-The big story of this Week 14 is two-fold. First, there were a ton of fantasy disappointments during the first week of most playoffs. Mike Williams (TB), Jamaal Charles, Dwayne Bowe, Kyle Orton, Lee Evans, Braylon Edwards, Michael Crabtree, Terrell Owens, Brandon Lloyd and Aaron Rodgers, just to name a few. The second part of the story was the weather or the lack of the effect it was supposed to have. Most forecasts were better than expected and the "windy city" failed to live up to expectations. Ironically the lowest scoring game of the day was in a dome in Detroit which was a game that yielded a whopping 10 points (although it did feature backups).
-Worst drop of the year that I've seen was Santonio Holmes yesterday. Greg Jennings put himself in the top-10 with his miss.
-Not sure why play-action was working for the Colts on Thursday night. They didn't have a running play over five yards in the first half. Make Donald Brown beat you; not Reggie Wayne and the et al of receivers. Given the strange end-game management, I'm pretty sure Jeff Fisher took Tennessee plus the points.
-I'm starting to sip the kool-aid from the Jacksonville well. Note that I'm sipping and not gulping. The running game is arguably the best in football right now and David Garrard does enough to not lose games. I'm sure Rashad Jennings would be an upgrade for at least 10 teams as a starting RB.
-I'm not gonna lie, I like "Human Target." Pretty sure the wife watches to see Mark Valley, who |STAR|might|STAR| be better looking than me. Speaking of David E. Kelley, I'm curious to see how "Harry's Law" works out. I was a huge fan of "The Practice" and "Boston Legal" so there's some high expectations there.
-Dear Santa, please give Sam Bradford some receivers for Christmas. He has an excellent running back; he just needs so viable options to throw to. For the first time yesterday, Bradford looked like a rookie. Credit New Orleans defensive coordinator Greg Williams who dialed up a lot of pressure all game long. Bradford didn't have enough time to hit Danario Alexander downfield and Williams knew the rest of the receivers have little ability to make a play after the catch. You can't question Sam Bradford's athleticism after he ran down Roman Harper on Steven Jackson's "fumble" at the goal line that ended up being reversed.
-Note from the lack of common sense department. If you're tuning into the late games and hear a commotion in the other room while noticing the dog is not at his usual spot in front of the fireplace; this should raise a red flag. When you remember there are 20 dozen Christmas cookies cooling off in the dining room, you can figure out quickly what that commotion going on is.
-The Jets haven't scored a touchdown since Thanksgiving. And that was against the Bengals, which says a lot.
-Is there a reason Mike Singletary is always wearing sunglasses? He was even sporting them on the Monday night game (ahem, Corey Hart) against the Cardinals. With the goatee, I keep waiting for Todd Haley to pull a rabbit out of a hat, saw someone in half or try to steal Frosty the Snowman's hat. He has done none of the aforementioned but he did help make Josh McDaniels disappear.
-Chad Henne went 5-for-18 for 55 yards and somehow the Dolphins won. I'm beginning to think Bill Parcells' assessment of him this preseason was spot-on.
-I want to see a race between DeSean Jackson, Jacoby Ford, Mike Wallace and Chris Johnson. Who wins?
-What the hell was Sal Alosi thinking tripping Nolan Carroll? I don't know if I've seen a crazier play in sports this year. Any predictions on the punishment he'll face? If he's been conditioning/strengthening the offensive line, Jets fans should encourage his firing.
-Last week it was Drew Stanton, this week Mike Tolbert wins the "worst dance after scoring" award.
-Going forward, the Browns starting Jake Delhomme over Colt McCoy (once healthy) is as bad as the Vikings starting Brett Favre over Tarvaris Jackson.
-I get an email from Chris Liss every week asking me what's going on in MMA. So here is my synopsis on what happened at UFC 124. George St-Pierre used a sick jab to shut the eye of Josh Koscheck, which basically allowed Koscheck to only see in 2-D for the final four rounds. GSP had his way with him and won a unanimous decision, winning every round on all three judges' cards. I'd love for an Anderson Silva/GSP fight at some type of catch-weight. It's hard to believe that Matt Serra beat GSP in one of the greatest MMA upsets ever.
-What's become annoying to me in MMA is the fact that after every fight (Koscheck for example), says all the trash-talking ahead of time was nothing more than selling the fight. This commonly happens and if Koscheck had won and not gotten his ass kicked, I wonder if it would have been a different story. When Brock Lesnar beat Frank Mir the second time around, he had no problem going off on Mir for his trash talking and went on an infamous tirade after the contest. The biggest draw in the UFC now? Brock Lesnar. Nice to see Mac Danzig beat Joe Stevenson in a fight that basically would have gotten him released from the UFC had he lost.
-Stefan Logan has quickly become a favorite player of mine to watch. It was nice to see the Lions using him more on offense (five carries, 30 yards.)
-I never would have believed you if you told me a John Skelton-led Cardinals would be the highest scoring team of the week (so far) with 43 points. You would also have to add that Skelton was only 15-for-37 for 146 yards with no touchdowns.
-Over the holiday break, I'm going to try and write up a set of guidelines for clock management. This week's message is brought to you by: Donovan McNabb, Jason Campbell and Ben Roethlisberger. This set of guidelines will include the use of timeouts vs. spiking the ball on offense and the use of timeouts on defense when the opposing team has the ball inside of the 10 and less than two minutes left in the half/game. Don't get me started on the use of timeouts before and after the two-minute warning.
-If you have to take either the group of Atlanta/New England (both 11-2) or Pittsburgh/New Orleans (both 10-3) to pick the winner the Super Bowl, who would you want?
-Just because you fire your coach, it doesn't mean you'll win your next game.
-Excellent season finale of Dexter. Next to Stevie Janowski, Vince Masuka is probably my second-favorite supporting character on TV.
-He was hurt and while it doesn't seem too serious, I'm not overly optimistic on Chris Ivory going forward. Throughout his college career he could never stay healthy. Yesterday, Pierre Thomas was part of the game plan from the get-go and Reggie Bush looks healthy. After pondering that, there's only been one game where Ivory had more than 15 carries. He might still be used as a goal line back but considering the hamstring injury and improved health of his teammates, I'm pretty down on him.
-If you're drafting for next season right now, where do you rank Michael Vick among quarterbacks? There's a bigger injury risk but I'd easily take him over Peyton Manning.
-Seeing the roof of Metrodome collapse like that was unreal. If there's a silver lining, we won't have to hear the damn horn tonight every time there's a first down. If Brett Favre plays tonight after claiming he would have been out for Sunday's contest, I swear I will never mention him in anything I write, ever again. Period. There's no way an injury like the one he supposedly sustained could improve that drastically over a 30-hour period. It adds to the drama if he plays and analysts say "he's gonna gut it out" by putting it out there that he couldn't have played on Sunday. Go away Brett, go away.
-Why did Al Michaels sound surprised when the Cowboys went for it with 5:33 left and Dallas down 10? Kudos to Steve Spagnuolo for going for it on 4th and 18 down 31-6.
-With Deon Butler out for the season, who the heck is Matt Hasselbeck going to throw to? Golden Tate? Justin Forsett got…four touches all game? Jeff Reed has been perfect. hitting 7-of-7 field goals since joining San Francisco.
-My sneaky play for tonight is Ed Dickson. Enjoy the double-header.