The first-response team

Cold, Hard Football Facts for Sep 12, 2009

Here are six immediate reactions from the first full slate of games here in 2009. Think of it as the findings of our first-response team. Of course, if you're counting on a crew as unmotivated as ours to be your first responders, you'll probably just suffer a slow, agonizing death with no comfort in your final moments.

To be honest, we mostly just pat ourselves on the back here. But that's no easy feet when you have tiny midget arms and a body type best used to describe a certain Parisian bell ringer.

ONE

In case you were wondering, we've had a monster opening week picking NFL games. In fact, just as we claimed when we made the picks, they were much like Teri Hatcher's bosoms: they're real, and they're spectacular.

With the Monday night games still to be played, we're 11-3 straight up and 10-4 against the spread. (If that dirt bag Aaron Rodgers had merely settled for a field goal on Green Bay's final drive, instead of throwing for a long, unnecessary TD, the Pack would have still won but not covered, and we'd be 11-3 ATS. But that's his problem.)

If you followed our (belated) picks today, you're pretty happy right now.

TWO

For our readers in the Boston area, we're having a Monday Night Football bash near the Cold, Hard Football Facts cardboard-box world headquarters in Dorchester, Mass.

The CHFF crew will be hanging with our pals from Tavolo during the Bills-Patriots game.

Yeah, it's kind of random: it's not really a sports-bar type place. But they're cool folks and they asked us (and you people, apparently) to come hang out.

It's actually a neat place with great beer and great food and it's run by a guy named Chris Douglass, one of Boston's most accomplished restaurateurs (he owned the landmark Boston restaurant Icarus for years). We'll be doing little trivia and handing out prizes, but mostly it will be general mirth and merriment and a chance to get liquored up among like-minded, football-loving trolls. Hookers are optional ... but you can probably find them right next door at Ashmont Station on the Red Line.

Tavolo is also offering special tailgate menu for just $20, which includes two beers. So that's a pretty damn good deal. Come down and hang and laugh at our hunchbacks and our lack of opposable thumbs.

THREE

Don't want to read too much into one game, but we were pretty explicit in our knowledge this past off-season that it was a bad move for the Lions to draft a quarterback with their No. 1 pick because they have way-way-waaaaaaayyyyyyy too many problems for a young quarterback to be effective.

Well, here's what Matt Stafford did in his first game, a 45-27 loss to the Saints:

16 for 37 (43.2%) 205 yards, 5.5 YPA, 0 TD, 3 INT, 27.4 passer rating

We also don't want to over-criticize a guy for a bad performance in his first NFL game. Hell, we could barely complete a pass in our local youth football league. And we're grown men playing against 10 year olds.

But this isn't a knock on Stafford. It's a knock on the pathetic Detroit organization for believing that a rookie quarterback would somehow save the day when he's surrounded by a leaky offensive line, bad management and a pass defense so weak that it can barely lift its head up to ask for water.

We're pretty sure that drafting Stafford will prove to be bad move for the Lions organization and a bad move for the quarterback. In a best-case scenario, he enjoys a Jim Plunkett-like rejuvenation with another team later in his career.

FOUR

Speaking of the Lions-Saints game, we also spent half the off-season telling people that Detroit fielded the worst pass defense in NFL history last year (110.8 Defensive Passer Rating, easily the worst ever). In fact, we were the only place where you could get this historic information. Well, the 2009 season isn't looking any better.

New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees torched the Lions secondary Sunday like they were Japanese defenders in an Iwo Jima pillbox.

He was spectacular:

26 of 34 (76.5%), 358 yards, 10.5 YPA, 6 TDs, 1 INT, 137.0 passer rating.

On the bright side, the Lions D did record one pick – which puts them on pace to smash their record of futility last year, when they picked off just four passes all season.

FIVE

Who's the asshat who installed the Bengals as 4.5-point favorites over Denver?

Was it you? Please tell us it's not you. Because that would make you a moron, and we;ve already got enough problems beside having morons for readers.

Here's the deal with the Bengals, in case you've missed the last 35 years of NFL history: even in those rare instances when they play well enough to win, the Bengals have a remarkable institutional ability to snatch ineptitude from the jaws of competency (Lewis Billips, anyone?).

show video here

Week 1 of the 2009 season was no exception: the Bungles sported a 7-6 lead in the final 40 seconds when Denver's Brandon Stokley hauled in a tipped ball from Kyle Orton and raced 87 yards for the winning points in a 12-6 victory.

Orton-to-Stokley, for those of you new to football history, is not exactly the explosive big-play combination of a Marino-to-Duper or Brady-to-Moss. So not only did the Bungles suffer a nut-kicking defeat, they must now wake up in a cold sweat for the rest of their lives, trying to figure out how they were beaten by a noodle-armed quarterback who connected on an 87-yard touchdown with a 33-year old white wide receiver.

It was the longest play in the careers of both Orton and Stokley, by the way.

Only in Cincinnati.

SIX

It's come to our attention that we never published our Super Bowl pick. That's kind of a big mistake.

Well, as we said in our bold and useless AFC preview, we believe the winner of the Baltimore-New England game on Oct. 4 will gain the No. 1 seed in the AFC. We also believe Baltimore will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. So you can do the math there.

Over in the NFC, we have a thing for the Eagles, in case you haven't noticed. It probably comes down to our belief in the importance of organizational stability, which the Eagles clearly have. Plus, in case you also haven't noticed, the Eagles are clearly the NFC's most dominant team of the past decade. We picked them to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl last year – they fell just shy, losing in the NFC title game. We're picking the to reach the Super Bowl again this year. That pick took a big hit today, when Donovan McNabb went out with broken ribs. But it is what it is, as a certain NFL coach is known to say.

Ohh, Baltimore wins it. More tough luck for the second-rate NFC.

By Kerry Byrne

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