FanNation - The Republic of Sport

First of all and most important, the NFL lost a good piece of their NFL Draft talent pool on saturday night. Ball State senior WR Dante Love was lost for the season and almost certainly for his career after he took a vicious hit from IU safety Chris Adkins. Just a little bit about Love: Maybe the most versatile senior in the entire nation, led the NCAA in receiving yards coming into the game with 450+, and was on pace to break all of Ball State's receiving, all-purpose, and return records. He will be fine as far as everyday life goes, he will walk again and should be able to return to the same physical shape he was in before the hit, but the problem is this injury puts him at very high risk for a repeat spinal cord injury and loss of life. Anyway, best of luck to him and Ball State is winning the MAC maybe more...

I made predictions before the season started, you know, broke down every game, made mock standings and simulated the playoffs....then was too lazy to write the 80 hundred page novella it would've required to say all I wanted to...probably a good thing. It turns out only three things I had happening actually might: Every team in the NFC East being .500 or bettter, Pittsburgh locking up the AFC North and Arizona winning the NFC West. So, needless to say, it's a good thing I decided to not post these.

Biggest Surprises: Good or Bad

NFC South-- I did not expect all four of these teams to be playoff contenders but it's looking like they all are. All four teams have at least one loss after three games which leaves the division wide open for anyone to win. Atlanta's defense has been a pleasant surprise. THey lost two Pro Bowlers, Rod Coleman and Deangelo Hall but are actually playing better D than they did last year. The difference from last year 4-12 team is probably RB Michael "The Burner" Turner, but the whole team is quite efficient. Most people would put NO as the favorite, but that defense is still the same as always and D wins championships...I'll take Carolina, if they can find anyway to improve thier run defense and convert 3rd downs consistently they will be a super bowl contender, but as of now those are their only weaknesses. Tampa is starting to look scary now that Ike Hilliard, Antonio Bryant, and Joey Galloway are all excellent options in the passing game...watch out for recently re-instated TE Jeramy Stevens for Tampa....

NFC vs. AFC-- AFC has dominated the regular season for what seems like forever now and(knock on wood) it finally looks like the real conference is gettin giggidy on some AFC'ers. Of course this is helped by the injury to that one QB up there by the original 13 colonies but still...

Seattle Seahawks-- They did beat St. Louis(a team with only 2 TDs so far), so let's give them some love but oh my playoff contender, what happened to that secondary? Seattle has won the NFC West for how many years in-a-row now?? I'm thinkin at least 5 years in a row and now they are fighting with St. Louis for last place. Most people believe when they get WRs Bobby Engram and Deion Branch back they will return to form, but I'm not so certain...I picked them for 8-8 before the season for one reason: the defense. I know you shouldnt read into the preseason but if you watched their first unit in the preseason, they got shredded. Mostly in the running game but their secondary is also a problem after their collapse against the 49ers and JT O'Sullivan. I guess that's what you get when you beat my team and exit them from the playoffs....way to go Todd Collins!

Tennessee Titans and Atlanta Falcons-- Atlanta has beat two bad teams, honestly, but still they are working with a rookie QB, the same stone handed WRs, no legitimate TE, and a defense that lost two pro bowlers and are still 2-1. Tennessee is the real contender here...They may very quietly be the best team in the NFL. You can look at the lay low offense and think I'm crazy and that's fine, but any offense with Chris Johnson(remember the name) in it is going to be potentially explosive. Here's the story: Tennessee is 3-0, best defense in the NFL(their "weakness" is their run defense and they are only allowing 89 yards rushing, 10th in the league) and have the easiest schedule for the next few weeks. The rest of the season, their opponents have a combined record of 12-23 so far in 2008. Only three teams remaining on their schedule have a winning record: Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Green Bay. I'm not saying they could go undefeated, but they may just end up with the best record in the NFL....and then lose their opening playoff game because of their soft regular season schedule.

San Francisco-- Have to mention them as a surprise for sure. If you poll a million people, 75% wouldnt be able to name more than two players on this team. When you're most popular players are Issac Bruce, Nate Clements, and Frank Gore and start out the way they have, you are a surprise to most people. But, most NFL fans know better. They have a veteran O-line with a nice mix of run and pass blockers and veterans at WR to help inexperienced but well versed QB J.T. O'Sullivan. The defense was the unit last year that let them down and is now showing why Mike Nolan is a great coach. Remember these names for the next four-five years: DT Issac Sopoaga, DE/OLB Ray McDonald, OLB Manny Lawson, LB Patrick Willis, OLB Roderick Green, and CB Tarell Brown...you add those young up-and-comers with veteran pro bowlers such as CB Nate Clements, CB Walt Harris, LB Takeo Spikes, SS Michael Lewis, and DE Justin Smith and that's what's called a super bowl caliber defense. watch out NFL...

Random notes:

Is it just me, still, or are people finally realizing that CB Deangelo Hall is an overrated piece of.....trash! Not only does his lack of discipline, mental apptitude, and inability to change direction make him a waste of talent at CB but I'm still convinced that he was somehow involved with Michael Vick in that dog fighting scandal. Im not gonna explain why I think that, just look it up...there are rumors. He did have an INT last week, yeah yeah, but the ball was in Lee Evans' hands, he dropped it, and all of a sudden it was christmas for Deangelo...the fact is, anyone who has comparable speed and can run solid routes is going to have a field day against Deangelo because he takes too many risks and bites on double move, curl, and hitch routes more than anyone since Ahmad Carroll.

There's a couple rules that get on my nerves, as with any season:

First, they took away one of my favorite rules, the push-out rule, but I'll come back to that later. The NFL will never change this rule because it just doesnt happen enough for it to be relevant, but if a DB is covers a receiver and their legs get tangled, it's ruled incidental contact...no flag. Which, I understand, but doesn't this basically mean that if a WR has a step on you and he's going deep and will most likely end up with a TD, you can just "accidentally" trip him and oops, your bad, incidental contact. And what happens if the DB trips the WR, he falls, but the DB doesnt and picks the pass off...how fair is that, WR gets tripped and the D gets a free turnover. I'm not a genius, I dont know how you fix the problem or if you would even want to but everytime I see "incidental" contact it rubs me the wrong way.

Alright now the one I'm most upset about. The force-out. In the past, if a WR was jumping for a ball and had a chance to come down in bounds with the ball and was pushed out by a defender...it was a catch. Not anymore. Here's the problem I have with this: When a receiver goes into the air for the football, he is defenseless and the DB covering him can do anything short of leading with his helmet to drive the receiver out of bounds. Wether that's fair or not is besides the point, even thought I don't think it is...but the issue is that's setting up a situation where a lot of guys are going to be injured if they go up for a ball on the sideline. Not only that, but with the new rule change, defenses now have 11 defenders and two hall of fame DB's out there named the sidelines. The sidelines have always been great DB's but now they are first ballot emotional speech Hall of Famers. It's almost impossible now to make a catch on the sideline if anyone is near you. Maybe this bothers me so much not only because of the injury factor, but because Santana Moss is one of the best sideline receivers I've ever seen and he just so happens to be a Redskin, but whatever it is, I don't like it...Also, this rule makes it very difficult for teams to come back late in games now. Anything that hinders a team's ability to come back and make things dramatic is not good for fans, the NFL, or TV ratings. You could argue wether its good for players and coaches, but yeah...

I think I've written enough, more to come...peace!