Having not paid attention to the realities last weekend, I went three and one straight up and one and three on the spread.  Note that the only game that I did not lose on the spread had no spread, so essentially my crystal ball sucks.  Neither here nor there, and for more just slip over to the other blog at http://johnetnfl.spaces.live.com/  For this weekend there are also some picks up there, but observe carefully that as a prognosticator I suffer from a severe handicap ... wishful thinking. 

I was a bit surprised that Joe Gibbs decided to leave the Redskins with one year remianing on his contract.  He may however feel that his job is done, since it has been several years since Daniel (Synder the owner) has interfered in the selection of players, and that is a lifetime in football time.  Hell they even have paid off all of the dead weight that they have been carrying under the salary cap.  (Note here that they are still 23 million over the cap starting next year, and will have to do some serious renegotiating to keep the team together).  But anyway, while there are some that say he has lost it, I think that all considering (23% of the salary cap going to players no longer there when he first signed on, people on the payroll not suitable to the planned offense and defense, and a front office in total disarray, and not a single pick in the first two rounds of the draft) he did a really goo job of packing into the play-off's not once but twice.  He also leaves a framework on which his sucessor can build.  Now we shall see if Mr. Snyder will quit playing fanasty football with the franchise. 

Note to those of you who are interviewing for the Dolphin Head Coaching job .. It has already been decided and Mr. Sporano is the winner.  He will go through the motions, because it is illegal for Miami to give him the job now, and besides, he can always negotiate (something he learned from the master Parcells) with these teams to determine how much he will hold Wayne Hunzinger up for.  I personally think that it is a win-win all the way around so no hoo-rah.  Bill in the meantime has to start thinking about a back-up group so that everyone is doo-wapping in the samae key.  Note to the world we will now find out if Parcells is really a genius or just merely a person who has been extremely lucky.  I personally was really surprised that he took this on, since there is really no upsie for him.  If he succeeds, it is expected, if he fails, he was always vastly over rated. 

Nothing but my utmost sympathy for Arthur Blank and the Falcons.  He strikes me as a nice guy that a bunch of people have walked on and trampled upon, while shaking his hand and taking his money.  My advice is stop being a sheep and step on these ****.  If I were Blank I would haul Bobby Petrino and the University of Arkansas into court, and tie them up so badly that the only football they would be playing would be on their respective front yards with their inbred relatives.  Michael Vick would be back on the team about the same time that Hannibal Lecter became a vegatarian, and Bill Parcells, well you cna't really get to him, but I would be on the lookout for the opportunity.  By the way Arthur, I here you are pursuing Pete Carroll as your next head coach.  I would have thought you would have learned your lesson from the last time.  If you are smart, you will let Emmitt Thomas your interim head coach have the job and go look for a good GM, then start rebuilding around a reasonably decent quarterback and some talented running backs and receivers. 

Brian Billick out in Baltimore is not a major surprise.  The major surprise is that he held on as long as he did.  Face it, he has never delivered on his promise.  Yes he won one  Super Bowl, but in reality, that was one more than he should have won.  The Baltimore offense has been a joke for the past nine years (even in their Super Bowl year they went five games without a touchdown). They have had a stout defense, but get real, all of these guys are nine years older, and in football terms that is a lifetime.  The worse part is, they do not recognize the fact that they are not as good as they use to be.  (The really sad part is that there are some coaches who still think that they are good).  Face it, with the amount of time that they have to spend on the field is is amazing that any of them can still walk, much less play.  Someone to  replace Billick .. I really don't know, but whoever does, will in all probability have to rebuild from the ground up.  They will also be tasked with forcing out some highly paid legends who have been operating on their reputations rather than their abilities (note I am talking about Ray Lewis here).  It is sad but it is what it is.

Well for now, that is all, but note that there is still more to come in the future ... John