Monday Morning Mehta 9/11/06

Edition # 175
September 11, 2006

www.mondaymorningmehta.blogspot.com

Eagles begin their 2006 season with a 24-10 win on the road vs. the Houston Texans. We have a lot to cover today let's get right into the action.

Game Positives:

a. THEY RAN THE BALL! 30 runs vs. 35 passes is a perfect balance. Correll Buckhalter's presence really changes the dynamic of this offense as Reid isn't afraid to run the ball when Westbrook is being spelled. How long will the balance last? How long will C-Buck remain healthy? Hopefully long enough to make MMM's pre-season predictions come true.

b. The hurry up offense at the end of the first half. This has been somewhat of a sore point for the Eagles the last few years. The inconsistency in this area is worrisome. They looked very sharp yesterday.

c. Donte Stallworth. It's only a matter of time until I hear a WIP caller saying he's better than Terrell Owens on the field. But Stallworth was great, now lets see if he's gotten over the inconsistency bug that has plagued his career.

d. The play on 3rd down. For the most part I consider football stats for fantasy geeks (I being one) and rather meaningless when it comes to wins and losses. But as my close friend R Diddy likes to point out, one stat that is very telling is 3rd down efficiency (I think the two biggest are that & turnovers). The Eagles were an impressive 8 of 13 on 3rd downs, while limiting the Texans to 3 of 11 on 3rd downs.

Game Negatives

a. Secondary. Even on the first drive, pre-Lito Sheppard injury, the Eagles secondary looked suspect. Andre Johnson and Eric Moulds are excellent WR's though so maybe they deserve a pass?

b. Time management in the 2nd half. Slow to get plays in, lots of mis-communication with players being shuffled, and using all three timeouts at the start of the 4th quarter is bad.


Other game notes:

I came close to giving the pass rush a game positive but I need to see it a little bit more consistently to become a true believer. I'm drinking the punch just not drunk yet. Look, they played the Texans, I'm not going to freak out over beating a bad team with a completely revamped coaching staff.

Matt McCoy had a nice game too.

A solid game by Donovan McNabb overall. The play action fake TD to Stallworth was an absolute beauty and the Texans secondary bit on that play big time. You also saw McNabb scramble a bit more yesterday, find time, and locate his targets. This could be a 2004 type year for Donny.

The Texans could really use a play maker in the backfield. Maybe a Reggie Bush type.

Eagles fans should hold their breath as Lito Sheppard gets an MRI today. I'm worried this is going to be bad. Just a bad feeling. They may regret cutting Matt Ware who was quickly snagged by the Cardinals.

Jim Johnson had mentioned it often in the preseason, and he wasn't lying. Brian Dawkins played as a linebacker type many times on 3rd downs and blitzed numerous times. It looked like the package has some bugs to work out but Sean Considine looked comfortable as a safety while Dawkins was roaming all over.

Big early season test versus the Giants next week. Eli Manning still looked inconsistent last night but the Giants should be a solid team all year. The Giants running game has to be one of the best in the NFC and we'll see how improved the Eagles defensive line and linebackers really are.

Around the League

Biggest Win: Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons thoroughly dominated the Panthers and ran for 252 yards on the preseason Super Bowl favorite of many. The Panthers have a history of clunkers once in a while and they played without Steve Smith, so while they shouldn't be too worried, the Falcons were impressive. Michael Vick detractors can bitch about his sub .500 completion percentage, but if you watched that game Vick was awesome.

Biggest Loss: Tie - The battle of the bays/pigs, Tampa & Green Bay. Was this 1986 again? These two team combined for zero points. We've said it 1,000 times in this space and now national media types are finally joining in, it's over for Favre. It's been over for years, but it's so clear the guy doesn't want to take a hit and just protect his consecutive games streak it's sickening. The 1996 Brett Favre stood in the pocket and took a hit. The 2003-6 version throws the ball up in the air at the mere sight of a defensive player. As for Tampa? I have no idea what happened. Inexplicable. I don't think the Ravens are that good, but maybe I just don't want them to be. There still isn't a more boring team in the NFL. I'd rather watch Cleveland.

Best game: Dallas/Jacksonville. I thought this game had a playoff feel to it. Jacksonville is on the verge of having an injury decimated season as they lost another key defensive player (Reggie Hayward) yesterday but played very well after the first quarter and beat the Cowboys relatively soundly after that. The playoff feel was made even more evident as Drew Bledsoe threw some terrible passes late in the game.

Worst non-Bay game: Seattle/Detroit. What the heck was this all about? Just a sloppy, unproductive, ugly game. So much for Mike Martz energizing the offense right away.

Herm Edwards is an awful coach. I'm sorry, he gets his players to play hard but at some point you need to know X's and O's. He turned an explosive offensive team into a bland team in the matter of 1 game and this was before the injury to Trent Green. Put a fork in the Chiefs.

Carson Palmer is back and looks to be close to 100%.

Very impressed with the way Chad Pennington threw the ball. It looked like he had all his strength back. The Jets have plenty of talent, they may be a spoiler this year.

The Patriots really got lucky to win yesterday. Bonehead coaching decision of the day had to be Dirk Jaroun. With the Bills up 17-7, and the Patriots reeling, no momentum, and 4th and 1 from the 8 yard line, he goes for it, they don't get it and all the momentum shifted from that moment on. Look, I'm not into conservative coaching, but it was clear the Pats had no excitement. Why give them a chance for life. Just put the points up and let sleeping giants lie. Especially on the road. TAKE THE POINTS!!

A good game last night between the Colts and Giants. The Colts running game is non existant and they better fix it soon.

Jake Plummer stinks.

There isn't a better WR duo in the league than Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. The 49ers didn't look too bad, but I'm wondering about this Cardinals pick I made last week.

MLB

Phillies have a typical Phillies week going 3-3 to fall to a three way tie for 2nd place in the Wild Card standings, 2.5 games off the pace set by San Diego.

- When watching a Phillies loss, I feel as though I'm watching the same game I've watched 400 times the last 5 years.

- Oh no! Arthur Rhodes is out for the season! What now?? (dripping with sarcasm)

- I expect Ryan Madson's arm to fall off sometime around September 23rd.

- Ryan Howard's amazing hot streak continued this week as he hit 4 more homers in 6 games this week. He's pretty much making himself the favorite for the MVP even if the Phillies don't make the playoffs at this point.

- This is a great time for sports. Saturday through Monday you have football, and sprinkle in key baseball races throughout the week. Phils at a struggling Braves and big series vs. Houston this week. A bad week this week could knock the Phils out of the race for good.

- It's amazing the confidence I have when Jeff Conine is at the plate. I thought his days were over but the guy seems to have a knack for the big hit. Well, at least he swings lets put it that way. That other righty outfielder is just comical at this point.

- Charlie Manuel has once again been the difference as far as I'm concerned. I think Manuel thinks it's illegal for a pitcher to pitch 9 innings.

- Possibly the hottest team in baseball the last month is the Giants.

- The biggest around the league news has to be the Tigers fall. Their lead in the Central is at a mere 2 games over the Twins after losing 3/4 to Minny. And the White Sox are only 3.5 behind.

- Johan Santana is 39-3 with an ERA of 2 after the all star break since 2003. The best pitcher in baseball conversation begins and ends with Santana.

NHL Week in Review By : Ed Wasser

- Next week I'm going to start my pre-season...well, not predictions. I'm not doing full out predictions anymore. I did predictions last year and I haven't seen something blow up in someone's face that bad since the last time Jenna Jameson worked with Peter North. So I'm just going to give my opinion of how I believe the season will unfold for each team. I'm going to do it alphabetically because...well, that's the way most NHL publications and websites do it and it makes it easier for me to do my usual felony level plagiarism. As for now I just have a few notes and news from around the league.

- Before I forget...I saw Columbus Blue Jacket GM Doug Maclean at the Ft. Lauderdale airport last Tuesday. He was so mobbed by NHL fans he could barely move!! Sorry, that was joke, nobody knew who he was beside me. Anyway, I knew he was teetering on the edge of getting fired and since it's easier to find a virgin at the AVN Awards then it is to find information about the NHL in the summer I couldn't remember if he had gotten canned or not so I left him alone. I didn't want to say "hey Doug, how are the Blue Jackets looking this year?" "HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW, I GOT FIRED!!!!" Anyway it turns out that he still has a job with the Blue Jackets.

- The Buffalo Sabres and cheapness go together like midgets and big heads but they've really out done themselves now. First of all they were actively trying to unload Daniel Briere, who was on his way to a career year last season before he got injured, rather then go to arbitration with him. He won a one year, $5 million contract. Then they walked away from J.P. Dumont, a very good physical 2 way player, after he won a $2.9 million arbitration contract; he signed with the Predators. And now, in order to save more money, they've fired just about their entire scouting department and they are going to rely on "video scouting". First of all hockey doesn't translate to TV at all, children know that. And how can you see what's going on behind the play? Plus I'm sure it'll be a breeze getting footage of teams playing just south of Siberia and teams in the Czech Republic or even Finland. If I was a Sabre season ticket holder I'd be furious.

- If Forsberg gets the captaincy of the Flyers then 20% of all the NHL captains will be Swedish. Wow.

- Mike Keenan was fired as GM of the Panthers. Oh I know they said he resigned but believe me he was fired. Supposedly Keenan was not so subtly pushed out the door by Panther coach and former Keenan best friend Jacques Martin who also replaced him as GM. The roster Keenan was putting together was a joke. That roster is old. (Oh, you mean old like 33, 34 years old?) No, how about old like Joe Nieuwendyk (40), Gary Roberts (40), Martin Gelinas (36), and Eddie Belfour (41). Plus Keenan couldn't sign Roberto Luongo so he had to trade him to the Canucks. Apparently the relationship between Martin and Keenan became unbearable and ended with both guys yelling a two word phrase to each other that starts with F and ends with YOU so one of them had to go. Keenan will resurface somewhere in his attempt to eventually work for every team in the NHL.