Monday, January 31, 2011

Cleveland Browns' Five Biggest Player Decisions: Free Agency Starts at Home

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and try to determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I've been going team by team in draft order and am at the team with the sixth pick in the draft, the Cleveland Browns.

The Browns had an up and down 2010 season.  They won their last four games at the end of the 2009 season, so expectations were high for a 5-11 team.  Unfortunately, the team didn't improve enough over the off-season and finished with a 5-11 record yet again and head coach Eric Mangini was let go.

Pat Shurmur was hired by team president Mike Holmgren to replace Mangini as head coach.  Shurmur wasn't a big name head coaching candidate when the 2010 season started, but he helped guide the Rams offense and rookie quarterback Sam Bradford to an unexpectedly good season this year.  He was also a long time Eagles assistant and Eagles coach Andy Reid is a former Holmgren disciple, which surely helped in his getting hired.

Shurmur and the Browns should improve moving forwards.  The team added quarterback Colt McCoy and corner back Joe Haden in last year's draft and should continue to draft well with Holmgren at the helm.  They are on the upside of the rebuilding process now and should consider than when they make their decisions about their own free agents.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Arizona Cardinals' Five Biggest Player Decisions: Free Agency Starts at Home

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and try to determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I've been going team by team in draft order and am at the team with the fifth pick in the draft, the Arizona Cardinals.

The Cardinals were one of many NFL teams that failed to live up to expectations in 2010.  Coming off winning the NFC West two years in a row, many expected the Cardinals to run away with the weak division once again.  Few people anticipated what would happen to the offense without Kurt Warner at the helm.  The NFL's 14th ranked passing offense last year fell 31st this year and their already bad rushing attack fell to last in the league.

Last year, Kurt Warner and Matt Leinhart combined to throw for over 4000 yards and completed over 66% of their passes.  This year, Derek Anderson, Max Hall, John Skelton and Richard Bartel all played quarterback for the Card and failed to break 3000 yards passing combined. None of them managed to break the 58% mark for completion percentage.

Needless to say, the quarterback play downed this team in 2010.  The Cardinals will have to acknowledge that as they evaluate their own personnel this off-season.  They have a handful of players who's contracts are up that appear to have talent.  The difficulty is determining who looked good because the talent level around them was so bad, and who was actually better than they looked, but was being held back by their teammates poor play.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Free Agency Starts At Home: The Cincinnati Bengals' Five Biggest Player Decisions

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and try to determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I'm going team by team in draft order and currently am at the fourth pick in the draft, the Cincinnati Bengals.

The 2010 Bengals season was a huge disappointment.  The won the AFC North in 2009, going 10-6 while sweeping their divisional games.  In the off-season they added Terrell Owens and were expected to be in the playoff hunt again, but they never played to their potential.

The team would play good halves or quarters, but rarely put together a full strong game. A glance at their schedule shows that they were within a touchdown in most of their losses, but they were out of most of those games, only keeping the final scores close by scoring late.

Head coach Marvin Lewis will return, along with most of the members of a young underrated defense.  However their offense was their weak link last year and the organization has a decision to make with many of the offense's high profile names.

Free Agency Starts At Home: The Buffalo Bills' Five Biggest Player Decisions

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and try to determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I'm going team by team in draft order and currently am at the third pick in the draft, the Buffalo Bills.

The Bills had a rough start to the 2010 season.  Starting quarterback Trent Edwards was ineffective for two games before being cut.  They attempted run a 3-4 for the first half of the season before abandoning it in the second half because they couldn't stop the run with the 3-4.  They started the season 0-8 before finally getting a win over the Lions in week 10.

Fortunately, they looked better later in the season.   They closed out the year 4-4 and their defense looked better after switching back to the 4-3.  Ryan Fitzpatrick emerged as a serviceable starter at quarterback and Stevie Johnson appeared capable of being the number one receiver in their passing attack.

While Chan Gailey is an offensive coach, it will be the decisions he and Bills GM Buddy Nix on the defensive side of the ball that make or break their 2011 season.  The Bills were the worst team in the league against the run last year.  They have to improve their run defense to have any shot of competing in the NFL.

Free Agency Starts At Home: The Denver Broncos Five Biggest Player Decisions

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and try to determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I'm going team by team in draft order and the Denver Broncos are the second team on my list.

The Broncos nearly had a lost season this year.  The team went 8-8 in 2009 and people expected them to be able to compete in the weak AFC West this year, but the Broncos managed just a 4-12 record.  They had the worst defense in the league in both yards and points allowed.  Head Coach Josh McDaniels didn't even make it to the end of the season.

Fortunately, their season wasn't a complete loss because of Tim Tebow.  Tebow was made starting quarterback at the end of the year and showed that he could succeed in the NFL like he did in college, despite not being a great traditional quarterback.  With the quarterback of the future in place, new Head Coach John Fox has to decide what players he needs to keep to help Tebow and the Broncos win.

Free Agency Starts At Home: The Carolina Panthers' Five Biggest Player Decisions

Assuming they get a new collective bargaining agreement done, NFL Free Agency is scheduled to begin on March 3, 2011.  I'm going to go through every team between now and then and identify their top five free agents and determine what should be done with each player, be it resign them or let them walk.  I'm going to go team by team in draft order, and that starts me with the Carolina Panthers.

The Panthers have the first pick in the draft so it's safe to say their last season was a disaster.  They went just 2-14 and finished last in the NFL in points per games, yards per game and passing yards per game.  Making matters worse for them, of the little talent this team has, many of the better players are without contracts for next year.

New Head Coach Ron Rivera has a big job ahead of him trying to identify the talent level of this roster.  He has to decide if he can improve his team by just adding a few guys, or if he should go the route Pete Carroll went with the Seattle Seahawks and overturn most of the roster.  I've identified their five most important free agents and will decide whether these guys are worth keeping or need to be jettisoned from the roster.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Programming note

Will be posting to my twitter feed all day.  Click on the button on the right to follow me or just go to http://twitter.com/bigderfsports

Also be sure to catch my article on the MAIN PAGE (at least as I type this) at bleacher report http://bleacherreport.com/

The NFC Championship Game - How the Chicago Bears will send Green Bay Packing

(Sorry... wanted to see how cliche a title i could give it)

Later today, at Soldier Field in Chicago, the Bears will take on the Packers for the third time this season.  Each team took one game a piece during the regular season and now it's win or go home.  Both teams are just one game away from the Super Bowl.

The public perception is that Green Bay is playing too good right now to lose and the Packers are the favorites to win the Super Bowl.  However, if you take a closer look, the shine of the Packers wears off and Chicago starts to glow.  The game will be close, but the Chicago Bears are going to win this game outright and I know seven reasons why..

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Mark Sanchez's Last Stand - Why the Steelers will destroy the Jets

Ladies and gentlemen, you can calm down... the national nightmare will soon be over.  The Jets', and more importantly quarterback Mark Sanchez's, season will finally come to an end Sunday at Heinz Field.  I know you've heard similar false reports like this in recent weeks, but the Steelers are going to triumph Sunday and it's not going to be close.

How can you believe such a claim?  I've done the research, I've looked at the facts, and I may have spoken to the devil, and I can explain to you why it's so wrong that the Jets have made it this far, and why they can't beat the Steelers at Heinz Field this Sunday.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

NFL Assistant Coach Changes: Josh McDaniels Leads List Of Best Assistant Hires

Every year in the NFL the head coaching changes get all of the publicity, but most of them are delegators.  The assistant coaches are generally the ones who work directly with the players and call the plays on Sundays.  This past off-season the Bears hired Mike Martz as offensive coordinator and Mike Tice to coach the offensive line.  After some early season difficulties, the Bears offense has produced over the second half of the season and they are in the NFC Title game

This list is going to take a look at the top five coaches who have the potential to produce similar results with their new teams next year. Most of them, like Martz and Tice, are one time head coaches who are going back to being assistant coaches and are driven to hopefully get themselves positioned for new head coaching jobs down the road.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

NFL Playoffs Fantasy Football - Rodgers, Cutler or Roethlisberger and Other Roster Questions

Come playoff time, most places stop writing about Fantasy Football.  This is crazy.  NFL.com Fantasy playoff challenge is offering the winner a trip to the Super Bowl and has hundreds of thousands of entries. ESPN.com is also running a playoff challenge with hundreds of thousands of entries.  It's not just the hardcore fantasy junkies playing, it's everybody.  It also features a smaller talent pool to choose from, so every roster spot is crucial.  I'm going to break down each position and offer up my top choices to fill a standard roster (QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, K, DEF) along with the stats to back it up.

Monday, January 17, 2011

The NFL Divisional Playoffs Losers Edition

I want to take a second and look at the losers this week.  Everyone else is going to talk about the winners and the match ups going forwards but I want to take at the teams that lost this week.  I want to talk about why they lost what will happen to them going forward.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Ravens Vs Steelers 3 - All Defense All The Time.

Seahawks vs Bears Preview
Packers vs Falcons Preview
Jets vs Patriots Preview

The first two Ravens-Steelers games were defensive struggles.  17-14 and 13-10 games aren't exactly common in today's NFL where the rules clearly favor the offense.  These teams play similar brands of football and both defenses believe in never giving an inch which usually makes for a close game.  The prior two meetings came down to go-ahead touchdowns scored inside the last three minutes of the game and as you would expect with these two teams, both touchdowns came after the offense was given great field position by the defense.  Thinking about that, rather than try to predict which offensive players are going to make the extraordinary plays required to move the ball against the other defense I'm going to attempt to look at the defense's performances and try and foresee which defense will come up with the big play.  I'm going to analyze the big defensive plays from their last meeting (Charlie Batch started the first meeting) and figure out if the opposing offense can do something to stop similar results from occurring again.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Links for 1/14/11-1/16/11 Weekend.

Gonna be updating this all weekend long as I see things.

Saints vs Seahawks - Marshawn Lynch
Mentioned that I couldn't get this link to work yesterday but I saw it today and went wow.  NFL Films makes everything look awesome and the run looked even better the second time.  They even caught Mike Williams (I think) on the sideline going " I was like 'Oh Shit! I was supposed get 22' but then I saw you stiff arm hi down and figured id get someone else"

Bill Simmons Divisional Picks
I promise not to link to everything he write but his game by game breakdowns are so awesome and he has a unique playoff doppleganger for each game.  Can't not link to that.

Ranking The New Head Coaches.

(Wrote this for as an application for bleacher report.  They required an article in one of a few formats that they use a lot and one was slideshow. I'm not going to take the time to find pictures but I'm not gonna let 700 words go to waste.)

7. Whomever Al Davis picks - Raiders - The problem with this coaching change is it was the one that had no reason to happen.  A smart owner would not fire a head coach after he went 6-0 in the division.  There was a lot to build on for the Raiders with Tom Cable there, but who knows if the next guy (rumored to be current offensive coordinator Hue Jackson) will be able to get the players to play hard in Raiderville the same way Cable did.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Daily Links for Thursday 1/13/11

This is a pretty long standing blog tradion... Gonna just post some links up here of good/interesting/important stuff to read/watch I came across today.

John Fox is a Tim Tebow Fan

If you missed the news today, John Fox was hired o be the new Head Coach out in Denver.  I love John Fox as a coach.  He did a great job when he was with the Giants as D-Coordinator and then did a great job in Carolina as the Head Coach getting a lot out of a team that didn't have much talent.  The important part of this is what i linked above.  Fox likes Tebow.  This is big.  Some coaches were down on the guy coming out of Florida but if you've seen him play I don't know how you could be.  He will always have his well documented limitation but he always gives 110%.  Winning in the NFL is very dependent on your Coach/QB Combo.  With Fox to help the defense and Tebow moving that offense I expect this tea to be be better next year and to be a legit AFC contender in 2012.

Packers vs Eagles with Clay Matthews miked up.

NFL Films can make anything look awesome and this game is no exception.  Plus a chance to hear Clay Matthews miked up is always fun.  Saints-Seahawks game is also out there but the link wasn't working when I went to post this.

Yankees Sign Rafael Soriano

This move just happened.  It seems like an overreaction with the Yanks giving up multiple picks for a set up man just because Wood is gone.  Would rather see the money go elsewhere.

Bill Simmons On Melo to Jersey

Bills Simmons breaks down why it's an absolutely horrible move for Carmelo to go to Jersey.  He should hold up any trade to not go there.  That team is not gonna break the Knicks hold on NY and he would be second fiddle to Amar'e.  He should wait and take less money and go to NY as a free agent.  He can get a 3 year deal and then renegotiate for more money after that.  Bill mentions the Clippers but I don't see why the Clips would do that. That team gets better every game and should be in the playoffs next year.

Late Breaking Edit - Cam Newton Declares For Draft

I would have stayed if I was him.  He's not Luck.  Too many question marks for me.

Jets vs Patriots 3 - Because Everyone Loves a Rubber Match

Seahawks Vs Bears Preview
Packers vs Falcons Preview

I previewed the two NFC games first because they were games between teams that happened to play this year. The two AFC games are divisional games involving teams that have huge rivalries who split the regular season series.... You don't get much more intense then the two AFC playoff games.  I'm going to preview the AFC East game first because regardless of the final scores, the AFC South game is guaranteed to to be more intense. However, I expect that this Jets vs Pats match up is going to be closer than people think its going to be.  Everyone remembers the 45-3 beat down that the Patriots put on the Jets back in week thirteen but no one seems to mention that the Jets beat the Patriots week two 28-14.  So which game should we expect to see on Sunday? Neither.  Both the Jets win and lose came as a result of a Jet getting injured and the Jet that got hurt this week is going to change the game again.

Packers At Falcons AKA The "NFC Championship Game"

Seahawks at Bears Preview

Lets be straight.  This is really the NFC Title game.  The two best teams to make the playoffs from the NFC ended up meeting each other a round early because of seedings... But they're still the best two teams in the NFC.  The winner of this game is guaranteed to be favored next round (Okay... If the Packers played the Bears it would likely be Bears -2.5 but that means the Packers would be favored on a neutral field.) Hell you could definitely make the case for either team beating anyone from the AFC in the Super Bowl too.  But the question that still needs to be answered is who will win and get to move on?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Seahawks at Bears 2 - Because nobody cared about part 1

So did you forget these two teams played already this year?  Because I had.  This game happened two games after the Giants sacked Cutler 9 times and concussed him and was his first game back. Seattle was coming off their bye week looking for their first road victory of the year.  Lets go to the highlights for a minute and find out what happened there. Game Highlights

Seattle - 23 Chicago - 20... A surprise when you think about the fact that the Seahawks have developed a reputation as the worst playoff team ever and the Bears got a first round bye.  So what happened?  Can Seattle find a way to win this game and get to .500 (9-9) or will the Bears handle their business this time and end Seattle's run?

First Blog Post.

I've spent years of my life talking about sports nonstop and being told that I should write about them.  Whether or not that's just because people were sick of hearing me is debatable but either way I'm writing now.  This is going to be a sports blog that mostly just covers the three major sports... Basketball, Baseball, and of course the Mac Daddy that is Football.  I will not be covering Hockey or Soccer here as they don't really excite me... at all.  There will probably be an MMA post or two on occasion and I'll likely use this space as a place where I can sound off if I feel the need to on anything pop-culture/real world related.  Also the simple layout of the blog will remain that way for now.  I'm going for readability at the moment though if anyone wanted to volunteer to spruce this space up I wouldn't argue.  Also plan on putting together a podcast of some sort once I figure out what to talk about and possibly find someone to talk with.

Also be sure to follow me on twitter @bigderfsports (www.twitter.com/bigderfsports) where you'll get links to all my updates here plus whatever I think of thats 140 characters or less to talk about.

And stay tuned right here for NFL Divisional Playoff previews which I'll start posting later today.