburgh had
allowed in any game during the 2010 season.
Most importantly, the Ravens found great success in the middle of the
Steelers defense, which has normally been an unsuccessful tactic. Last season, Pittsburgh didn’t allow more
than 47 yards rushing up the middle in any game. Baltimore turned the conventional logic on
its head as Ray Rice and Ricky Williams combined to run for 88 yards on rushes
straight into the teeth of the Pittsburgh defense. The Ravens hit the Steelers right in the
mouth and the Steelers had no response.
This game was supposed to be a knock-down, drag-out street brawl, but
instead the Ravens started fast and cruised to an easy victory. The huge victory clearly establishes Baltimore
as the team to beat in the AFC North.
They looked like a team prepared to take control of their destiny. As for the Steelers, you have to wonder what
the heck was their mind state entering this game. It is inconceivable to me that a team with
this much veteran leadership, winning experience and coaching stability could
lay such a gigantic egg in a huge divisional match-up. Fortunately, the Steelers get a soft landing
with the unimposing Seattle Seahawks heading to the Steel City in week two, but
they have a lot of things to correct.
(3) The new
season has already shown that the more things change, the more things stay the
same. Nowhere was this saying better
demonstrated than the Sunday night game featuring the Jets vs. the Cowboys. On the New York side of the ledger, it was
another example of the Jets playing just well enough to pull victory from the
jaws of defeat. In the Rex Ryan era, the
Jets seem to have a penchant for winning games “ugly”, which simultaneously
highlights their inability to play consistent football for an entire game and
their ability to make big plays at the most crucial moments. On Sunday night, the Jets floundered for
three quarters, generating only 10 points and 216 total yards. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, they
found themselves trailing by 14 points.
Without batting an eyelash, the Jets once again displayed their mental
fortitude and, perhaps, their coaching superiority by scoring 17 unanswered
points and sweeping the stunned Cowboys right out of the New Meadowlands. They started the comeback with an 84-yard
drive that culminated in Plaxico Burress’ first touchdown as a Jet. Following this drive, New York took advantage
of some of the worst blocking you will ever see by a punt team, which lead to a
blocked punt touchdown return. In the
time it takes for a butterfly to flap its wings, the Jets had erased the
14-point deficit and had Dallas against the ropes. During and after the lightning quick
comeback, the Jets’ Mark Sanchez seemed to be locked in a game of who can lose
this game first with Tony Romo. Sanchez
followed a Romo fumble with a fumble of his own. During the next Jets drive, Sanchez could
barely hit the side of a barn with his passes and then took a horrible sack as
he held onto to the football for way too long.
This victory was far from pretty but it shows that the Jets have the
right combination of moxie, talent and coaching to be contenders in the AFC.
On
the other side, Dallas provided more evidence of why I can’t take them
seriously as a contender in the NFC. It
seems that every year the media talks itself into the Cowboys being good enough
to make a Super Bowl run. All they have
done since winning their last Super Bowl under Barry Switzer has been to flirt
with success only to come crashing down to earth at the most inopportune
times. They were once again chic picks
to make some noise in the NFC with the return of Romo from injury and the
addition of Rob Ryan to handle defensive coordinator duties. They were given a prime opportunity to start
their 2011 campaign with a bang by beating the Jets under the white-hot lights
of Sunday Night football. They dominated
the first three quarters of the game and held a 14-point lead with about 14
minutes left in the game. Nevertheless,
they limped away with another humiliating defeat thanks to a key special teams
breakdown and one too many brain farts from their franchise quarterback. The blocked punt that was returned for the
tying touchdown was a new addition to the Cowboys’ “Finding Ways to Lose”
handbook, but the mistakes from Romo had to have been all too familiar to
Dallas fans. Romo’s night started going
south when he made an ill-advised dive for a touchdown, which resulted in a
fumble and a recovery by the Jets. The
turnover was especially painful because the Cowboys were in position to score
at least three points. Later in the
fourth, Romo threw one of the worst interceptions you will ever see. Not only did he target the clearly limping
Dez Bryant on the play, but he threw into bracket coverage with Darrelle Revis
underneath the receiver and the safety over the top. The interception return by Revis put the Jets
in position to kick the game-winning field goal. Unfortunately, the high-jinks from Romo were
not done. On the second-to-last play of
the game, Romo seemed to be unprepared for a shotgun snap, which hit him in the
torso and forced him to throw the ball away.
This final indignity was the cherry on top of disgustingly sour sundae
for the Cowboys. The worst part about it
was that the loss represented the first time in the franchise’s history that
Dallas had lost a game that they had led by 14 or more points in the fourth
quarter. Leave it up to Romo to make
history in the wrong way.
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