The Official NFL Thread

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Originally Posted by Spank_Me_Hard

Kearse is another huge question mark.

How will he play his first year back from serious injury?

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Well the good thing is he did get hurt in week 2. I remember around the middle of the year people within the organization saying they kinda wished they did not put him on the reserve list because he may have actually been able to play in the playoffs. When he was healthy we rotated ends and all our linemen a lot, and the first few games we had a ton of sacks. Trent Cole had a breakout year, Juqua Thomas had 6 sacks in limited snaps, and played the run very well while he was in there.
Kearse is the key though...the line play did come down a lot when he got hurt. Its hard to replace a guy who commands a double team on every snap, even if he does not put up huge sack numbers all the time you can tell the difference when he is not in there.

We keep putting up Philly's questions, but honestly the other teams in the NFC East have much larger ones IMO, and since Philly is the returning NFC East champ, I cannot see how a logical person could say another team in the division would be the favorite.

If I'm not mistaken, Kearse had a major knee injury.

From everything that I have witnessed... players come back from them (sometimes even in the same season) but aren't nearly the dominant player that they were before the injury until about two seasons have gone by.

Never say never... but I just don't see Kearse being the same player that we have been used to seeing until next season.

Philly wouls still be my pick to win the division... but I just think that the playing field has evened out.

I think that specifically, Washington and Dallas have both made improvements. And if the Giants can replace Barber without missing a beat (and I do think that RBs are the easiest to replace... there is always some no name that comes out of no where to have a good season) then I think that they will compete as well.

One thing that I will say about Philly though... they do have excellent an player development system. I can't believe how many seemingly key guys that they lose every year and still stay good. Any other team collapses.

And I do like their philosophy with players... not overpaying anybody and not allowing any one player to be bigger than the rest of the team (i.e. TO).

yeah AFC west is the wild west....bigtime shootouts and in yo face sucka football

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Originally Posted by Spank_Me_Hard

If I'm not mistaken, Kearse had a major knee injury.

From everything that I have witnessed... players come back from them (sometimes even in the same season) but aren't nearly the dominant player that they were before the injury until about two seasons have gone by.

Never say never... but I just don't see Kearse being the same player that we have been used to seeing until next season.

Philly wouls still be my pick to win the division... but I just think that the playing field has evened out.

I think that specifically, Washington and Dallas have both made improvements. And if the Giants can replace Barber without missing a beat (and I do think that RBs are the easiest to replace... there is always some no name that comes out of no where to have a good season) then I think that they will compete as well.

One thing that I will say about Philly though... they do have excellent an player development system. I can't believe how many seemingly key guys that they lose every year and still stay good. Any other team collapses.

And I do like their philosophy with players... not overpaying anybody and not allowing any one player to be bigger than the rest of the team (i.e. TO).

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I would say Dallas is Philly's only real threat, and that all depends on Romo, whom i am not sold on. And they have a lot of holes, O-Line is still not that good even after overpaying for Leonard Davis, aside from Newman the secondary sucks, and there biggest strength, wide receivers, are both getting old.

Washington still has Snider, so they will suck.

You are underestimating Tiki Barber, the guy was not just a good running back that can be replaced. He was a GREAT football player. You cannot just replace 2,000 yards from 1 guy. Manning was a below average QB with him, and the team was 8-8 with him. I can only see them being worse without him. Also there defense was pretty bad last year, I don't think they did enough to improve it much.

Lastly...Kearse's injuries where not all that bad really. here is a link explaining. I still am a little concerned, but he was at all the minicamps practicing full speed.http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2606669

Everyone is sleeping on the giants, which I like. Tiki was a huge loss, but no one is giving jacobs enough credit, he's a beast and can move. The new d coordinator is big, last year the cover no one defense and swiss cheese prevent defense sucked. 3rd and long may as well have been 3rd and 1 for the other teams.

The biggest concern for me is LT, why did they let petitgout go with no one lined up to replace him. Also if eli could show up for the 2nd half of the season that'd be nice.

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Originally Posted by PriMaTe

Everyone is sleeping on the giants, which I like. Tiki was a huge loss, but no one is giving jacobs enough credit, he's a beast and can move. The new d coordinator is big, last year the cover no one defense and swiss cheese prevent defense sucked. 3rd and long may as well have been 3rd and 1 for the other teams.

The biggest concern for me is LT, why did they let petitgout go with no one lined up to replace him. Also if eli could show up for the 2nd half of the season that'd be nice.

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People are sleeping on them because they are not that good. Even if Jacobs matched Tiki's numbers (not gonna happen), they are the same 8-8 team as last year. More likely (IMO) is Jacobs gets injured or wears out do to his high running style. But its unlikely at 8-8 they would squeak into the playoffs like last year. Them and Washington will battle it out for the basement.

I second whoever thought Arizona is always a quandary. Every year Arizona and Detroit get picked by a few national columnists as the teams who are going to turn it around. As almost everyone else, I don't know much about them other than their offensive stars, and that one stud safety they have. I believe there is much more than the talent on the roster in determining a winning team. Ownership and front office are probably more important we just don't see it.

Thats why teams like Arizona and Detroit will pick in the top 10 every year and get a competitive level of talent on the team but never actually compete in the league.

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Originally Posted by spamjedi

I believe there is much more than the talent on the roster in determining a winning team. Ownership and front office are probably more important we just don't see it.

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Coaching, management, and ownership are HUGE factors that people don't see.

Dennis Green is a pretty good coach as far as I'm concerned.

The management I don't know enough ebout to make any kind of judgement.

And the Bidwell's are maybe the worst owners in the league. Perpetually underspend what they have available to them under the salary cap EVERY year.

Mind you... the Rams won a SB a few years ago and were competitive for a number of years under Georgia Frontiere... and she I would have put in the same league as the Bidwells.

Unlike a lot of years... I think that Arizona may actually have enough this years to at least compete vs. being a doormat.

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Originally Posted by md1198p

People are sleeping on them because they are not that good. Even if Jacobs matched Tiki's numbers (not gonna happen), they are the same 8-8 team as last year. More likely (IMO) is Jacobs gets injured or wears out do to his high running style. But its unlikely at 8-8 they would squeak into the playoffs like last year. Them and Washington will battle it out for the basement.

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I don't think that Jacobs will match Tiki's numbers... that goes without saying.

Tiki was also well known as a fumbler... so maybe that's actually one area of improvement.

And I think that Manning's development (because he is still a young QB with a lot of potential to grow... just like his brother was at his age) may help offset the loss of Barber.

Then of course the D has room to improve. Strahan, and Madison are getting old to be sure... but Arrington has something to prove after a bad season where his big contract was not justified. And he has the ability to be a bona fide superstar.

The D could get worse... but it can also get better. That's why we'll have to see when the season starts!

:)

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I would say Dallas is Philly's only real threat, and that all depends on Romo, whom i am not sold on.

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I'm not sold on Romo either. There are a lot of Dalls fans in this area who think that Dallas is SB bound... I'm not nearly as confident. I want to see what this guy can do with a full season.

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aside from Newman the secondary sucks

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I think that Williams is a GREAT safety.

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Washington still has Snider, so they will suck.

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Snyder is a bad owner right now. But if that guy can learn to just hire good coaches (which he has) and management and keep his hands OUT of the personel decision making process, he'll be good. One thing that I can say for the guy is that he is willing to spend the money... that's a good thing for a competitive team.

Snyder is one non interference judgement away from being a good owner.

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Manning was a below average QB with him, and the team was 8-8 with him.

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I wouldn't call Manning a "below average" QB. I'd be perfectly happy having Manning with the 'Phins. I think that he has shown flashes of greatness... he just needs to get consistent.

People judge him unfairly by comparing him to his brother. They are two QBs on two very diffeent teams in two very different situations. People expect him to be a mirror image of his brother and I don't think that's fair at all. He is a decnt QB with the potential to be great I think. I'd say, toss the direct comparisons aside.

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Lastly...Kearse's injuries where not all that bad really. here is a link explaining. I still am a little concerned, but he was at all the minicamps practicing full speed.

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Wow... that was a GREAT link. And it doesn't sound near as serious as when I first heard about it. I missed that news piece.

The posterior cruciate ligament is scary though... that one is EXTREMELY difficult to repair. I had my ACL reconstructed, and had a good discussion with my doctor about it. I found out that the PCL is a nightmare to rebuild. Even a small tear would scare the shi'ite out of me.

Better hope that the diagnosis on the PCL is correct.

Training camp starts next week! Bring on the football.

Here's what I was talking about. Arizona and Detroit make the list every year in similar columns.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/column...ohn&id=2932670

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Originally Posted by Spank_Me_Hard

I think that Williams is a GREAT safety.

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He's a good safety that is far, FAR from complete. It's not that he is average in coverage, it is that he is a liability, and is easily exploitable. Word is that he's going to be playing a lot closer to the line this year, in sort of an OLB/safety hybrid type of thing, which plays to his strengths. It's a good thing for them that they've done a lot of work on the pass rush this past off season, because without pressure on the QB opposing offenses will just carve him up.

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Originally Posted by monroeski

He's a good safety that is far, FAR from complete. It's not that he is average in coverage, it is that he is a liability, and is easily exploitable.

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Hmmm... I haven't seen that myself, or heard it really discussed before.

He is a big safety, with great speed/range.

Maybe the system that he is in tries to have him play a lot of man on man with recievers? For a guy that big, it's hard for them to play man on man with a WR.

I would think that having him play a deep zone would play to his abilities nicely.

Of course one of his strengths is run support... and a safety (who excels in run support) alsways can get suckered up with a good play action pass.

There has been plenty of great safeties in the past who have been of this same mold... Atwater from Denver, and even Darren Woodson from Dallas... and have excelled with that same skillset.

I have not seen Williams being a liability in the passing game. In fact, I've seen Newman get burned a lot more...

It seems like the Afc west is always in post season. I am watching nfl classics and the afc west is well represented. Hopefully, the Raiders will start being part of that sooner then later.

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Originally Posted by vairox

yeah AFC west is the wild west....bigtime shootouts and in yo face sucka football

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