Will the Dark Knight Rise in NFL this season?

Sipping coffee at my desk...!!

I started to think what to write for this week 15 review and start of the short week 16 in 2011 NFL Regular season. Just to begin my insight for this week a perfect start would be ? Yes you are right Tim Tebow is my start point for this week and to end Candlestick Park Power outage will be a highlight, from the famous words of Lebron Not 1,Not 2..lets stop it here for now with the power outage count.

When people were killing John Fox for putting him without game ready skills and John Elway talking future beyond Tebow after cutting Orton these are my words "Every QB in this league needs time to develop do not criticize". Later when everybody was praising for his win streak I again said the same thing "You are giving too much credit for this kid in terms of winning". With a loss to Patriots it is a reality check for Tim Tebow and Broncos. I mean the wins were against Jets, Chargers, Bears[top defenses in league],Chiefs(You know they got that Win against Packers) but not that Tebow did not do anything but when facing superior offenses which put points like crazy against premier defenses offense should save the day.

Mark Anderson (DE) and Warren for the Patriots were getting to Tebow like crazy the difference was they both tackled Tebow low. If you see all the defenses that Tebow played they attacked him on the top and being such a runner you know that stopping a Running Back by tackling at the top is a stupid act which none of the teams got it right.Really Strange to think. Bill Belichick got it right. How half time and in game adjustments. To get into some more details, if you look in first quarter when Broncos were lights out on offense. Belichick simply played 2 deep safety / 2 Cover pattern coverage with rush attack. Soon to realize that Tebow was passing in crisp fashion. Come second quarter man to man coverage when it came to covering receivers. Now he took out the passing lane for Tebow, his option was left with running the ball straight out, where the mastermind blitzed from 4 sides of the scrimmage, making a pass rush attack or LB Blitzing. Not that other teams did not do a LB blitz but what they did was tackling him low which would atleast delay him for a couple of seconds and help will be there to close his running and passing lane. What you got 2 fumbles and few more sacks. May be Romeo Crennel will take a page out of this because he comes from a Belichek tree too. Now the point is how can an almost rookie QB adjust to such in game changes and how coaches help him develop. Hence my word is yes all the fan frenzy is great but time to develop is key and this fella is in the right direction to get things done. Believe in your QB and if not Cut him there are enough teams who want to atleast fill in the stadiums with a famous QB performing on an average basis.


Let's move out of the Tebow mania but the crazy week did not end so quick as we have some firsts in NFL, yes Chiefs defeated the Packers. First defeat for the Packers, when you get caught napping this is what you get. I think Green Bay lost the motivation to hold up. But if I don't credit the Kansas defense surely I am at fault. The way they rushed Aaron Rodgers and dominated the line of scrimmage caught the O-line was scrambling like never before during the entire season. Tamba Hali and his monster sacks in the 4th quarter and whole day Packers offensive line did not have an answer for Hali. I think that is what you need to crash a party. By the way was it Orton who moved the ball. Yes it was Kyle Orton. Chicago Bears did you see what you missed out but I have a contradicting analysis for that , so let me hold off on that for now. Kyle Orton has enough experience in NFL to read NFC defenses since he played in NFC for the Bears and that is a welcome gesture for the Chiefs who recently fired their head coach. I guess Crennel will turn his interim tag into a full time coaching position. All the best for Romeo Crennel hope he is Bill Belichick number 2 (You know what I am saying).

The next first is a little bizarre but should be mentioned Colts get their first Victory this season without Peyton Manning in the line up. Should they say hooray or Oh God why should we win now? I say always victory is sweet for the players and coaching staff. Donald Brown TD run was amazing I think Colts missed it the whole season to design such a beautiful play. But from the business stand point I think potential pick#1 is jeopardized. But still you have 2 games to loose. Jim Caldwell will put a team to loose the next 2 weeks for sure. Just like the Rams shutting down Sam Bradford for the season on the basis of injury. The reason I say Draft Pick#1 is so much important is Colts do not need a QB in first Rd but that is such a viable trade asset in the draft to rack up at least 4 Picks in total. Miami Dolphins, Seattle Seahawks all are in need of a QB and you bet they will sacrifice players and picks for that elusive number 1 if needed. So better watch out who will loose the next two weeks of the regular season.


If one Manning is out with injury the other Manning is throwing picks when they do not want against a mediocre Skins defense. I mean come on where is the motivation to go the playoffs. You pushed Dallas on the edge and a win would have sealed the fate, now you are scrambling again. Coughlin was right we were lame in the effort we are putting in this season. And the results are not lying as well. Key losses at key times in the season. Never mind they are still in the hunt for the playoff spot along with Philly, oh yeah Philly they are still in the hunt for that NFC East title. This division is a mess, current record says it will be Dallas but with 4 plus games they lost with 12+ point leading at half or 3rd quarter I say not sure what is going to happen when it comes to playoff.


This time of the NFL calendar we definitely should be talking about one team and we call it San Diego Chargers. They always get a way to win late in the season. I know they are 7-7 but if the same trend continues like Jets Broncos and Oakland loosing that means you are going to see Rivers in the post season again this season. Hope has not faded in the Charger land but indeed revived with this 3 game win streak. Will the fans still Norv Turner's head even if they make it to the playoffs. I am not sure about that but this has become a habit of making it to the playoffs and exiting in the first round which he surely wants to turn around this year. I guess for sure Chargers are the Dark Knight who will rise this season once again...!!!!

Did anybody have Stafford or Calvin Johnson in there Fantasy Line up?.

I did. I had both one on each team.

Lions are making a run for the playoffs and no one can deny that. A 13 point comeback victory on the road when in black hole is really applaudable. Detroit is surely playoff bound with Bears struggling and other teams juggling their wins you are sure to see them in playoffs but the question is how deep can they go. I would say 1 win in playoffs is itself a terrific achievement. A team that was 0-16 few seasons ago, 2 wins last year I mean that is for sure a turn around. Shouldn't we nominate Jim Schwartz for Coach of the year? Not nominate but surely award it to him.

With Monday Night Football off to a great start with words like prime time returns back to San Fransisco and just as you want to start the proceedings we have a power outage and the game is delayed for 20mins. Ideally I think the whole of MNF was of a surprise. Still unknown what Mike Tomlin and Big Ben were thinking. Is Charlie Batch that worse than Ben Roethlisberger than his one legged effort? I mean even when down by 17 with 4mins left in the 4th quarter Ben is still in the game with his limping act, you must be out of your minds not to put your back up QB in. It is not as if Steelers were trying to even the score that late in the game, their chances of retaining number 1 spot in AFC North were gone when they decided to start the injured guy at QB. When something of this thing happens in NFL more often than not the team experimenting looses the game. It was a critical one for Steelers, I feel Batch would have taken them to FG range at least 7 times and they would have just won on the field goal which was needed the most. Now the control is back to Baltimore. Both Steelers and Ravens have a favorable schedule and a potential to win out the regular season, but the catch would be Baltimore will have the bye week over Steelers who are banged up pretty bad.

Thanks for reading...!!!

Merry Christmas..!!!

NBA Season Preview and Predictions for 2011-2012

NBA did follow the suite of NFL but the way it came back might be different than what happened in football. I guess they lost the route following back to start a season after lock out. With a variety of things happening all around the normal NBA fan's mind is a ____________ please fill in your own word but my word is "Freaked". Yes freaked, the reason I say that is because, common the players are deciding where they want to go way before their Free Agency begins and dictating smaller market teams to release isnt there are a philosophy called honoring your contract. I mean when players talk about being committed blah blah blah shouldnt that apply to fans, team and the owners who have given them the oppurtunity. Shouldn't they be committed to themselves of winning a championship build team around themselves rather than jumping onto other teams in bigger markets, colluding to make super teams. The fact that these
superstars are forgetting is they are kicking out the team that made them a super star over the years, which believed in you when you are a nobody. My point is not being emotional and things like that but when a superstar says I love the city of _____ and the fans ___ etc etc that means it is all a big BS. They are more focused to collude to win rather than fight to win. And to support it NBA and NBAPA has done nothing different in the new labor that would stop players from doing what they want. I was deeply expecting a franchise tag rule much like the NFL but for Christmas we got the new Amnesty Rule. But you know what we are talking about,we are talking about David Stern, who is so much into globalization of the league where he is forgetting all this garbage publicity he is trying to get to the league will hurt them in the long run and consistently will loose ground to the NFL and even to MLB where Angels dropped a hammer on St.Louis called Albert Pujols. Well contrasting to my word at the start I think NBA is following the suite of MLB and not NFL. Because just as in MLB small market teams are like farm teams for Big city Light teams.

After so much of my rant about what we have and what it should be rather what it is right now,I come back to the point we have shortened season to play with just 66 games and a full playoffs. I think this will be my most depressing articles about the game because we can no longer can watch teams on national televisions or write about Cleveland, New Orleans,Philadelphia, Memphis, Sacramento, Houston(No Yao Ming), I hope people still remember there is a team for
NBA in Canada called Toronto Raptors and many more teams that people might forget mentioning .

The playoff picture is pretty much set in the east no matter what happens the rankings will be

1. Miami Heat

2. Chicago Bulls

3. Orlando Magic (Assuming Howard will be there atleast this season because he is off the market for now, which is a James Harrison type LOL..!!)

4. Boston Celtics

5. Atlanta Hawks

By the way add in New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets to make it to the playoffs because Knicks also has 2 super stars. New Jersey has Deron Williams.

That makes 8th spot is up for grabs who ever wins 25 -33 games can be in when considering for playoffs in the East

Alter the rankings in TOP 6 as you want but these are the teams for sure going to be in the playoffs from the East

When we talk about the west, well the super stars moved east so the power has shifted to the East as well but not to count out the west

1. Los Angeles Lakers

2. Dallas Mavericks

3. Okhlahoma Thunder (Year of the youth KD35)

4. San Antonio Spurs

5. Los Angeles Clippers (Well some one is saying they will contend for championship greater than the Lakers....I say what the freaking fish) let them play few games together before slapping the contender banner

6. Memphis Grizzlies (I did not forget that they pushed Spurs out last year in playoffs)

7th ,8th Spots may be the Suns will make a final push with Nash or Hornets might emerge and say oh we got better with Chris Paul deal, it can be Tyreke Evans and Demarcus Cousins duo in Sacramento that can make a surprise splash, Portland will fight for a lottery pick hope they dont pick another Greg Oden if they get the number 1 pick.

But teams that are contending for championship will be only few very few. From the East it is unanimous for the Heat to come back to the NBA finals. So people can buy tickets to Miami now if they want to watch the NBA finals. In the west it will be a fight and I am sure Thunder and Russell Westbrook have matured enough to get to the finals this season. Hope I see Oklahoma Thunder vs Miami Heat as a finals match up. Kobe can rest his knees and tend to end his career with 5 rings.

Just like others I have left out the teams from the smaller markets in this discussion and what they are going to do. I feel there will be few pretenders early in the season from the East like Milwaukee Bucks with Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut healthy they will be in the hunt to make it to the playoffs. Indiana Pacers with new Coach and new philosophy will not make huge splash but for sure will have Larry Bird's Support. What are the Jordan Bobcats I mean Charlotte Bobcats going to do, well not sure but not great things though. My eyes will be on Kyrie Irving and what Dan Gilbert will do to help support the top pick and soothe loyal Cleveland Fans. I know I missed few more teams but will put a detailed one in East Contenders vs Pretenders article later this week.

From the west we have teams from Denver(Not the Broncos, it is no more Tebow Time here), Sacramento, Houston, Golden State Warriors, Oh boy I did not even mention Utah Jazz not even once? I am sorry oh yeah I don't need to be because there is no Jerry Sloan any more there and the guys called Williams plays in Brooklyn and the Boozer boy plays on the Bulls Squad. Minnesota Timberwolves will be all about Ricky Rubio and his PG skills which people have completely shut out of their minds. If the Timberwolves make something out of this Spaniard then oh boy we are talking about one more Free Agency Frenzy in future. Heck ya all these small market teams are breeding grounds for players to become super stars and kick the teams in their gut to leap to Big Apple or Hollywood Life or lay down in Miami Beaches...

Please throw your bricks or baits on this article... Thanks for reading...!!!