We need more Mike Sellers in the worldUnlike other gameday previews this one comes to you free from: Papa John's ads, Daniel Snyder Puppeteering, or genuine hate for the Burgundy and Gold that comes from unbiased "experts" the likes of fat asses Peter 'the burger' King and Len 'Don Vito' Pastabelly. While I love the Skins I am probably the most pessimistic fan you will ever encounter and I try to at least be honest with myself before each game and not to get too high or low after wins or loses. Not getting to high after a win was easy this week when the entire nation treated an ugly 9-7 win over the Rams like a loss. Unsurprisingly experts all over the league began predicting that Detroit's 19-game losing streak was going to come to an end when the lowly Skins rolled into Ford Field this Sunday. A Vegas line that opened at 7 points has slid all the way down to 5 points (meaning there is a shit load of people betting on the Lions) and instead of breaking down the next opponent it seemed the Redskins were spending more time talking about Twitter and defending it's coach and QB from the criticism of the media and fans.
Needless to say this is a team that is feeling less than confident and to boot they find themselves limping into week 3, literally, as Campbell and Portis have been limited in practice throughout the week. The worst part of last weeks game was not the impotence of the offense but the loss of Randy Thomas (RG) who was the second most valuable part of an offensive line that lacks depth.
Filling his void will be second year lineman Chad Rinehart who will have to hold his own if the Skins are going to make any noise on offense this year. Luckily for the offensive side of the ball they may be up against the worst defense the NFL has seen over the last decade. Injuries are part of every NFL match-up and the Lions have their own share to worry about without Ernie Simms heading their LB-corps. Look for Jim Zorn to open the playbook and take more than one or two deep shots down the field. Santana Moss needs a breakout game just to remind himself how bad-ass he is and Malcolm Kelly can smell his first NFL TD. Cooley should be Cooley and catch 7 for 86 yards so Campbell will have plenty of opportunity to quite his critics. Clinton Portis should be salivating to finally break the 100-yard mark as he faces a defense without their best run-stopper. CP has traditionally run well on turf and this Sunday should be no different unless the Skins somehow find themselves behind early in which case the entire D.C. area will have already blown their brains out.
Reading the last few sentences you may think I was writing about the New Orleans Saints and not the Redskins but up against the Lions D there is absolutely no reason why everyone on offense shouldn't be able to execute. They will move the ball but will they be able to put it in the end zone rather than settling for FGs? Time will tell but from my experience watching the NFL just when the "experts" have a team pegged, in this case, "the Redskins can't score TDs," that team usually comes out and does the exact opposite the next week. No member of the media ever owns up to this or stands by their pre-season predictions they just go on making more ignorant assertions each week until the public is so inundated with the asinine comments of Michael Irvin, Mark Schlereth and John "Poindexter" Clayton that they can't tell their assholes from a hole in the ground. Must be nice to be an expert.
On the other side of the ball the Lions really do have some weapons on offense. Calvin Johnson IS Megatron and holding him to 100 yards and a TD, even with a rookie QB throwing the ball, has to be considered a good day, he's that good. Kevin Jones can find holes and pound the ball but he is nothing the Skins haven't seen after facing two of the biggest bruising RBs in the league (Jacobs and Jackson). Detroit's big TE, Brandon Pettigrew, will be a good NFL player someday but he is a rookie and still learning so he shouldn't be difficult to neutralize. The man under the center will be the storyline regardless of the outcome on Sunday. If rookie Matthew Stafford can lead the Lions to a victory and stop their losing streak from hitting 20 he will be proclaimed the second coming of Jesus Christ, he will be named the president of GM and he will turn Flint, Michigan into a bustling suburb of Detroit revitalize the worst city in the country. He'll basically become Bill Brasky. The reaction would be the exact opposite in Washington. Dan Snyder would fire everyone: Jim Zorn, Jason Campbell, the fans, Obama, no one would be safe. All Papa John's restaurants would close and the first born sons of all Redskins fans would be sold off to the highest bidders. The Redskins losing streak would be longer than the Lions. I would cold and alone.
I do not want this outcome but it is a very real possibility unless the Redskins show some fire on offense and for God's sake get pressure on the fucking Quarterback! In the off-season we ignored depth on the offensive line and instead went for game changers on the D-Line (Haynesworth and Orakpo) which cost us more than the GDP of 33% of the Nations in the U.N. **Sidenote: Haynesworth's contract isn't "worth" nearly as much as the idiots of the world would have you think, potentially it is worth $100 million but it's much easier to hate the Redskins and say, "they are trying to buy a championship" than it is to actually learn how NFL contracts work and tip your hat to the Skins for the being the best salary cap manipulators in league history.** Back to the game, because we ignored the O-Line in the off-season the defense has been improved and has looked as such over the first two games besides some lazy tackling by D'Angelo Hall and LaRon Landry. Hopefully Greg Blache is dialing up a defensive gameplan that consists of about 75% blitzing. I will be perfectly content with getting beat by a rookie QB if we put pressure on him and he makes the right reads and beats us straight up but I will not be able to swallow a loss if we stay back in out dime defense and allow him to plod his way down the field like he's fucking Eli Manning. Though they both have terrible Southern Frat Boy bitch haircuts the similarities end there. The Skins have no reason not to try to exploit the young QB on one side of the ball and to stave off the criticism of Zorn and Campbell for a few days on the other side of the ball by scoring some points.
Vegas sees this game as 19-13 struggle going the Redskins way and, despite the fact that the Redskins have a far more talented team than the Lions, I find it hard to stray from that prediction seeing how little firepower the offense has shown over the first two weeks. Making predictions about this team is like picking which one of your grandmothers you want to give a Brazilian wax to, you can't win. All things considered I am going to go with: Redskins 26, Lions 16. God save the Queen.
As always, remember Sean Taylor. In video #2 you can see what he did to the guy who was asking for it before the game: here. We miss you Sean.
Needless to say this is a team that is feeling less than confident and to boot they find themselves limping into week 3, literally, as Campbell and Portis have been limited in practice throughout the week. The worst part of last weeks game was not the impotence of the offense but the loss of Randy Thomas (RG) who was the second most valuable part of an offensive line that lacks depth.
Filling his void will be second year lineman Chad Rinehart who will have to hold his own if the Skins are going to make any noise on offense this year. Luckily for the offensive side of the ball they may be up against the worst defense the NFL has seen over the last decade. Injuries are part of every NFL match-up and the Lions have their own share to worry about without Ernie Simms heading their LB-corps. Look for Jim Zorn to open the playbook and take more than one or two deep shots down the field. Santana Moss needs a breakout game just to remind himself how bad-ass he is and Malcolm Kelly can smell his first NFL TD. Cooley should be Cooley and catch 7 for 86 yards so Campbell will have plenty of opportunity to quite his critics. Clinton Portis should be salivating to finally break the 100-yard mark as he faces a defense without their best run-stopper. CP has traditionally run well on turf and this Sunday should be no different unless the Skins somehow find themselves behind early in which case the entire D.C. area will have already blown their brains out.
Reading the last few sentences you may think I was writing about the New Orleans Saints and not the Redskins but up against the Lions D there is absolutely no reason why everyone on offense shouldn't be able to execute. They will move the ball but will they be able to put it in the end zone rather than settling for FGs? Time will tell but from my experience watching the NFL just when the "experts" have a team pegged, in this case, "the Redskins can't score TDs," that team usually comes out and does the exact opposite the next week. No member of the media ever owns up to this or stands by their pre-season predictions they just go on making more ignorant assertions each week until the public is so inundated with the asinine comments of Michael Irvin, Mark Schlereth and John "Poindexter" Clayton that they can't tell their assholes from a hole in the ground. Must be nice to be an expert.
On the other side of the ball the Lions really do have some weapons on offense. Calvin Johnson IS Megatron and holding him to 100 yards and a TD, even with a rookie QB throwing the ball, has to be considered a good day, he's that good. Kevin Jones can find holes and pound the ball but he is nothing the Skins haven't seen after facing two of the biggest bruising RBs in the league (Jacobs and Jackson). Detroit's big TE, Brandon Pettigrew, will be a good NFL player someday but he is a rookie and still learning so he shouldn't be difficult to neutralize. The man under the center will be the storyline regardless of the outcome on Sunday. If rookie Matthew Stafford can lead the Lions to a victory and stop their losing streak from hitting 20 he will be proclaimed the second coming of Jesus Christ, he will be named the president of GM and he will turn Flint, Michigan into a bustling suburb of Detroit revitalize the worst city in the country. He'll basically become Bill Brasky. The reaction would be the exact opposite in Washington. Dan Snyder would fire everyone: Jim Zorn, Jason Campbell, the fans, Obama, no one would be safe. All Papa John's restaurants would close and the first born sons of all Redskins fans would be sold off to the highest bidders. The Redskins losing streak would be longer than the Lions. I would cold and alone.
I do not want this outcome but it is a very real possibility unless the Redskins show some fire on offense and for God's sake get pressure on the fucking Quarterback! In the off-season we ignored depth on the offensive line and instead went for game changers on the D-Line (Haynesworth and Orakpo) which cost us more than the GDP of 33% of the Nations in the U.N. **Sidenote: Haynesworth's contract isn't "worth" nearly as much as the idiots of the world would have you think, potentially it is worth $100 million but it's much easier to hate the Redskins and say, "they are trying to buy a championship" than it is to actually learn how NFL contracts work and tip your hat to the Skins for the being the best salary cap manipulators in league history.** Back to the game, because we ignored the O-Line in the off-season the defense has been improved and has looked as such over the first two games besides some lazy tackling by D'Angelo Hall and LaRon Landry. Hopefully Greg Blache is dialing up a defensive gameplan that consists of about 75% blitzing. I will be perfectly content with getting beat by a rookie QB if we put pressure on him and he makes the right reads and beats us straight up but I will not be able to swallow a loss if we stay back in out dime defense and allow him to plod his way down the field like he's fucking Eli Manning. Though they both have terrible Southern Frat Boy bitch haircuts the similarities end there. The Skins have no reason not to try to exploit the young QB on one side of the ball and to stave off the criticism of Zorn and Campbell for a few days on the other side of the ball by scoring some points.
Vegas sees this game as 19-13 struggle going the Redskins way and, despite the fact that the Redskins have a far more talented team than the Lions, I find it hard to stray from that prediction seeing how little firepower the offense has shown over the first two weeks. Making predictions about this team is like picking which one of your grandmothers you want to give a Brazilian wax to, you can't win. All things considered I am going to go with: Redskins 26, Lions 16. God save the Queen.
As always, remember Sean Taylor. In video #2 you can see what he did to the guy who was asking for it before the game: here. We miss you Sean.
I never thought I'd read a blog where I would both laugh *and* learn! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteOk, first I have to give you props on the blog. As J says above, it is hilarious and informative. But after the Washington loss soaks in I want to know what your real thoughts are on the game. Specifically the lack of heart from the team. There were a lot of "injuries" that just kept me asking "how bad do they want this?" I know it's pro sports so it's hard to tell what the motivators are, but there was an obvious, nearly tangible difference in the way these two organizations approached this game. I have a feeling you thought Washington was going to lose the whole time, but you predicted them to win more so out of hope...
ReplyDeleteYou're dead on Eric...see the new post and let's put this damn Lions thing behind us. On to our next grand failure...
ReplyDelete