Cash

For all this talk of discounting Gruden's Super Bowl win because it was with "Dungy's team," does anyone remember who he faced in that Super Bowl? The Raiders, right? The team he left the year before, right? So in other words, that Super Bowl was between "Gruden's team" and "Dungy's team." Unfortunately for Gruden, the team he was coaching at the time won, so he doesn't get credit for a Super Bowl win. Still, just building a team that Bill Callahan could take to the Super Bowl is pretty impressive by itself. You do have some legitimate criticisms of Gruden, and I think most reasonable people agree that he's not a guaranteed savior by any means. But to try to equate his record as a head coach to Jauron's is simply laughable. Gruden has had success (winning seasons, playoff appearances, etc.) at both of his head coaching stops. Jauron has had ONE successful season in 8 tries at two head coaching stops (not counting the interim work in Detroit). And that one successful season was one of the flukiest in NFL history. In 11 years as a HC, Gruden has a regular season record of 95-81 (57-55 w/ Tampa) and a playoff record of 5-4 (3-2 w/ Tampa). Five division titles, five playoff spots, one Super Bowl win. Are those mind-bogglingly great? Hell no. Are they way, way better than Jauron's records of 57-76 (21-27 w/ Buffalo), 0-1 (0-0 w/ Buffalo), and 1 division title/1 playoff spot in 8+ years? Hell yes.

It occurs to me that we had so few downfield attempts because our quarterback elected to dump off the ball at an extremely high rate. Go back to the game threads - in just about all of them, there are accounts from people who were at the game that we had a man open deep a few times, but the throw was never made. Trent may become a very good quarterback, and I hope he does sooner than later. But he was a bad quarterback in 2007, he was a bad quarterback after Week 7 in 2008, and keeping him healthy looks like a very dicey proposition right now.

It's not that there's no cap hit -- there still is. It's that by spending cash-to-the-cap, it's very likely that you'll have enough cap room on the books to cover any dead money that hits when you cut a guy.

Excuse me, sir, but that's Captain Checkdown. Trent didn't spend 6 years in the checkdown military to be called mister, thank you very much. And this is just my personal point of view, but as a guy who likes and defended (note tenses) JP, and thought he was better than Trent in 2007, I think your argument is a strawman. Bottom line: JP sucks. Trent also sucks, just not as much, and he's also younger, so there's hope that he'll eventually not suck. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I was sold on Trent from the St. Louis game to the San Diego game, but the remaining 10 unsold me on him.

I wonder when the Chris Kelsay article will come out?

The issue, to me, isn't running vs. passing, it's going empty backfield vs. not. A pass is a fine call there, but at least come out in a formation that gives the D some threat of a run. This allows playaction (where Manning is always most effective), screens, swing passes, an outlet to Addai, or at least an extra blocker. With an immobile QB like Manning, coming out in an empty backfield set allows the D to tee off, which proved to be exactly the undoing of the play. If you watch the replay, you'll see that the TE on the right side of the formation wasn't able to get out of his stance in time to slow down the rusher from the edge, who came in and sacked Manning. This was probably a combination of the TE being slow off the snap count (possibly b/c he couldn't hear it due to crowd noise) and the rusher himself going all-out upfield after Manning. Going empty backfield on that play was certainly not putting the team in the best position to win the game. Though I think your point was mostly that passing instead of running was a better play, and I don't disagree there. San Diego's pass D is one of the worst in the league, while their run D is pretty good, and in this game specifically, both of those trends held up.

I think his point was that Dick's 13-3 team was all smoke & mirrors, and that it's no surprise that they turned back into a pumpkin the next year & never returned to the playoffs. I wholeheartedly agree. I remember having multiple conversations during that season about how that Bears team may have been the luckiest of all time. This is the team that won OT games in back-to-back weeks on tipped balls returned for touchdowns. Yeah, Mike Brown (who returned them both) made two great returns once he had the ball, but both times the ball caromed right to him. Ridiculously lucky.

You forgot to double-count divisional opponents. You play 2 games against each team in your division, so you have to count those records twice. That gives our opponents a combined 116-140 record, and the 49ers' opponents a combined 114-141-1 record, barely edging us out for the #10 pick.

Very well put. Taken as a whole, Trent's performance has not been good enough. We need better QB play to make the playoffs. Trent may improve enough that he provides that better QB play, or he may not. I don't think anyone wants to ditch Trent at this point, but looking at things with a rational eye, we should be well-prepared in case he falls on his face.

San Fran barely edged us out in terms of having a weaker strength of schedule, 0.447-0.453, so they get pick #10 and we get pick #11. We had a shot to have the weaker schedule, but Oakland's win and the Giants' and Redskins' losses did us in. Also, San Fran played 0-16 Detroit, which really debacled their strength of schedule. Which, in the context of draft order, is a good thing.

Also, a free kick occurs from the spot of the ball (or the 20, after a safety), so it's 7 yards closer than if you tried a conventional FG from scrimmage. Plus, as mentioned above, it's possible to attempt a free kick with no time on the clock.

FYI, the free kick is also what happens after a safety. The kicking team is allowed to kick it however they want (without a tee), which is why it's called a "free" kick. After a safety, teams always opt to punt on the free kick, but they can kick it off with a holder if they want, or drop-kick it. I've always wondered why teams didn't opt for the holder option after a safety, but Rackers' shank today is probably a hint as to why teams go for the punt option.

Can't wait for the quotes this week: "Hey, we're 5-4, and that's pretty good, especially compared to what everyone was saying about us before the season."

No review? What kind of garbage is this?

Couldn't we have at least thrown the garbage-time TD to Evans, to help out my fantasy team?

We suck.

Not that it'll make a difference in the game, but that defensive holding call is exactly the type of BS call that gets called against the Pats, but not on them.

That one was unconscionable.

Game ain't over yet -- probably will be 20 points when it's all said and done. Also take a look at TOP -- it's probably very biased in their favor, because our defense has gotten 1 real stop all day.

Good thing we punted on 4th-and-10 at their 45 yard line. If we'd gone for it and missed, the Patriots might've been able to drive way down the field and run off a lot of clock. Oh wait, they did that anyway? Shucks.

No surprise here -- the D has started to stiffen, now that the worst damage is already done. At times, it does really seem as though the team's only goal is to not get blown out.

Wow. Discounting the kneel-down possession that took the game to halftime, the Patriots' shortest drive today has been 6 plays. That's not going to get it done. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, we can't run at all, can't consistently convert a third-and-1, and continue to turn the ball over from the QB position at a high rate. That's not going to get it done either. How can this be the same team that showed up for the first 4 weeks? I don't get it.

Did blitz on that play and it got picked up.

Yup. It's practically a fait accompli at this point.

While not defending Royal, who sucks, I'd like to also point out that if the pass was between the numbers, instead of 2 feet towards the defender, it would've been a much easier catch, and Royal could've shielded off Mayo with his body.