| Authored by Matthew Gordon - 23rd October, 2009 - 3:58 pm
 Most of the talk about teams’ records this season has either been about specific surprises (like the division-leading Bengals) or about just how awful the bottom of the league is. With teams like the Rams, Bucs and Titans seeming incapable of winning, others have piled up more victories than their preseason scouting reports admit. Still other teams, like the Panthers and Dolphins, have underachieved so far, leaving pundits to scratch their heads while rivals up their win columns gladly.
Amidst all the turmoil is the uncanny ability of the teams at the top to keep going. Whereas most teams in most years lose at least one of their first four or five games, this year saw five teams hit the 5-0 mark; only one of them (the Giants) lost last week, and it was in the hostile home of another (the Saints). Now with the Vikings and Broncos at 6-0, and the Colts and Saints at 5-0, the NFL still has what seems like way too many undefeated teams.
In the middle come… the consistently satisfactory teams? In other years, this would be a reasonable guess. This year is the happy residence of two preseason favorites, the Ravens and Jets, who managed to win their first three games while looking just as good as the aforementioned unbeatens. Now, of course, both teams are 3-3.
Following the patterns that include about a third of the league, can we find equivalence? Are the 6-0 Vikings and Broncos really deserving of their records? Should the Ravens and Jets be worried for the same reasons, or at all? Does it mean roughly the same to be a Panther or a Dolphin? Last, and definitely least, does each winless team bear the same resemblance to an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon?
Vikings and Broncos: Unlikely Heroes
These two teams lead their divisions by the widest margins in the league. Considering how many people had the Chargers (now iffy) and the Bears (still a potential contender) picked as division winners before the season, this has to be making some prognosticators panic.
The Vikings have been very lucky to make it this far. Lost in the glittering record are some inconvenient truths: Brett Favre has only out-thrown the opposing quarterback thrice; Adrian Peterson has only reached the 100-yard rushing mark twice; Aaron Rodgers and Joe Flacco have put up 384 and 385 yards respectively against Minnesota’s defense.
Three of the six teams Minnesota defeated go by the names of Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis. Those three teams are a combined 2-16 this season. Of the others, two were under dubious circumstances. The San Francisco game was lost but for a prayer, and that was with the 49ers missing star rusher Frank Gore for most of the it. (If you want proof of what happens when he can’t keep his team’s defense off the field, re-watch the Atlanta game.) The Baltimore game came down to Frank Walker committing the exact same pass interference penalty, a modified neck-hug of sorts on the receiver, twice.
In this past week’s “$.10 After Week 6”, Jeff Risdon sums up Minnesota’s situation quite neatly: “Cynics point out that the Vikings have two very lucky wins, but I would counter that having great luck is very much a team skill that persists over the course of a season.” When luck is the result of the team having generated opportunities, I’d tend to agree. Needing an injury and repeated blown coverage in two of the three tests of the season so far is different entirely.
Next week’s opponent Pittsburgh looks healthy, and does Ben Roethlisberger ever look healthy – compare this to Minnesota’s 24th in the NFL in passing yards allowed per game. Pittsburgh also doesn’t tend to make Frank Walker level mistakes. Fittingly given the season so far, Pittsburgh hasn’t been tested either other than failed tests against Chicago and Cincinnati. Even so, the team hasn’t lost by more than three points and is improving noticeably.
Minnesota’s schedule has been middling so far but is brutal up ahead. Of the team’s ten remaining games, only three are against teams with losing records. The Vikings’ last four of the season are against Cincinnati, Carolina (which, you’d hope, would be back in form by Week 15…), Chicago and the New York Giants; the Vikings could struggle to finish that stretch playing .500 ball. Luck is working with the Vikings now, but prolonged stretches of tough matchups should give a better indication of the team’s capabilities, and the playoffs will be tougher still.
It’s not surprising that luck also ties into the other 6-0 surprise. Cincinnati/Denver looked like a bore in Week 1, but Brandon Stokley’s miracle catch started a still-improbable six-game run. The rightfully stunned Bengals would have started 5-0 but for that play, and the Broncos might not have had their momentum but for it. The real story on the Broncos’ side wasn’t the catch, though; it was holding the Bengals to seven points.
7 6 3 10 17 23
I’m sure everyone in Denver picked these as lottery numbers. These are the point totals of the Broncos’ opponents so far this season, the last two numbers coming from highly talented offensive squads in New England and San Diego.
This is a complete turnaround from the end of last season, when the division-leading 8-5 Broncos dropped three straight to lose the division to the Chargers, including a head-to-head matchup between the teams. The Broncos allowed 52 points in that game, and 30 in each of the two before it. The Broncos routinely gave up long passing plays, which thrilled Philip Rivers in that final showdown. Sayre Bedinger of Bleacher Report said months later that “in 2008, there is no doubt that the Denver Broncos possessed the worst group of safeties in the National Football League, possibly in team history”, no hyperbole required.
Consider that weakness addressed. The acquisition of Eagle legend Brian Dawkins showed that the Broncos were serious about upgrading their safeties. (Two of the team’s safeties from last year, Marlon McCree and Calvin Lowry, aren’t playing currently.) So far this season, Dawkins is averaging over six tackles per game, and has defended as many passes (six) as he did in all 16 games last season.
The numbers barely matter, though, compared to the way this Denver defense has played. Last season’s version was lackadaisical, but this season’s is intense. Four or five Denver jerseys are visible on most tackles. Players are communicating. At the head of the swarm is Dawkins, still spry at thirty-six, looking no different than when he was wearing green.
The offense hasn’t been stellar, but it’s done what it’s supposed to do. Switching up Correll Buckhalter and Knowshon Moreno at running back has kept each of them fresh. Moreno’s been able to step in as a rookie and average over four yards per carry in four of the team’s six games. Buckhalter has been posting a career-high 6.7 yards per carry on no more than 14 rushes in any one game. While Kyle Orton looks every bit the DLG quarterback and the running game eats the clock, Denver’s offense supports its defense.
Denver’s a team that knows it can count on its defense. When that’s accomplished, there’s far less of a chance of needing a near-impossible Greg Lewis endzone snag to win a game.
Ravens and Jets: Slip-Slidin’ Away?
At 3-0, the Ravens and Jets were two of the most impressive teams in the league. Neither defense looked at all permeable and the offenses were doing whatever was necessary. Everyone who had picked them as division winners was looking right. I, for one, thought Baltimore could win 13 games. (Well, they still have a good shot at eleven.)
Now 3-3, they look all too similar. Both are a game back of the division lead, both have lost a key game to a division rival and both have to wonder which three-game stretch is indicative of the way this season is going to go.
That’s where the similarities end.
It’s easy to point fingers at the Ravens. The team has won the three games it’s played against sub-.500 teams so far and lost the three games it’s played against above-.500 teams (with a sparkling combined record of 14-4, for those keeping track). Going by nothing more than win-loss record, Baltimore looks like the classic team that can beat up on bad teams but then withers against one that’s half-decent. In this case, the picture is incomplete.
Between Mark Clayton’s botched Larry Centers impersonation and Frank Walker’s multiple pass interference calls, two of the Ravens’ three losses have been at the hands of individual players. To be fair, the team could’ve done a better job containing the Patriots early in the game, and there was certainly no need to go down against the Vikings anyway, but the key plays are what people will remember.
A wise man once said that “if the other team beats you, fine, but don’t commit mental mistakes”. (No, I didn’t fabricate this quotation. Anyone who ascribes any amount of wisdom to me should refer to my prediction that the Steelers would topple the then-12-0 Patriots.) The Ravens clearly have the talent, mindset and determination to win games. Ray Lewis’ crushing hit on Darren Sproles to end the Chargers/Ravens game is one of many pieces of evidence of this. The team’s inspired comeback against Minnesota, marred by the second Walker penalty, is another.
The Ravens’ season will ultimately be about discipline. Whether that’s all they need or whether there’s anything else, it’ll have to come soon; the team plays host to Denver in two weeks and then continues a very difficult schedule. Two games against Pittsburgh (mustn’t the Ravens just love being in same division?), as well as games against Indianapolis and Chicago, and in Cincinnati and Green Bay, will be chances for this team to show if every single player will be there for every single play. As the Ravens have learned rather painfully, one player botching one or two plays can mean the game.
Thankfully for them, every other indicator points upward. Their offense looks as balanced as it has in team history. Baltimore is 8th in the NFL in passing yards per game (when have you ever heard that?), 10th in rushing yards, and is 8th in rushing yards allowed despite having given up two straight 100-yard rushers. The players are, for the most part, playing good fundamental football and working cohesively as offensive and defensive units.
This team is really only a few plays from being 5-1, or even 6-0, and the players know it. Post-bye-week Baltimore has no reason not to be back in undefeated form.
I can’t say the same for the Jets. Ever since their impressive 3-0 start, and an oddly respectable loss to the Saints, the Jets have lost to two consecutive sub-.500 teams. For those wondering why Jets fans are grumbling more than Ravens fans, it’s not just the so-called New York Expectations.
Unlike the new-look Ravens, the Jets never really had a passing game. Even in their three wins, they only had four passing touchdowns, and rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez has only had one 200+ yard game this season, in Week 1. None of that mattered because the team was running the ball well and playing elite-level defense.
When Thomas Jones runs for a franchise-high 210 yards, including career-long 61- and 71-yard rushes, the team shouldn’t lose. When matched up against Buffalo, the team shouldn’t lose.
Mark Sanchez’s 10-for-29, 119-yard performance, complete with no touchdowns and five interceptions, will go down as the worst of his career. He hit the opposing players half as often as his own en route to an 8.3 passer rating. It doesn’t get any worse than that. With the great day Jones had, Leon Washington’s 99 yards on 15 carries, and the defense only giving up 13 points in regulation, it was disheartening to see the Jets literally throw away the game.
Whereas the Ravens’ mistakes come down to minor tweaks (like the minor tweak of catching a ball or not wrapping one’s arms around an opponent’s neck), the Jets have been outplayed twice. After losing to the formidable Saints and resurgent Dolphins, instead of retaking command of the division, the Jets served Buffalo a win with side dishes, trimmings and free refills of pop.
The Ravens look focused but with that everlasting need to improve that consumes every good team a couple wins short of where it thinks it should be. The Jets look anemic. It wasn’t long ago that the Jets were 3-0, and it only a week ago that the Raiders were 1-4. If Richard Seymour’s grandstanding foretells a Raiders win, Oakland will be ahead of New York in the standings by a tiebreaker. I can’t think of a better motivator than that.
Record Low
Way too many teams went 0-3 to start the 2009 NFL season. Some appeared destined to be there; others appeared as fitting as a bowtie on a llama. While most of those teams have sputtered to the expected 2-4 or 1-5 records, usually picking up wins against equally bad teams (here’s looking at you, Kansas City), others have diverged from the typical machinations of the NFL season.
The league’s three 0-6 teams are there for a reason. The Titans had preseason expectations that, if not as high as last year’s gaudy 13-3, were certainly far better than this year’s quick doubling of the loss column. The Buccaneers and Rams had no expectations at all, the Bucs hoping to piece together a viable post-Gruden version and the Rams wanting to snap the ten-game losing streak that ended 2008.
Other 0-3 teams had no reason to be 0-3 other than their own poor play. They’ve recognized this and amended it. The Panthers and Dolphins both sit at 2-3, with the latter being only a game and a half out of the division lead. It’s too early to tell how legitimate a playoff shot either team has, but things definitely look better than they did two weeks ago.
In part one of the article above (“Record Highs”), I explained why not every team has the same record, or even the same pattern of wins and losses, for the same reason. Today’s teams exhibit far more similarities.
Panthers and Dolphins: Cranky Curmudgeons
For two teams that finished a combined 23-9 last season and then had playoff-related reasons to storm into the 2009 season angry, neither looked like it wanted to repeat as division champion. Both teams had lackluster performances against the Falcons early in the season, although credit should be given to the Falcons, who have become established as a good team quite early. Both teams struggled on defense and struggled passing the ball.
In Carolina’s case, the team suffers from the combination of mental mistakes and lack of balance. Most teams have at least someone at most positions, but the Panthers can’t yank an embattled quarterback or sit a sore defensive back for fear of drastically altering the look of their team.
Aside from the constant cries for Jake Delhomme’s head, which are of varying validity, the team’s biggest problems have been the disappearance of the All-Star offensive line and the defense’s porous play. The result of the former was the collapse of the dominant running game that propelled them to last year’s 12-4 record, and the result of the latter was a horrendous 182.7 rushing yards per game through the first three weeks. The team has already cut that figure down to 149.2, with neither Washington (Clinton Portis) nor Tampa Bay (Carnell Williams) producing an 80-yard rusher.
On offense, Carolina is finally running the ball well. Not only is D’Angelo Williams looking like the franchise back he was last season, but he carried the ball thirty times against Tampa Bay for 152 yards.
If Williams can maintain that sheer volume of carries (okay, I’m sure John Fox will settle for 25), the rest of the offense will benefit. The offensive line will be facing a more ragged defensive line every second half, and notice that Carolina improved over the course of both wins, looking better near the end of games than at the start. There will also be a lot less focus on Delhomme. Whether you think his so-far putrid four-touchdown, ten-pick affair is a bad stretch or a symptom of quarterback senility, Williams and Jon Stewart are letting Delhomme take a breather between pass plays. I think everyone in Carolina wants that right now.
As far as the defensive improvements are concerned, sometimes a team just needs a rest. While that seems premature after only three weeks, the Panthers’ three weeks merited one. Having the bye week, Washington and then Tampa allowed the team to re-energize itself physically and mentally, a must after the (in order) humiliation, frustration and chaos of their first three games. In more practical terms, the time off allowed strong safety Chris Harris to return.
Harris’s absence was the most glaring example of what was wrong with the Panthers. The team’s depth chart on opening day listed Harris as the team’s only strong safety, and, of course, that he was injured. The team’s backup free safety was also injured, leaving third-string free safety Quinton Teal to start at strong safety. (Had he been injured, would we have seen the waterboy?) Teal has 38 career tackles, including 13 this year (11 solo) that he amassed in the team’s first three games.
Harris has recorded 13 tackles, 11 solo, in the two games since his return. That small sample is right in line with his career-best 96 tackles in 15 games during the 2007 season. Statistically, Harris has provided an exactly 50% increase over Teal; in terms of leading the defense and bringing a winning culture, Harris’s experience has proven irreplaceable.
Na’il Diggs told the Gaston Gazette that the team’s 0-3 record was “a wakeup call”. This is a team that still appeared to be sleeping while down 17-2 to the Redskins but has taken important strides since. It has the look of a talented team that’s undergoing NFL rehab. Buffalo on Sunday will be the last installment before the schedule gets tougher, beginning with Arizona and then including two dates with the scintillating Saints.
The main problem the Panthers face now isn’t that they have three losses. So do the Ravens, so do the Dolphins, and so will the loser of Sunday’s Chicago/Cincinnati game. (For the record, I have Chicago down to win it.) What might hurt Carolina later are the teams that beat them. Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas could all conceivably finish the season with the same record as Carolina, and Carolina would lose the tiebreaker to Philadelphia and Dallas. The Panthers have a chance to make it up against Atlanta, but are two games back of the Falcons. What must be making Fox’s squad smack themselves right now is that a victory over either the Eagles or the Cowboys would’ve made the Panthers switch records with the offending team.
The Dolphins have woken up without all the baggage of worrying about tiebreakers. Miami and Atlanta aren’t in the same conference, no one in the AFC East really looks poised to catch the Colts, and San Diego is becoming irrelevant as quickly as Denver is becoming a force. Both of Miami’s wins have come in the division, with the Bills game acting like a more emphatic version of the Panthers’ bad-team pick-me-ups and the Jets game inching the rivals closer in the standings. (Sunday’s Dolphins/Saints game notwithstanding.)
The Dolphins’ problems, like the Panthers’, were largely mental. Instead of presenting opposing running backs with a saloon door, though, the Dolphins were doing so for receivers. The Dolphins’ coverage and tackling was so poor that the team couldn’t win despite having the ball for 45 minutes – had it not been televised across North America, you wouldn’t even believe that statement. On a team that prided itself in 2008 with a new look on defense, the 2009 version looked like it was impersonating the team’s 1-15 incarnation from before Bill Parcells took over as Executive Vice President.
Don’t look now, but Ronnie Brown is on pace for a career year. Behind an offensive line that’s become one of the most respected in the NFL, Brown has amassed 443 yards in only five games, an average of almost 90 per contest. Spelled by Ricky Williams (316 rushing yards, 132 receiving yards), Brown is the centerpiece of an offense that’s leading the league in rushing yards per game with 177.
The lesson from the Colts game was that eating the clock doesn’t mean much if your fresh defense is interpreted as fresh meat. The Dolphins allowed 23 points against the Chargers and 27 in their win against the Jets (the same as against the Colts), but it took San Diego and New York each half an hour to reach those totals. It’s not catastrophic to allow points in the 20s, but when you hold the ball for an entire quarter and that quarter ends 0-0… you have the Colts game.
The Dolphins’ offense of the first three games was great on the ground, but it only scored 43 combined points. The more complete edition of the next two games scored 69 points. Most impressive is the 31 against the Jets, a team that hadn’t allowed more than 24 in a game up to that point and hadn’t allowed more than 17 against an opposing offense. Chad Henne looked as good as a quarterback should (20/26, 241 yards, 2TD) with that kind of running game. Two running backs, two wide receivers and a tight end caught three or more passes, a testament to the offensive diversification signaling Miami success.
It’s great for the league that 0-3 teams can show life. I’d hate to be a fan of a team that loses its first few games and folds the tent, and it must only be even worse to being playing on or coaching that team. With all the talk of the Titans allegedly giving up during their 59-0 embarrassment last week, it should be reassuring to anyone who likes a spoiler that the Panthers and Dolphins have vaulted themselves right back into something like contention.
Titans, Rams and Bucs: Is There Hope?
I don’t know. I won’t dwell on these teams for too long, because I believe that communities (teams and fans, primarily) usually feel bad enough about a dismal season without some loud-mouthed columnist calling out obvious deficiencies. Anyone who saw the aforementioned 59-0 game doesn’t need me to say that the Titans haven’t been able to defend a screen door. Anyone who saw the Rams ground into a fine dust in Week 5 need only reference “Rams to the Slaughter”, which was designed to be more about the 49ers’ efforts on defense.
Referring back to the ubiquitous media favorite that the bad teams this year are really bad, this seems to be the case. The Vikings and Broncos got to 6-0 differently because of their schedules and outlooks. The Ravens and Jets took different paths to the same topsy-turvy roller coaster because they lost their games in different ways. The Panthers and Dolphins have had similar experiences heading to the valley and back, if only because of a few light bulbs going off in some key players’ heads. The NFL’s three winless teams share their own similarities.
To be fair to them, this group should include Cleveland (only beaten Buffalo, and in a game that was painful to watch) and Kansas City (only beaten Washington). This is just a disparate time for the NFL and the records show it.
To simplify, the Titans, Bucs and Rams are all in the bottom third of the following stats:
-points per game (the Rams being 32nd with a glorious 9.0)
-offensive yards per game (at least the Titans are 21st)
-yards allowed per game (none of them better than 27th)
-points allowed per game (none of them better than 29th)
-time of possession (for a team that ran so well in 2008, the Titans are 32nd at only 25:49)
The Titans are also -10 in turnover differential, tied for worst in the league with the Panthers. The Panthers have Delhomme’s hideous Week 1 as an excuse; the Titans don’t. As an aside about the Rams, they’ve allowed 28.2 points per game this season, meaning that they lose their average game by 19 points, almost three possessions.
What should be plain from every game tape, every stat sheet and every column popping up around St. Louis, Tampa and Tennessee is that nothing is going right for these teams. They’ll probably all win a game at some point. Regardless, it’ll take a conscious effort to prevent losing cultures from developing.
As far as the Panthers and Dolphins go, they’re playing each other in Carolina on November 19. By then their paths could diverge, or they could both be headed for the same undetermined fate.
Comments and questions can be directed to MatthewPMGordon@GMail.com |
