10 & Out: Two week roundup as the ball gets rolling…

Credit: Thomas Campbell-USA TODAY Sports

Aaaaand we’re back….Forgive my absence as the season began, I was busy being married and then in Spain justifying said wedding. it was great. More on this to come. After disappearing when the realization of a Peyton Manning v. Pete Carroll Super Bowl crashed down on my head, and a summer of bad news for the NFL, 10 & Out is back with a vengeance. Maybe not a vengeance. Back with a purpose. Eh, let’s not say purpose, that’s too much pressure. Back with…fervor. Fervor? No. No forever. Back with…back with…Actually literally back with a bowl of penne and a cup of coffee. Ready…break!

What I learned this week these weeks…

The Saints and the Colts have some ‘splaining to do….the prospects of an 0-2 team making the playoffs is not good. It’s downright wretched. Since 1990 when the playoffs expanded to a 12-team field only 11.6% of teams starting 0-2 starts have made the playoffs. The Saints will need to beat a better-than-advertised Panther team and a resurgent Falcon team (after this butt-whuppin they put on Tampa, oof.) The Colts probably have an easier time in a division with Houston, Jacksonville and the Titans. But each has some work to do.

• NFL Football in Spain is gaining some ground. They have a weekly televised national game, week one was Seattle and week two was the Bengals-Falcons game. But it’s pretty terrible. It’s a camera on the CBS feed of a game and Spanish announcers talking as they watch it. Pretty rough. Speaking of Spain, their ham game is bonkers. You haven’t actually had ham. You don’t even know what ham is unless you’ve had their ham. Their sandwich game needs some serious work though.

• Chandler Jones is going to be a problem for teams this year. The 6’5” DE had 6 tackles, two assisted tackles, 2 sacks, and at the end of the 1st half blocked a FG attempt, picked it on one hop and ran it back 60 some yards for a touchdown. 17-10 at half becomes 24-7 and the game was all but over.

What I learned this week that I wish I hadn’t… There’s a serious issue in America regarding how we view relationships, humanity, sexuality, child-rearing, respect, and personal responsibility. I’m not getting into all of those, and its impossible to decipher it all, but they are all at once creeping into the NFL dialogue. It’s never okay to put your hands on another person. Humans have the power of reason, discussion, thought, contemplation, confrontation and accord. Use these tools. Stop hitting each other, Stop shooting each other. Start respecting yourself and the rest of the world. There are different stances to take on all of this, and most of what I heard is more or less regional. I won’t bore you with how I feel about the individual suspensions and the who-knew-what-when bs. I suspect this crap has been happening all along in all walks of life, professional and personal, and the ubiquity of cameras and recording devises is forcing us all to take notice. But before you pass judgment on some NFL player whom you’ll forget about in a few years anyway, take a look at your family, your workplace, your circle of friends. Someone in that circle is being abused ins some way. Ask questions. Interfere if you need to. Use the high-profile issues the NFL has to educate your kids, your friends, your parents if need be. But act locally: speaking out on Ray Rice or Adrian Peterson or Aaron Hernandez or Greg Hardy and not doing anything in your own circle is absolutely pointless.

AFC Breakdown – because I’m dumb and love to be wrong I’m giving my division winners. Yea, the season started. I don’t care.

AFCE – Patriots: after an opening loss, there’s really going to be no stopping the Belichick tirades, losing a division game is probably the best thing that could’ve happened to them: he’ll never let it go.

AFCN – Bengals: They have a great record at home. Pittsburgh is awful this year, and the Ravens have….a lot going on. I’m taking Cincy again in the North and we’ll see if they can do anything in the playoffs. If not, it’s time to make a change. #MarvIN or #MarvOUT?

AFCS – Colts: This team will get better as the season goes on, because Andrew Luck won’t let them slide backwards. That said, they need to get him someone to play with. They’ll benefit from the rest of the division rebuilding here, I like them for 11-3 the rest of the way.

AFCW – Chargers: The offense is finally shaking off the Norv years and Mike McCoy is one of the best young offensive minds in the game, along with Marc Trestman, whom I love. Rivers can put up Pro Bowl numbers again, but its the improved and overlooked defense, that will surpass Denver here.

WC – Broncos, Bills. You heard me. Why the hell not? It has to happen at some point doesn’t it? I had the Patriots and Colts in the AFC title game, with a Pats win. I’m amending that now, because I didn’t actually put it on the interwebs anyway, so gimme some credit for being classy and owning it. I’m now taking San Diego and New England.

NFC Breakdown

NFCE – Eagles: Are you actually reading to see why? C’mon. Find me an answer for Darren Sproles, then we can have a conversation.

NFCN – Bears: Trestman+Cutler+Alshon+Marshall = points. Second most in the NFL last year. ‘m hoping to see Cutler to play 16 games, have an MVP caliber season, and their defense to need help the whole way, its not great. But their offense is.

NFCS – New Orleans (but they have some effing work to do): everyone was all over Tampa. Not gonna hap’n, Cap’n. See below. The Falcons and Panthers may be more difficult than expected but they each have a lot still to prove. I’ll take the best offensive mind in the division with the best QB and see how far that gets me.

NFCW – The 49ers are a really, really good team. Their defense gets better week 8/9 with some returns. They’ve got two RBs & either Kaep gets better or the coaching staff manages him more to cut down mistakes. Either way, I take Seattle for a step back and San Francisco to win the division.

WC – Green Bay, Seattle. Each are too good to completely miss out, and each has shown to be formidable when the second-season gets rolling.

Gimme Philly and the 49ers. San Fran’s defense will get better as players return, and I just can’t stomach any more Pete Carroll. For what it’s worth, I had New Orleans a month ago, but 0-2 is a bad look.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugh

• Good: 1) The Eagles twice looked like their gooses (geese?) were cooked. And twice they came back monumentally to win, and stand at 2-0. It’s those wins, be they in September, November or whenever, that you can add to the left-side column that gives you a boost in the NFC Conference standings.

2) Honorable mention to the 2-0 Buffalo Bills, who beat what I think is a very good Chicago team, and have been playing outstanding defense., all without Tiffany’s favorite Kiko. They’ll need to continue to do so with Phil Rivers and the Chargers coming to town this week, who just beat up on the Seahawks, but travel across country is tough for West Coast teams, and the Bills play well at home.

• Bad:  1) The Giants won two Super Bowls recently on the backs of their defense. This season they start 0-2 and have given up an average of 30 points. Against Detroit in Week 1 they gave up 21 of 35 points in the 2nd half. I guess they improved last week against the Drew Stanton-led Cardinals when they gave up 25, 15 in the 2nd half. Except all 15 were in the 4th quarter. meanwhile, Eli has thrown 2 INTs in each game. That’s not helping. It’s a long road to hoe for Coughlin and Co.

2) The only modicums of success the Jets have had at all were built on a tough, smart, fast defense. I don’t know what of that they have left at this point. Up 21-16 with 5:45 to go in the 3rd the Jets gave up a TD to the Packers. Not the end of the world, Aaron Rodgers is gonna get his TDs. But in the sequence after Green Bay went for two, Muhammad Wilkerson got into a fight with two Packers, threw multiple punches, and got tossed. WTF are you doing man? The Jets were outscored 28-10 after the 1st Q, and undid their own game-tying TD w/ a timeout that was called by a whispering Sheldon Richardson and the Jets offense never got back into the end zone. Jordy Nelson had 200+ yards on just 9 catches. In the end, Rex Ryan’s cavalier, Eff Em All attitude cost him another game, and without Darrelle Reveis and Antonio Cromartie his DBs look very, very ordinary.

• Ugh: 1) Tony Romo – Does anyone remember the game Romo played against Denver last season? It was nuts. One for the ages. They still lost. Week 1, against San Francisco, Dallas out gained the 49ers. Had 10 more first downs. Were 5-9 on third down. Won time of possession. And he had maybe his worst game ever. Three interceptions. Was sacked three more times. Yea, Demarco Murray fumbled, and he did so again in Week 2, but this one, unlike many Dallas losses, was on Romo. At best he’s inconsistent. At his worst, he’s a franchise killer. It’s time to start looking again, Jerry.

2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 0-3, again. A 56-14 beating at the hands of the more or less mediocre Falcons. 2013, after 3 weeks, Tampa was 0-3, having lost to the Jets and Saints on controversial and/or fluke calls at the end, by a total of 3 points, then lost 23-3 against New England. Schiano wanted Freeman out and to play Glennon, and he had to go. 2014, Lovie’s Bucs have lost by 3, then 6, then a hundred. But he’s not going anywhere.

Mystery Team…On to my backup quarterback, off-season controversy, least yardage against in the league, 5th most yards gained on offense. Who am I?

FWIW…1) I expected the new Redskins coaching staff would want to make the switch to Kirk Cousins. They didn’t draft RGIII and they don’t deal in spread-option offense stuff, nor do they want a QB who can’t be a pocket passer or when he runs, can’t get down. I didn’t think it would be quite this early. They are at an early crossroads.

2) In Week 1 the Dolphins did this to the Patriots offense in the 2nd half: fumble, punt, punt, punt, punt, fumble, turnover on downs. Then Miami went to Buffalo and gave up the following on 2nd half drives to the Bills: Kickoff return for TD, TD, FG, missed FG, FG. Same defense. Oh yea, and in his last two games against the Patriots, Knowshon Moreno has 358 yards rushing.

Hey, didn’t you used to be…Richard Sherman? Sherman got toasted regularly by San Diego Chargers’ WR Keenan Allen, many times Allen was open an Rivers just didn’t throw it to him. The Seahawks lost and Sherman refused to talk with reporters. How can you say you don’t care about what people have to say about you and then run & hide when they say you got toasted over and over again? You mad, bro? Grow up.

Hey, didn’t you also used to be….the Atlanta Falcons? Last year the Falcons lost Julio Jones at WR and the season fell apart. This year on HBO their training camp didn’t inspire a lot of confidence: all coach-speak about toughness and mensa-members Brian Cox and Mike Tice acting as leaders for a team that went 4-12 a year ago. Now, just ten days into the 2014 season, they’re averaging more than 34 points, thanks to that Tampa-2 defense. More importantly, they find themselves 2-0 at home, and 2-0 in division. There’s a long way to go in the NFL season but any Falcon fan or employee would’ve taken 2-1 with a loss at Cincinnati after Week 3. Maybe they got this thing turned around faster than I thought.

Continuing with my favorite part of my column Top Three…Jets

1. AV-8B Harrier II

2. Curtis Martin

3. Teemu Selanne/Dale Hawerchuk (tie)

W2W4: REMATCH! Denver and Seattle. Denver is down a few weapons and Seattle is coming off of a loss they didn’t imagine was possible. They’ll be hungry. They’ll want to re-assert dominance. Peyton will continue to be methodical, and will try to make this just another regular season, out of conference game. For that reason I’ll take Seattle, and then that gives San Diego a large tie-breaker that may come into play at the end of the season.

Mystery Team revealed….the Washington Redskins

Locks of the Century of the Week…

SD +2.5 @ BUF – I know it’s tough to travel across the country but I just can’t see EJ Manuel at 3-0 and Phil Rivers at 1-2. I’m getting almost a FG for a better team simply because the game is in Buffalo.

CHI + 3 @ NYJ – The Bears will pick the Jets apart. Better QB, better WRs, better RB, better OL. Jets don’t really have a huge home-field advantage. I expect the Beats to put up 20+. Can Geno Smith put up 21+?

DAL -1 @ STL – OK Jeff Fisher has a good defensive staff, and has monster players on the DL. Fine. And Tony Romo is not the superstar at QB Jerry wish he was. He just isn’t, he crumbles at the worst times. But the Rams are starting a cabbie at QB after Shaun Hill missed practice again this week. It’s not their season.

GB +2.5 @ DET – Rule #1, don’t take division games. Rule #2, if you do, never take a road team in division. This is how badly I think of the Detroit Lions.

BONUS PREDICTIONS! Cutler will have an enormous offensive year. Chandler Jones for Defensive Player of the Year. Philip Rivers in the running for AFC Offensive POY.

NFL Week 1 NFL Week 2 NFL Weke 3 predicitions 10 & Out