Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Cardinals-Panthers, The Delicious Sloppy Joe of the NFL Playoffs

by Deghasio


On Saturday afternoon, the 11-5 Arizona Cardinals will travel to Carolina to play the 7-8-1 Carolina Panthers. Just in terms of records, this is unusual.  The Panthers ended a game this year with a draw, an occurrence so rare that you can count the number of tie games this millennium on one hand. (Ultimately the tie did not effect whether or not the Panthers made the playoffs; even if Bengals kicker Mike Nugent made a week 6 36-yarder the Panthers still would have made the playoffs because they have a better division record than the Saints.) Furthermore, sub-.500 teams rarely have the opportunity to host games in January. The last instance was in the 2010 season when the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints lost 41-36 to the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks despite being double-digit favorites, a game punctuated by the famous Beast Quake.

Monday, December 29, 2014

NFL MVP Race

At the end of the NFL regular season, the MVP race has boiled down to two men.  One is Green Bay's quarterback Aaron Rodgers who is lighting up opposing defenses while throwing more touchdowns than any QB other than five time MVP Peyton Manning and up and coming superstar Andrew Luck. Moreover, Rodgers has led the Packers to their fourth consecutive NFC North title, which he clinched after returning to the game with a calf injury.  Upon his return he continued to be a grittily effective passer, and scored a rushing touchdown off of a QB-sneak to lead the team to a 30-20 victory over the Detroit Lions.

Everyone watching that game understood how amazing a performance Rodgers was putting up.  In addition to being at the top of the pack for all QB stats, Rodgers also is at his best when injured, or throwing off of his back foot, or scrambling away from defensive penetration.  However, we have all been conditioned to recognize offensive ball-handlers levels of success, while we still have trouble noticing a dominant performance on the defensive side of the ball.

That fact is what makes the other MVP frontrunner such an amazing player.  J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans is a walking highlight reel.  He is anticipated to be the first defensive player since 2008 to even receive a single vote in the AP poll (which is used to pick the MVP) and judging by the videos of his "awkward TD celebration" and the reports that all he does is live and breathe football it is not his charisma winning him votes.  Instead, it is just the formal recognition of a football machine doing its job better than any football machine has been designed to perform.  Some of his stats on their own are not unimaginable, but it is the combination of 20.5 sacks, 59 tackles, an interception, four forced fumbles, 5 fumbles returns, a safety, and to top it off he caught 3/3 passes for 3 offensive touchdowns.  In short, J.J. Watt is a walking destroyer of Quarterbacks who dream of standing up long enough to throw a football, and we are all realizing that enough to at least have some people vote for him.  However, since only two defensive players have ever won the MVP award, all of the semi-related reasons to fault Watt begin to gain even more relative importance.

The largest difference between Rodgers and Watt which is directly comparable is the success of their teams.  The Packers as I've pointed out have won their division for the fourth year in a row.  The Texans failed to make the playoffs, but they also improved their record by seven wins, the most by any team in the league.  That improvement did come in the AFC South, by far the weakest division in the NFL this season, but it was also due in large part to Watt.

Overall, the difficulty in comparing these two players is immense.  Also, both players have had MVP-worthy seasons.  If this were just a case of an above average QB winning the award because we value offense higher, then I would hope for Watt to win, but it is instead a situation where both of them have carried there teams to wins, and both of them pass the "do I think Holy *&(# regularly when I watch them play" test, which to me is the most important.  So now all there is to do is wait for the votes to come in.

The Important Part:
Aaron Rodgers's Sandwich:  A Cheeseburger made with a lot of Wisconsin cheddar cheese, because he is the kind of player who can satisfy all your NFL watching hunger for a day, and you don't need to be from Green Bay to appreciate his play.

J.J. Watt's Sandwich: J.J. Watt is the record breaking Sarnie, because like Watt it is chock-ful-a protein, took a long time and a lot of hard work to create, and probably isn't going to receive the recognition that he truly deserves.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Curse of David Akers Continues to Haunt the Eagles

by Deghasio


Sports curses are stupid. Just check out the Wikipedia page for “Sports-related curses.” The majority of them are ridiculous, recent, have a small sample size, or have already been broken multiple times. Take the Curse of the Bambino—for 86 years it was probably the most famous sports curse in America, then the Red Sox won and no one really mentions it anymore. Sports curses don’t exist.

Except the Curse of David Akers.

On Saturday, the Eagles were eliminated from the wild card race after a 27-24 loss to Washington, and barring a complete Dallas collapse the Eagles will be on vacation once the regular season ends. There is a lot of speculation as to why the Eagles lost to Washington: Sanchez’s interception inside the two-minute warning, kicker Cody Parkey’s seemingly-benign groin injury, Sanchez’s fumble early in the game, poor coaching that led to 13 penalties, the inevitable DeSean Jackson revenge game, and corner Bradley Fletcher’s performance that led to his benching. These are all good theories based on research and observation and facts. They’re also all wrong.