Savage Ballet - 09/11

So WN didn't finish this over the weekend. Guh.

NFL

Interesting first weekend of games, with one important game and one semi-important game left to go. WN will try to sum this up and then make some general notes about the season.

Confirmed

Houston, Green Bay, Tennessee and Cleveland lost and we can safely say that they suck. Welcome to the Brady Quinn sweepstakes! (Of course, if Houston "wins" the first overall pick again, they're apt to bypass Quinn in favor of an underachieving and unheralded player who is cheaper and easier to sign. And Green Bay and Tennessee have invested first round picks in quarterbacks the last 2 years.)

Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Seattle, Cincinnati and New England won their first week games, even if some were pretty close. They'll be okay.

The AFC is still dominant. Even though the AFC was 3-3 against the NFC, the three games the AFC won (Baltimore over Tampa Bay, Indy over the Giants, Jacksonville over Dallas) were 3 of the 4 significant games (the other being St. Louis over Denver, as the Broncos chunk yet another opener).

Learned

Reggie Bush is the real deal. 141 all-purpose yards in his NFL debut.

Chad Pennington (for one game) is back. Where did that come from?

That Miami-Carolina Super Bowl matchup Sports Illustrated predicted is looking a bit hurting right now. Carolina isn't invulnerable without Steve Smith ... and it's too bad for the Panthers he isn't a cornerback, too.

Too Soon to Say

Is Arizona for real after hanging 34 on the 49ers? Could Kurt Warner be in for a big year?

Seattle-Detroit: Is Seattle going to struggle on the heels of a mediocre day for Shaun Alexander ... or is Detroit perhaps a legitimate challenger in the weak NFC North?

Will Donovan McNabb and the TO-less Eagles make another run or is Houston simply terrible?

Baltimore

WN couldn't have asked for much more in Baltimore's opener against Tampa Bay. (Okay, one thing: WN could have asked that my fantasy opponent didn't have Baltimore's defense.) The Ravens won on in a 27-0 shutout (although the Bucs could have kicked a meaningless field goal late and instead went for the touchdown ... right call, but still 0 points). The defense looked dominant for most of the game, aided by three interceptions (including Chris McAlister's TD pick and Haloti Ngata's almost-TD pick). While WN could pick out several players who merit special mention (Ray Lewis, Bart Scott, Adalius Thomas, Ngata), the most impressive players in my mind were McAlister and Samari Rolle; the Bucs had only 3 completions to their wide receivers (3 for Michael Clayton, 0 to Joey Galloway), which says a lot about how well the secondary played today, particularly the corners. Well done.

As for the offense, the first drive was awesome: 13 plays, 80 yards, over 9 minutes. The whole offense looked good on the first drive, particularly Jamal Lewis and the offensive line. After that, the offense sputtered a bit and had only one more significant scoring drive, which was in the 4th quarter. McNair sometimes looked sharp and sometimes looked a bit off, throwing a few balls well short of the receiver; however, the positive spin is going to be that McNair managed the game well, led two big scoring drives and committed 0 turnovers. It's also possible that Tampa Bay's defense is still quite good and that the Ravens did have a very good showing against them.

Also on the upside, punter Sam Koch looked really good. Matt Stover hit both of his field goal attempts. The coverage team played pretty well and the return team was decent.

On the downside: Not much to say about the defense. The question all year is going to be about depth, particularly in the secondary. Corey Ivy played as the nickelback and was solid, but the dropoff between him and either McAlister or Rolle could be significant. If you want to get really picky, the defensive line didn't get any sacks (all 3 came from the linebackers) and from Terrell Suggs, no one on the line had more than 1 tackle. That said, Tampa Bay didn't run the ball much or well, so it's okay for now.

The offense ran into a few problems. Jamal Lewis had 33 yards on the first drive, but only 45 the rest of the game; whether it was Jamal or the offensive line, the lack of a consistent running game kept the offense back (3.0 yards per carry, although if you subtract out Kyle Boller taking a knee and his fumbled snap and the Mark Clayton busted reverse play, that number jumps to a nice 3.9 yards per carry). McNair made several bad throws; whether that can be improved in practice or a future problem is to be determined. Kyle Boller still looked lost out there, fumbling a snap and raising all of the doubts about what would happen is McNair is injured for any significant amount of time.

That said, any time you can play a good team on the road and win in dominating fashion, you have to be happy. Given that the Ravens had lost 4 straight openers and lost 11 straight road games, this day ought to be commemorated.

College

First, a quick note on the worst play of all time. Central Michigan was at home, trailing Boston College by 7 (31-24) with a little under 2 minutes to go. They had scored touchdowns on their last 2 possessions to close a 21-point gap. They had the ball at BC's 34, 1st down and 10 with the ball on the right hash mark. They lined up 5 linemen and 3 receivers on the left side of the field and lined up their quarterback, running back and a receiver near the ball (it appears the receiver may have been a tight end snapping the ball to the QB). BC put several players on the left, one player (a linebacker) over the snapper and a bunch of players in coverage. CMU snapped the ball, the snapper and running back and the receivers on the left side of the field go out for a pass. The linebacker - unblocked! - runs straight at the QB (the freshman backup QB), who scrambles and throws a horrible pass into a group of BC defenders for a game-killing interception.

Here's what the coach had to say: "It is one of those plays where we thought that we would get a shot at either BC calling a timeout or getting someone open, which in that situation was Damien (Linson) or Obed (Cetoute). Dan (LeFevour) [the freshman backup QB - WN] tried to make too much happen. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a large reservoir of experience to pull from [being a freshman backup QB - WN], but after tonight he has a lot more. It wasn’t one play. [It was one horrible, dumbass play - WN] One play is what is generally looked at because it was at the end of the game [and because it was the worst play in college football history - WN], but there were a number of instances throughout the game where we needed to make a couple of plays here and there that we weren’t able to make.”

WN agrees with Jason Whitlock: this guy ought to be fired. It's one thing to call it when it was a terrible play. It's another thing to call it when you're on a roll and don't need it. It's another thing again to call it with a freshman backup quarterback. When you won't even come out and say that it was a horrible decision and you cost your team a shot to win the game, that's when it becomes a fireable offense.

In more football-like news, Ohio State handled Texas pretty well (24-7). That Texas scored 7 was a minor surprise and only came after a more-than-dubious roughing the passer call on 3rd down late in the first half. Last year, this was a pretty close game (and a dropped pass from a wide-open Ohio State tight end in the endzone could have been the difference), but this year Ohio State was decisively the better team. Their offense looked very good and their defense, in spite of their youth, played very well.

Notre Dame looked equally good, beating Penn State 41-17 (with 14 of those 17 coming in the fourth quarter). Brady Quinn looked better (despite two near-interceptions in the end zone in the first half) and the defense looked quite stout again.

Not to be overlooked is Auburn, stomping Mississippi State 34-0 and heading into a big, big, real big game against LSU (fresh off of their drubbing of Arizona) next week. This game is almost certainly going to determine who wins the SEC West and possibly a shot for the national championship game.

To be overlooked: West Virginia and their meaningless win over Eastern Washington. Given that Maryland (two insignificant wins over William & Mary and Middle Tennessee State) is likely the second-toughest game on their schedule (behind Louisville and in front of either Pitt or Rutgers), one of three things can happen:

1. West Virginia chunks a game against Louisville and goes to the Gator Bowl. Normally WN would also predict that they would proceed to get killed by Miami or Virginia Tech, but the ACC looks nearly as awful as the Big East this year.
2. West Virginia goes undefeated and gets left out of the championship game when 2 other teams - who actually played more than 1 or 2 real games and went undefeated - play for the championship, West Virginia complains incessantly about the BCS (WN agrees in advance) and then gets drubbed in another BCS bowl.
3. West Virginia goes undefeated, plays for the national championship and gets thumped.

Seriously, this team is living off of one excellent half against Georgia last year in the Sugar Bowl. Why in the world are they ranked 6th?

More puzzling: Florida State needed every one of 60 minutes to beat Troy on Saturday. Troy actually led 17-10 late into the game before the Seminoles pulled away. Does that mean Troy could have beaten Miami, too? Add BC's near-loss to Central Michigan, NC State's loss to Akron, Virginia's near-loss to Wyoming in OT and big loss to Pitt, North Carolina's loss to Rutgers and Duke's loss to Div I-AA Richmond and you get what could be a pretty awful year in the ACC. While Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech have to be considered the favorites, at this point everyone save Duke and North Carolina should feel pretty good about their chances.

Predictions later this week, as well as some EPL-related blogging and gloating.