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First-response team: politically incorrect analysis
Cold, Hard Football Facts for November 22, 2009
(Our first look at Week 11 action. As we always do with our first response, we'll add and update data through Sunday night and again Monday morning ... so keep checking back. Plus, we can find new ways to offend people by Monday morning, too.)
The Cold, Hard Football Facts first-response team saves you from a collision with ignorance, factlessness and apathy in the wake of Sunday's games.
This week, we take a politically incorrect look at NFL action, offending pretty much everybody along the way. Send your angry, self-righteous emails to somebody else. 'Cause we don't give a sh*t what you think unless your email is accompanied by spreadsheets of passing data.
Gunfight in Detroit
But the inept Cleveland offense scored a remarkable five touchdowns Sunday against Detroit's worst pass defense in history, doubling in one afternoon against the Lions its entire production of the past year.
The game even featured a safety – only it went in Cleveland's favor, not Detroit's, as we had anticipated. Still, in an odd statistical curiosity, we've predicted safeties in four games this year. Three of those four have produced a safety (more below).
But the true story here was that awful offenses triumphed over awful defenses to produce a truly entertaining contest.
Browns quarterback Brady Quinn had thrown just three touchdown passes in his disappointing three-year career. He threw four Sunday against the cotton-candy soft Detroit defense.
Lions quarterback Matt Stafford, meanwhile, the No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft, had thrown just six TD passes in his first seven NFL games and never more than two in one contest. He threw five TDs against Cleveland – including the game-winner after a pass interference call against the Browns in their own end zone set up a Detroit first-and-goal at the 1 with 0:00 on the clock. Stafford was injured on the previous play, and nearly replaced by Daunte Culpepper for the game-winning snap, but hobbled up to the goal line to throw the winning score. (Stafford becomes just the second rookie passer in history, and the first in 72 years, to throw five TDs in a single game.)
Both young quarterbacks blew away their previous career bests for passing yards.
- Quinn threw for 304 yards. His previous best was 239.
- Stafford threw for 422 yards. His previous best was 296.
For one week, anyway, Quinn and Stafford looked like real NFL quarterbacks and Cleveland and Detroit looked like real NFL teams.
I got some AIDS down in Africa
Speaking of the frequency of AIDS in Africa, remember when the syndrome first broke on the scene (apparently a future CHFF reader had sex with a monkey or something like that), killing what little chance we had to begin with of actually getting laid in high school?
All of a sudden, even the trashy whores at Quincy High (and you know who you are) were scared out of having sex ... at least with us.
Sure, it didn't really help stop the spread of the disease. But it did kill the Kenyan tourism industry. And Toto reached No. 1 on the pop charts. So it was a win-win for everybody.
Nobody in the seedy underworld of online pigskin "punditry" is a bigger Big Ben booster than the Cold, Hard Football Facts.
But it looks now like his reckless – but winning – style of play is about to catch up with him, if it hasn't already.
Roethlisberger was knocked out of Pittsburgh's humiliating 27-24 overtime loss to Kansas City with what could be a concussion. The hero of Super Bowl XLIII took a brutal knee to the head late in the contest.
We're not medical experts, but concussions only seem to grow more likely for players already proven prone to them. Big Ben has put up historic numbers, he's won two Super Bowls and he carved out a signature moment for himself at the end of last year's Super Bowl victory over the Cardinals.
But running quarterbacks rarely last long in a league in which defenders drool at the prospects of cracking their skulls, and it may be time for him to evolve into a pure pocket passer if the 27-year-old is to extend his likely Hall of Fame career.
New England's quick recoveries
The "pundits" wondered about the psychological impact of New England's crushing 35-34 loss to Indy last week.
We told you that no team recovers from defeat quite like the Patriots.
The Patriots have lost just eight games since their last back-to-back losses in November 2006. They've rebounded from those eight losses with eight victories by an average of 23.6 PPG, including this week's 31-14 revenge win against the overmatched Jets.
The New England defense has been slowly clawing its back to elite status this year, even though Peyton Manning punctured the balloon last week. But with four picks of Jets struggling rookie Mark Sanchez Sunday, the Patriots are now fourth in Defensive Passer Rating (73.2) – a number that bodes well if the team is to make a deep playoff run.
Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, by the way, is now 108-30 (.783) as an NFL starter (including playoffs). Only Otto Graham won NFL games more frequently, with a 60-16-1 (.786) record.
Had the Patriots held on against the Colts, Brady right now would be the winningest QB in NFL history (109-29; .790). As it is, they need to win out this season for Brady to surpass Automatic Otto as the most successful QB in history.
CHFF kicks some serious Vegas ass
If you're looking elsewhere for guidance about the NFL each week, you're wasting your time.
The Cold, Hard Football Facts once again kicked some serious Vegas ass in the early games Sunday, with an 8-1 mark straight up and an 8-1 mark ATS.
With the exception of Kansas City's shocking 27-24 overtime victory against Pittsburgh – a score NOBODY saw coming – we were perfect picking the early games Sunday.
We whiffed on the Thursday night game (Miami 24, Carolina 17), giving us marks of 8-2 straight up and 8-2 ATS this week.
The Cold, Hard Football Facts have posted winning marks against the spread in eight of the first 10 weeks this year. Barring a complete collapse in the late Sunday and primetime games, we'll post our ninth winning week in 11 opportunities this season.
Like we said Friday, stuff that performance between Teri Hatcher's real and spectacular bosom and motorboat it.
Update: we went 4-1 straight up and 3-2 ATS in Sunday's later games. Those numbers put us at 12-3 and 11-4 this week heading into the MNF game and give us our ninth winning slate in 11 weeks this year.
Our record for the season:
- 109-50 straight up (.686)
- 92-67 ATS (.579)
In praise of ESPN
We like to rip ESPN a lot because so much of what they do is simply feed the sh*t machine of hype that ruins the average fan's understanding of sports. But the things they do well, they do very well. The most notable, of course, is College GameDay, easily the best pregame show in any sport that's ever existed.
The Sports Reporters each Sunday morning is another thing the worldwide leader in hype does well. Basically, it's host John Saunders and three titans of sports writing talking about the big topics of the week. This Sunday's episode was a great one: Mike Lupica, Mitch Albom and Bob Ryan discussing the details of the New Orleans defense, 4th-and-2-Gate and Charlie Weis's abysmal career at Notre Dame.
They brought the Cold, Hard Football Facts with them, too, Ryan essentially re-hashing our reports that the secret to success in New Orleans is not the Saints offense, but the Saints defense.
The "pundits" love big, meaningless numbers. We love the quiet hum of drone-like efficiency, like millions of Chinese migrant workers building a sewer tunnel through a Shanghai slum – the meaningful numbers that always prove the difference between victory and defeat or the difference between dysentery and clean water.
And right now, Peyton Manning is in the midst of the best season of his career, as we noted last week. One aspect of his game that's better than ever is his accuracy – but accuracy gains scant attention in a world that worships big empty volume numbers instead of things that actually mattter. (This is called Joe Namath Syndrome.)
Manning was deadly accurate again this week in Indy's 17-15 win over Baltimore. He completed 22 of 31 passes (70.97%).
That means he's now completed 271 of 388 passes this year ... a rate of 69.8 percent. That's tops in the league. It also gives Manning a shot to break Ken Anderson's single-season record of 70.55 percent completions set in 1982.
But remember, 1982 was the nine-game strike year. Anderson, as much as we love him, attempted just 309 passes that year (completing 218).
Manning had attempted 357 passes through his first nine game and now 388 as of today. It looks like he could, at the very least, set the record for accuracy in a 16-game season. It's one of those statistical sidelights that we'll continue to follow throughout the year.
Politically incorrect Indy analysis
On the other side of the ball, the Indy defense remains one of the great stories of the 2009 season. Indy's production on pass defense, one of the most important indicators of success in the NFL, puts the Colts among the league leaders in numerous categories.
But it's politically incorrect in football circles to note that Peyton Manning has been gifted in his career with great talent all around him: incredible running backs (Marshall Faulk, Edgerrin James), great receivers (Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne), a brilliant draft whiz (Bill Polian), a likely Hall of Fame coach (Tony Dungy) and great defenders (sack-specialist Dwight Freeney, 2007 Defensive POTY Bob Sanders).
And, of course, you can't mention that Manning has played much of his career with one of the league's best defenses, even though the data, the statistics, the evidence, proves to us this is true.
- The 2002 Colts boasted the league's No. 7 scoring defense.
- The 2005 Colts boasted the league's No. 2 scoring defense.
- The 2007 Colts boasted the league's No. 1 scoring defense.
- The 2009 Colts again boast the league's No. 1 scoring defense.
Do those look like the numbers of a one-dimensional team? (Manning arch-rival Tom Brady, for his part, has played with the league's No. 1 scoring defense just once, in 2003).
Pointing out that Manning has enjoyed incredible support from teamates, team executives and coaches is kind of like saying that a Muslim nut bag who vows to spread terror by killing innocent Americans is, in fact, a Muslim nut bag who's vowed to spread terror by killing Americans.
You just don't state the truth in a PC world or else you're the bad guy.
In fact, Tom Jackson just said Sunday night on ESPN that 10-0 Indy is " not playing well as a team" ... essentially perpetuating the decade-old myth that Manning does it all himself. This blind belief that one player did it all alone was one of symptoms that scarred clueless members of the Cult of Dan back in the 1980s and 1990s.
So instead of telling us that Indy's defense held yet another high-profile quarterback out of the end zone Sunday, TJ has to tell us that the Colts are "not playing well as a team." We don't get it. But that's the problem with political correctness: truth is the first casualty ... and other victims usually follow.
By the way, speaking of politically incorrect analysis, country crooner/vixen Gretchen Wilson looks like a dirty kind of party girl, doesn't she?
With all that said, the 2009 Colts have now won 19 straight regular-season games, the second-longest "official" win streak (regular season only) in NFL history. The last four have been gut-check wins of four points, three points, one point and two points respectively. Hell, Indy has hit for the cycle in its last four wins.
The 2008-09 Colts are now sandwiched between their arch-rivals on the list of all-time consecutive victories.
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New England – 21 games (2006-08)
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Indianapolis – 19 games (2008-present)
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New England – 18 games (2003-04)
This list tells us two things: 1) a January rematch is imminent and 2) parity is deader than Harry Reid's hopes of re-election if a healthcare bill passes.
You don't produce the three longest win streaks in league history in a period of six years – you don't produce the two longest win streaks in league history over the past two years – in a league that offers "parity."
Quite the contrary: a league that suddenly offers longer strings of success than at any time in its history is a league that does NOT have parity.
Understood? Good. Because people who don't comprehend the fact that you can't consistently produce record strings of success in a league of parity are not very bright people.
Bigotry and prejudice in the NFL
Bigotry is alive and well in the allegedly politically correct NFL. Just ask fans in San Francisco, the global center of political correctness, where Shaun Hill continues to suffer the slings and arrows of prejudice that always target the league's underclass.
San Francisco coach Mike Singletary panicked a few weeks ago when he benched Shaun Hill in favor of former overall No. 1 pick and overall bust Alex Smith at halftime of a 24-21 loss to Houston.
It was a move that reeked of pathetic pigskin political correctness – keeping the unheralded guy on a short leash but giving a long leash and more credit than is deserved to the guy with the big-time pedigree.
The 49ers were 3-2 at the time that Hill was benched and enjoying one of their best starts in nearly a decade. They lost badly to Atlanta (45-10) in Week 5, while Hill had completed 6 of 11 in an ineffective first half against the Texans in Week 6.
A guy with a big-time rep but no production (a guy like Smith, in other words) would have been given a lot more time to work through the slump. But six underwhelming quarters was enough for a guy without a pedigree. Hill was benched faster than Sonya Sotomayor, despite his 10-6 record as a starter and a promising start to his career for an otherwise very bad team.
On the heels of San Francisco's 30-24 loss to Green Bay this week, the 49ers are now 1-3 in games that Smith started this year – the only win the 10-6 victory against the Bears last week courtesy of Jay Cutler's five-pick debacle.
For his career, Smith is now 12-22 as a starter – but that thanks to bigotry and prejudice, the under-achieveing former No. 1 pick is starting ahead of the guy that gives the team the best chance to win.
Dallas's Chinese-American in the armor
As you know, the Cold, Hard Football Facts are at the vanguard of cultural tolerance. That's why we no longer refer to a team's weakness as the "chink" in its armor. It's just not right to use a crass racial epithet that associates the people of the world's most populous nation with weakness, especially at a time when the Chinese government owns 12 NFL franchises.
In the case of the Cowboys, the Chinese-American in their armor is the suddenly ineffective offense, which was scored just 14 points in its last two games. It's the lowest output in consecutive games for Dallas in six years, since they scored 10 points against the Bills (10-6 win) and Patriots (12-0 loss) in the middle of the 2003 season.
Quincy Carter was the quarterback that year: the team finished 10-6 and earned a wildcard playoff birth, but the season fizzled out with an offenseless 29-10 loss to the Panthers in the first round of the postseason.
Hard to see 2009 finishing much differently right now.
We pick safeties in our final scores as something of joke this year. But, in a curious statistical trend, each time we do this, the game seems to produce a safety.
- In Week 5 we picked the Redskins to beat the Panthers, 6-2
- In Week 8, we picked the the Lions to beat the Rams, 2-0
- And this week, we picked the Lions to beat Clevleand, 2-0
Each game produced a safety. Even you gotta admit, that's pretty good for a bunch of classless d-bags. Though we imagine it has more to do with the low quality of the teams involved than the low quality of the people making the picks.
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