It was a bit of a sad day last December when Miami caught the Baltimore Ravens looking forward to Christmas morning with their kids and snuck out of the stadium with a win, their only one of the 2007 season. After two weeks of looking like they could possibly redeem themselves this season to become the only team to have both winless and lossless seasons, they suddenly discovered that Ronnie Brown is a hell of a running back and started using him (and going to a very high-school-like offense in the process). Just look at the stats so far this season. The first two weeks were losses with Rickie Williams being the top rusher with less than 30 yards each week. Obviously Brown was being underutilized those first two games.
Now, I can forgive New England for losing in week three. After all, Miami came out with a drastically different look and Ronnie Brown just exploded. I am a little surprised New England couldn't adjust at halftime, though. This is one of the best-coached teams in history and Miami's offense didn't even bother to slow down in the third and fourth quarter.
New England may be able to claim shock from a suddenly good Dolphins team stunned them into submission, but San Diego didn't have that excuse last weekend. They knew that Miami would come at them with the same offense that blew out the Patriots. Obviously Miami didn't have anything else to use, the more traditional NFL offense run before the Patriots game having only earned them 24 points over two games. Still, the Dolphins ran Ronnie Brown heavily and used the Wildcat formation with Brown taking a direct snap and Brown managed to gain more yardage against San Diego than he did against New England. It's not like San Diego didn't have time to prepare for the Ronnie Brown Express. They just couldn't do anything to stop him. It will be interesting to see if the Texans can fare better against a suddenly decent Miami team. I'm a fan of Matt Schaub, but I've got a feeling that the Texans are going to be suffering from the curse of Samkon Gado* for the rest of eternity. The Cubs have their goat. The Texans have my favorite Nigerian football player. Or at least they did before the cut him. That's why they're cursed. What? You can't have two Nigerian players on the same team?
Getting off my Gado high horse and back to the subject at hand, Miami's sudden leap from suckitude leaves only three teams with a chance to take the title of Worst... Season... Ever....
Cincinnati, Detroit, and St. Louis are all sitting on eggs in the win column after five weeks of play. Cincy gets the honor of bearing the mantel of worst record so far because the Lions and Rams have both had a bye week to keep their loss totals to four. Still, I don't see the Bengals making the full season without a win. They've played well and in close games against the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. They'll probably manage to put together a couple of wins this year, especially with both Houston and Kansas City on their schedule. I see Cincinatti as a lot like my one fantasy football team where I'm in third place if you just look at the overall point totals, but I'm 1-3-1 and near last place in the head-to-head win-loss totals.
St. Louis does look pretty lousy. They haven't lost by less than 17 points this season and their schedule is pretty tough. The worst three teams on the schedule are Miami, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Remember Miami from earlier in this post? Yeah, that's no easy win anymore. Atlanta? They have a winning record five games in and beat Green Bay at Lambeau Field (and more convincingly than the score suggests). San Fran looks the worst of those three at the moment, but they seem to have found an improvement at the QB position that's been holding them back some. The Rams do play the Niners twice, though. They could see their winless streak broken there. Either that or they could figure out just what in the hell went wrong this season and end up closing in on a .500 season record.
My bet for the perfect (ly bad) season is Detroit. Have you seen how bad this team is? They made a rookie QB playing his first regular season game look like a seasoned pro (Matt Ryan of the Falcons). They made Green Bay look explosive on offense (the Packers haven't scored more than half of what they scored on Detroit all season). They haven't managed to keep any team (even San Fan) from scoring less than 31 points. The frustration is even getting to their offense. They started off putting up respectable scores in the first two games, but have since gotten less and less productive on offense. This is a horrible team and their schedule is even tougher than that of the Rams. The worst team by far on their schedule is Houston, and that's a team I think is currently underperforming. They'll get it together and embarrass Detroit just like everyone else. This is quite possibly the worst team ever, which is a little sad as they have my favorite player ever on the team. Your contract won't last forever, Calvin Johnson.
You'll also notice that I ignored Houston entirely as a prospect despite its 0-4 start. That's because there's no chance they make the season without a win. They've taken Jacksonville to overtime and had Indy beat until a couple of stupid mistakes by the backup QB. The Colts and Jaguars aren't as good this year as they have been in the past, but they're not exactly schlubs either. Plus, Houston gets both Detroit and Cincinnati in the middle of their season. They'll pick up a couple of wins at least, probably more.
* Samkon Gado also scored a touchdown in Miami's only win last season after he was picked up by the Miami when he was cut by Houston. I'm guessing that the Gado curse was retroactive for Miami, but this was a really weird coincidence that I didn't realize until I started fact checking my post today.
Now, I can forgive New England for losing in week three. After all, Miami came out with a drastically different look and Ronnie Brown just exploded. I am a little surprised New England couldn't adjust at halftime, though. This is one of the best-coached teams in history and Miami's offense didn't even bother to slow down in the third and fourth quarter.
New England may be able to claim shock from a suddenly good Dolphins team stunned them into submission, but San Diego didn't have that excuse last weekend. They knew that Miami would come at them with the same offense that blew out the Patriots. Obviously Miami didn't have anything else to use, the more traditional NFL offense run before the Patriots game having only earned them 24 points over two games. Still, the Dolphins ran Ronnie Brown heavily and used the Wildcat formation with Brown taking a direct snap and Brown managed to gain more yardage against San Diego than he did against New England. It's not like San Diego didn't have time to prepare for the Ronnie Brown Express. They just couldn't do anything to stop him. It will be interesting to see if the Texans can fare better against a suddenly decent Miami team. I'm a fan of Matt Schaub, but I've got a feeling that the Texans are going to be suffering from the curse of Samkon Gado* for the rest of eternity. The Cubs have their goat. The Texans have my favorite Nigerian football player. Or at least they did before the cut him. That's why they're cursed. What? You can't have two Nigerian players on the same team?
Getting off my Gado high horse and back to the subject at hand, Miami's sudden leap from suckitude leaves only three teams with a chance to take the title of Worst... Season... Ever....
Cincinnati, Detroit, and St. Louis are all sitting on eggs in the win column after five weeks of play. Cincy gets the honor of bearing the mantel of worst record so far because the Lions and Rams have both had a bye week to keep their loss totals to four. Still, I don't see the Bengals making the full season without a win. They've played well and in close games against the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. They'll probably manage to put together a couple of wins this year, especially with both Houston and Kansas City on their schedule. I see Cincinatti as a lot like my one fantasy football team where I'm in third place if you just look at the overall point totals, but I'm 1-3-1 and near last place in the head-to-head win-loss totals.
St. Louis does look pretty lousy. They haven't lost by less than 17 points this season and their schedule is pretty tough. The worst three teams on the schedule are Miami, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Remember Miami from earlier in this post? Yeah, that's no easy win anymore. Atlanta? They have a winning record five games in and beat Green Bay at Lambeau Field (and more convincingly than the score suggests). San Fran looks the worst of those three at the moment, but they seem to have found an improvement at the QB position that's been holding them back some. The Rams do play the Niners twice, though. They could see their winless streak broken there. Either that or they could figure out just what in the hell went wrong this season and end up closing in on a .500 season record.
My bet for the perfect (ly bad) season is Detroit. Have you seen how bad this team is? They made a rookie QB playing his first regular season game look like a seasoned pro (Matt Ryan of the Falcons). They made Green Bay look explosive on offense (the Packers haven't scored more than half of what they scored on Detroit all season). They haven't managed to keep any team (even San Fan) from scoring less than 31 points. The frustration is even getting to their offense. They started off putting up respectable scores in the first two games, but have since gotten less and less productive on offense. This is a horrible team and their schedule is even tougher than that of the Rams. The worst team by far on their schedule is Houston, and that's a team I think is currently underperforming. They'll get it together and embarrass Detroit just like everyone else. This is quite possibly the worst team ever, which is a little sad as they have my favorite player ever on the team. Your contract won't last forever, Calvin Johnson.
You'll also notice that I ignored Houston entirely as a prospect despite its 0-4 start. That's because there's no chance they make the season without a win. They've taken Jacksonville to overtime and had Indy beat until a couple of stupid mistakes by the backup QB. The Colts and Jaguars aren't as good this year as they have been in the past, but they're not exactly schlubs either. Plus, Houston gets both Detroit and Cincinnati in the middle of their season. They'll pick up a couple of wins at least, probably more.
* Samkon Gado also scored a touchdown in Miami's only win last season after he was picked up by the Miami when he was cut by Houston. I'm guessing that the Gado curse was retroactive for Miami, but this was a really weird coincidence that I didn't realize until I started fact checking my post today.
3 comments:
I do not get excited about pro-football and I am actually happy that the Falcons are doing poorly this year because now Matt doesn't make me watch the games on tv.
Julie, you may not want to tell Matt that the Falcons have a winning record and there are already articles starting to trickle into ESPN about their surprising rebound. They're doing far from poorly. They may not be a playoff team because Tampa Bay and Carolina are unexpectedly strong, but they've looked really good through five game and beating Green Bay in Green Bay is no small feat.
Don't worry. I won't.
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