Saturday, September 27, 2008

KA-POWER RANKINGS after Week 3

KA-POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 3
Down and Distance's exclusive KA-POWER RANKINGS are back for their fourth year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KA-POWER RANKINGS system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Blame science. (Key: WK3 = This week's ranking. WK2 = Last week's ranking. POW = KAPOW-ER centigrade score)
WK3WK2TEAMPOWWK3WK2TEAMPOW
1 2Titans 100.001721Vikings 60.33
2 8Ravens 95.991827Dolphins 56.95
3 1Giants 89.441915Saints 56.70
4 7Eagles 86.352025Seahawks 56.63
5 5Bills 80.762114Panthers 54.33
611Cowboys 78.7322t 6Patriots50.29
7 3Cardinals78.3222t24Jaguars 50.29
8 4Steelers 75.452422Raiders 48.97
916Falcons 73.812523Colts 46.21
1010Broncos 73.272618Jets 43.17
1113Bucs 69.162731Bengals 33.89
12 9Packers 68.922826Lions 27.89
1317Chargers 66.142929Texans 18.70
14t12Bears 65.953028Chiefs 17.73
14t2049ers 65.953130Browns 16.11
1619Redskins 60.993232Rams 0.00

Sunday, September 21, 2008

KA-POWER RANKINGS after Week 2

Down and Distance's exclusive KA-POWER RANKINGS are back for their fourth year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KA-POWER RANKINGS system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Blame science. (Key: WK2 = This week's ranking. WK1 = Last week's ranking. POW = KAPOW-ER centigrade score)
WK2WK1TEAMPOWWK2WK1TEAMPOW
1 5Giants 100.001717Chargers 55.92
29tTitans 94.171813Jets 53.82
3 8Cardinals 93.191928Redskins 53.38
4 6Steelers 88.77202549ers 51.80
5 2Bills 88.592119Vikings 48.78
69tPatriots 82.972230Raiders 45.78
7 1Eagles 80.762326Colts 42.83
89tRavens 80.652422tJaguars 42.72
914Packers 79.092531Seahawks 35.92
10 3Broncos 76.532621Lions 33.39
11 4Cowboys 74.572720Dolphins 26.51
12 7Bears 72.372822tChiefs 24.82
1318Bucs 70.482927Texans 24.60
1416Panthers 63.013029Browns 22.36
1515Saints 57.083122tBengals 21.80
1612Falcons 56.003232Rams 0.00

You could say the Rams are perfect in the red zone in 2008: In two games, they have not run a single play inside the opponents' 20 yard line.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Have I gone to the dark side?

I think I may have finally turned into That Guy. You know, That Fantasy Football Guy? In Monday night's game between the Eagles and the Cowboys, DeSean Jackson made one of the greatest bonehead plays of all time, spiking the ball (sort of) before he had even crossed the goal line. As it became clear that, because the Cowboys didn't jump on the ball once Jackson dropped it, the Eagles would retain possession at the 1 yard line, my reaction was not so much "What a goddam look-at-me idiot!" as it was "Oooooh! This could mean another TD for Brian Westbrook."

Because I have Brian Westbrook on my fantasy team. 22 points on Monday!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

KA-POWER RANKINGS after Week 1

Down and Distance's exclusive KA-POWER RANKINGS are back for their fourth year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 18 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KA-POWER RANKINGS system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Blame science. (Key: WK1 = This week's ranking. '07 = final 2007 ranking. POW = KAPOW-ER centigrade score)
WK1'07TEAMPOWWK1'07TEAMPOW
111Eagles 100.0017 5Chargers 47.66
226Bills 81.9518 9Bucs 44.68
321Broncos 78.751910Vikings 43.19
4 6Cowboys 77.742030Dolphins 39.66
513Giants 72.922122Lions 36.16
6 4Steelers 72.3622t17Bengals 34.81
720Bears 72.3122t 7Jaguars 34.81
816Cardinals 66.2722t28Chiefs 34.81
9t 1Patriots 65.19253149ers 33.73
9t25Ravens 65.1926 2Colts 27.69
9t15Titans 65.192718Texans 27.64
1229Falcons 63.842812Redskins 27.08
1324Jets 60.342914Browns 22.26
14 3Packers 56.813027Raiders 21.25
1519Saints 55.3231 8Seahawks 18.05
1623Panthers 52.343232Rams 0.00

Now, obviously, the rankings are going to be a little skewed with only one week's worth of data being fed into the formula. But you'll notice that only one team opens 2008 with the exact same ranking as at the end of 2007. You don't need a lot of data to determine the obvious.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Daunte's headlong dive into hell

Somewhat buried amid the fuss of the NFL's opening weekend was the news that quarterback Daunte Culpepper was retiring from football. The fact that the news passed with so little comment was amazing in itself: In 2004, Culpepper put up one of the best quarterback seasons ever and would have been the runaway league MVP had Peyton Manning not gotten in the way. Less than four years ago, the man was surrounded by talk of the Hall of Fame. Today he's puttering around in his kitchen wondering what happened. What happened was that he was betrayed by his agent.

Culpepper had spent the past two seasons with two different teams, dogged primarily by the knee injury that ended his 2005 season and to a far lesser extent by "character questions" like those that chased him out of Minnesota. How silly it is, then, that it was the character issue rather than the knee that ultimately drove him into retirement. Well ... more accurately, he drove himself into retirement, because -- that idiot agent we just mentioned? His name is Daunte Culpepper.

A lawyer who represents himself is said to have a fool for a client. I'd say the same about most athletes who choose to act as their own agents. There are exceptions, of course. For years, Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi negotiated his own contracts, and he did very well for himself. Then Bruschi had a stroke, and he got himself an agent. The stroke didn't weaken his intellectual ability to negotiate, but it did weaken his bargaining position. Whereas once he was dealing from a position of strength, now he was damaged goods, to an extent. Moving forward, he needed someone who cuts deals for a living.

Culpepper took a somewhat different tack. Since tearing up his knee in 2005, he has acted as his own agent. In those three years, he has been cut by three teams, the Vikings, Dolphins and Raiders, and he left on bad terms with all of them.

Coming into the 2008 season, you would think that if Culpepper wanted to remain an NFL quarterback, he would get a good agent to plead his case to team front offices -- tell, them: Look, I know this guy's been hurt a lot, but the knee's fine. Give him a shot to make the roster. It's not like clubs weren't interested. Green Bay offered him $1 million to back up Aaron Rodgers, and Pittsburgh reportedly offered him the veteran minimum (about $750,000) to fill in for the injured Charlie Batch as Ben Roethlisberger's primary backup.

And Culpepper said no to both offers. Why? Because I ain't no backup! Culpepper, who has appeared in maybe a dozen games over the past three seasons, insisted that he is, was and shall forever be an NFL starting quarterback and that any suggestion that he should wear a ballcap on the sidelines was an insult to his manhood. Or something. In announcing his retirement, Culpepper said that he didn't want to quit football, but that he didn't really have a choice because no team was going to allow him to compete for a starting job. In that statement, he revealed a stunning ignorance of a very well-known reality about life in the NFL.

And that reality is this: Unless he's backing up Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre or maybe Carson Palmer, a quarterback on an NFL roster is already competing for the starting job. This league goes through quarterbacks like digital cameras go through batteries. One bad game, and the fans are calling for a change; two bad games, and the front office starts asking questions; three bad games, and the coaches are getting the hook ready. (Exception: Chicago, where each quarterback gets eight to 10 dismal games.) And those QBs who are immune to criticism aren't necessarily immune to injury. Two of the guys on the list I just gave didn't finish their games Sunday: Brady, who's out for the year, and Roethlisberger, who went to the bench with a sore shoulder. Playing in relief of Roethlisberger: Byron Leftwich, like Culpepper a former high-first-round draft pick who had lost his job as a starter and bounced around the league. The difference is that Leftwich has an agent who told him that the best way to get a good QB job in the NFL is to be willing to take a not-so-good QB job in the NFL.

Hey, here's another former high-first-round pick who accepted a job as a backup: Trent Dilfer. He ended up winning a Super Bowl ring, staying in the league an extra decade, and securing himself a lucrative TV career. How about Kerry Collins? He had started in the Super Bowl, and yet was willing to ride the bench in Tennessee behind the apparently fragile-in-more-ways-than-one Vince Young. Guess who's starting for the Titans this weekend?

News of Culpepper's retirement was met with a chorus of "How is it that (Brodie Croyle, J.T. O'Sullivan, Kyle Orton, etc.) can land a roster spot, but a former Pro Bowler like Daunte Culpepper can't?" Ask Culpepper's agent. He didn't want to "compete" for the starting job somewhere; he wanted to come in and be handed the starting job. Based on what? All those touchdowns he threw to Randy Moss in 2004? His 3-7 record as a starter in Miami and Oakland? He didn't want a "spot" on the roster. A NFL roster has 53 spots, and Culpepper wouldn't accept 52 of them.

Maybe he really is done with football, and if so, I wish him well. But maybe his tune will change when he finds himself on the couch every Sunday afternoon. Maybe he'll get to the point where, if the phone rings with an offer to be a backup, he'll jump at the chance. (You don't think the Titans wouldn't be interested in seeing if he can run some of the plays drawn up for Young?) But just as likely, such a call will never come, because Culpepper has slid too far down the NFL totem pole, to the dreaded distinction of "distraction." Every NFL quarterback wants to be the starter. Hell, every NFL quarterback thinks he should be the starter. But those who aren't starters have to know to keep it to themselves, say the right things, and don't do anything to split the locker room. Coaches would rather lose games than lose their teams. Any team that signs Culpepper now comes preloaded with a quarterback controversy. So his phone won't ring.

There won't even be a call from his agent, just to say hi.

Friday, September 05, 2008

What we learned from opening night

1. Eli Manning still throws a lot of interceptions. The guy isn't a bad quarterback. He's a good quarterback and will enjoy a long, successful career. But one solid stretch at the end of last season did not cure him of all his ills, chief among them being his unfortunate tendency, at least two or three times a game, to put a pass right between the numbers of a guy in a different-color shirt. He did it at least four times on opening night -- including once in the end zone -- but you're not going to hear about it because the Redskins caught only one of those passes. Great quarterbacks don't just rack up yards and TDs. They protect the ball.

2. Are they sure that's the West Coast offense? John Madden remarked on it at least once, and I've heard it elsewhere: The Redskins under Jim Zorn have installed a West Coast passing offense but are leaving intact the power running game from the second Joe Gibbs era. Wha ... ? This is the football equivalent of wearing brown shoes with a blue suit. There's nothing inherently wrong with either, but you don't put them together and call it anything but ugly. In the West Coast, short passes are essentially part of the running game. The passing and the rushing have to be integrated seamlessly. You can't separate them. Well, you can, but don't expect it to work. I'm not saying that this is the reason that the Redskins receivers kept running 8-yard curls on 3rd-and-10, but ... well, maybe I am saying that.

3. The Redskins have Joe Gibbs' running game, Jim Zorn's passing game and Herm Edwards' clock management. Because of their atrocious use of the clock and non-use of timeouts, Washington nearly ran out of time at the end of the first half, just when they were putting together their first sustained drive of the game. Then they did run out of time in the fourth quarter, when, with less than 4 minutes left and needing two scores, they ran more than a minute off the clock with two plays that gained a total of 6 yards. In the waning moments, in their own end of the field, they were still calling designed runs up the middle and 6-yard hitch passes to the numbers.

4. South Carolina's quarterback is named "Smelley." I had to watch something after the game, and I sure as hell wasn't going to hang around on NBC and watch a bunch of politicians sniff their own fumes.