Monday Morning Mehta 12/11/06
Edition # 188
December 11, 2006
www.mondaymorningmehta.com
www.nba-jam.blogspot.com
Eagles/NFL
Eagles beat their division rival Washington Redskins 21-19 in a game of two halves. Just like the game yesterday, there's plenty of bad news to go along with the good. Which do you want?
Game Positives
- Brian Westbrook. I thought Westbrook looked as explosive as he's had in weeks yesterday. You still hold your breath on every play with Westy hoping he doesn't get hurt, but the guy can carry an offense at times there's no denying that. The most satisfying part of the win was running the clock out at the end of the game thanks in large part to Westbrook. Seeing Garcia take a knee after the 2 minute warning was a thing of beauty.
- Brian Dawkins. Big players make big plays. Dawkins made two huge plays in the 4th quarter to preserve a victory. The first will get the most pub, the sack of Jason Campbell. The other was a play earlier in the quarter where he deflected a first down pass. If the defense is going to be this shoddy (we'll get to that in a moment), Dawkins needs to step up and play like a Pro Bowler every down.
- Jeff Garcia. I can't necessarily pinpoint anything I like. And I have to admit I didn't think Garcia had anything left in the tank. But he has been incredibly lucky to go along with solid and I'll take that (he has no interceptions but has clearly thrown his fair share of interceptable passes). One takeaway from all this? Don't believe anything that happens in Detroit. That team is just a mess. (Except for Joey Harrington, he was never going to be a bigtime QB....sorry Duck fan)
- Omar Gathier. The natural instinct when a linebacker has a good game for the Eagles is to think "Oh my God! We finally have someone who can play!!" Gathier looked very good and what was most impressive is he played well against the pass as well as the run. Still need to see more though.
- Sean Considine & Michael Lewis. Considine at safety on most plays with Lewis roving at linebacker seems to work somewhat.
Game Negatives:
- Anything to do with defensive line play, ESPECIALLY Darren Howard. As far as I'm concerned, Andy Reid's two huge free agent signings of Jevon Kearse and Darren Howard have been busts. For the money they've gotten, the production has been very weak and inconsistent. But the blame can't stop there. Giving up all these yards to unknown running backs is out of control.
- 22 rushes, 23 passes. Why is this a negative? WHERE HAS THIS BALANCE BEEN ALL YEAR!?!?! If you do this with McNabb you win a few more games earlier in the year and maybe McNabb's not hurt. Eff!
Broderick Bunkley rant
I haven't talked much about Bunkley this year, mainly because he doesn't play at all. But at this point, it's out of control so I feel as though as a well respected member of the media (whom respects me is not a question you are allowed to ask), it's my duty to say something. I have seen Darwin Walker play football. He is downright sad. He gets tossed off the ball like a rag doll. I have seen Sam Rayburn play. He makes one tackle a game and the rest of the game he's blown off the ball. Mike Patterson? Young, played so-so yesterday, would like to see him a little fresher. Hey, how about throwing Broderick Bunkley in for 20-25 plays a game?? I have been watching like a hawk for Bunkley each of the last two games. He's sometimes used in goaline dime packages when the Eagles use 5 or 6 down lineman. In those circumstances it's really hard to view a guys play, even in HD. But yesterday I finally saw Bunkley. And on the one play I saw him he seemed to lightly push a guy and the guy flew like he was Darwin Walker. That tells me all I need to know. Get the guy in there already.
The Eagles now stand 7-6 and are holding down the 6th and final playoff spot in the NFC by virtue of their impressive 6-3 record in the NFC. Amazingly, they control their own destiny in the NFC (so does Dallas though). If the Eagles win out, they'll be 10-6 and win the division because of having beaten the Cowboys twice. The Eagles would have 5 straight wins and momentum going into a home playoff game. SNAP BACK TO REALITY!!!!
The realistic approach is this: They have two very tough road division games coming up. In all likelihood they're going to lose them. The key game is going to be NY's Eve against Atlanta. That is probably going to pit an 8-7 Atlanta team vs. a 7-8 Eagles team, for the final playoff spot (possibly battling Minny on tiebreaks - see below). And if this is the case, NBC will move that game to 8:15pm. NY's Eve Eagles night "playoff" game. Didn't we have that a few years back against Shaun King and the Bucs? Of course, all this could and probably will change by next week...
Next week the Eagles face the Giants. We owe them one. If we accomplish nothing else from this season I'd love to see the Eagles beat the Giants and put a huge hole in the Giants playoff chances. Yes, this is almost like saying "I don't care if we go 2-14 as long as we beat Dallas twice", but the Giants are just BEGGING for someone to put them out of their misery. Nobody wants to pull that final trigger though.
Around the NFL
Game of the Week: CAUTION! Due to lack of close, meaningful games we had to select Titans/Texans as the Game of the Week. But why not? It's fun to rip on the Texans. As Vince Young ran every yard of his 39 yard TD run each and every Texan fan had to be thinking "WTF did we take Mario Williams for?" In case people were wondering, Williams started off slowly and has actually played somewhat decent the 6 weeks. Note: I said somewhat decent. Vince Young and Reggie Bush have been off the hook lately (we're trying to learn the new cool lingo here at MMM so that we can attract the young audience).
MMM shouldn't and doesn't count Minnesota out of the playoff race. A tough hill to climb with a 6-7 record, but they have a 6-4 NFC record and a favorable schedule the rest of the way (Jets, @ GB, StL). They'll be heard from in the next few weeks I suspect.
Carolina really hurt their chances at 6-7 yesterday with a loss to the Giants. They now lose tiebreaks to Minnesota, Eagles AND Giants (lost head to head to each). They need to miraculously win a questionable Jake Delhomme to have a shot (Pitts, @ Atl, @ NO). A brutal schedule.
St. Louis can also jump into the fray with a win tonight over the Bears.
In the AFC things are just as jumbled. New England, Baltimore, Indy, and San Diego are close to being locks. Two spots remain with Jacksonville and Cincy leading the way at 8-5. but 3 teams at 7-6 are waiting in the wing.
As for Indy, they look terrible right now. Even in the Eagles game the defense looked shoddy, but right now their run defense is WORSE than the Eagles. Yes, I said worse. Maurice Jones-Drew (he started on my fantasy team in week 1 of the playoffs. Yeah boy) ran for like 3,000 total yards and Fred Taylor did about the same. They could've scored 80 points it seemed. David Gerrard has been amazingly good as backup QB. It's fun seeing Indy struggle.
LaDainian Tomlinson scored a few late garbage TD's to beat the Broncos and to set the single season TD record after just 13 games. He's amazing. The Chargers are going to be a tough beat, but as I state every week, BEWARE of Marty.
Phillies
Phillies make a big splash at the GM Meetings by trading for Freddy Garcia. The team is still a work in progress but the pitching staff is starting to take shape.
Pat Gillick is now looking for a righty bat, as well as some bullpen help. Jon Lieber is the name being brought up in trade rumors (to the Cards for Braden Looper and another reliever or Rangers for Akinori Otsuka (good rumor Cook))?
I think as Gillick steps back he's possibly thinking about trading Brett Myers. I certainly hope not, I think his off the field problems have been somewhat forgiven by Phillies fans. Myers could possibly land that big right handed bat that could protect Ryan Howard and Pat Gillick covets. Caution: Pitching wins. Chicks dig the longball.
Dragons Den
The Drexel Dragons beat the Villanova Wildcats. The Dragons beat a Big East team that went to the Elite 8 last year. Granted, most of this Wildcat team has gone pro, but this is still a huge win for the school.
The Dragons now take some time off before facing Syracuse, a nationally ranked Big East school. Before I get too out of control let's see what happens there.
Nobody should be surprised at the play of Drexel. They play in a conference in which a team made the Final Four last year (George Mason) and had 2 NCAA bids. They were very competitive within the conference also. With 4 returning starters this team is going to be very good this year, possibly the best in the city.
Bruiser Ball!!
NHL Week in Review By : Ed Wasser
- Think about this 24 hour period for Philadelphia sports fans. From Friday Dec. 8 to Saturday Dec. 9 the Sixers lost to the Wizards and the Magic, the Flyers lost to the Capitals and the Devils, and Villanova, St. Joe's, and Temple all lost basketball games. Sure Villanova lost to Drexel which makes one MMM reader happy but think about that for a second. 4 professional sports losses in 24 hours for Philadelphia. Like so many others, to combat the misery of the Philadelphia sporting disasters I often turn to the show "Little People, Big World" on TLC and watch the one midget kid playing soccer. A midget playing soccer, now that's comedy. Watching that soccer playing tiny terror has gotten this country through some tough times. At any rate at least we have the Philadelphia Barrage defending their outdoor lacrosse title coming up.
- For fear of being called on dereliction of duty and disappointing my loyal MMM reader (Yo Saurin, what's up?) I have still been watching the Flyers. I actually have to hand it to the Flyers, lately
they've added about 15 pieces of flair to their ineptitude. Sure any team can be bad, but not every team can be record breaking bad. I'll give you an example; last Friday the Flyers lost 2 - 0 to the Devils. On the surface it looked like your standard everyday pathetic Flyers performance but it turned out that the game was Martin Broduer's 84th career shutout, tying him with Glenn Hall for 3rd place on the all time list. By the way, I'm not sure but I think about 77 of Broduer's shutouts have come against the Flyers, I'll have to look that up. So that was a nice touch for the Flyers. Saturday's game against the Capitals was a real gem. Not only did the Flyers lose the game 5 - 3 to a team that, no lie, prominently features Donald Brashear on the power play, Flyer forward Kyle Calder committed a penalty that left me so stunned that when I saw it I looked like Chief Brody the first time he sees the shark while tossing chum in the ocean. OK, when you look at the box score it looks like Capital Chris Clark got a hooking penalty and Kyle Calder got a tripping penalty both at the 4:13 mark of the first period. But what really happened is that Chris Clark got the hooking penalty and was sent to the box. On the ensuing face off, as the puck was still in the air, before 1 (ONE!!!!!) second had ticked off the clock, Kyle Calder tripped a Capital and was sent to the penalty box. It was the shortest power play in the history of the NHL. That is weapons grade stupidity. And speaking of Kyle Calder, he lead the Blackhawks in points last year, this year with the Flyers he's played in 26 games and has 0 goals and only 3 assists.
And another thing about the Capitals. If Alexander Ovechkin gets into the Hall of Fame he had better thank the Flyers in his acceptance speech because he has made that team his bitc...well, I'll just say he plays well against them. Sidney Crosby too. They own the Flyers.
December 11, 2006
www.mondaymorningmehta.com
www.nba-jam.blogspot.com
Eagles/NFL
Eagles beat their division rival Washington Redskins 21-19 in a game of two halves. Just like the game yesterday, there's plenty of bad news to go along with the good. Which do you want?
Game Positives
- Brian Westbrook. I thought Westbrook looked as explosive as he's had in weeks yesterday. You still hold your breath on every play with Westy hoping he doesn't get hurt, but the guy can carry an offense at times there's no denying that. The most satisfying part of the win was running the clock out at the end of the game thanks in large part to Westbrook. Seeing Garcia take a knee after the 2 minute warning was a thing of beauty.
- Brian Dawkins. Big players make big plays. Dawkins made two huge plays in the 4th quarter to preserve a victory. The first will get the most pub, the sack of Jason Campbell. The other was a play earlier in the quarter where he deflected a first down pass. If the defense is going to be this shoddy (we'll get to that in a moment), Dawkins needs to step up and play like a Pro Bowler every down.
- Jeff Garcia. I can't necessarily pinpoint anything I like. And I have to admit I didn't think Garcia had anything left in the tank. But he has been incredibly lucky to go along with solid and I'll take that (he has no interceptions but has clearly thrown his fair share of interceptable passes). One takeaway from all this? Don't believe anything that happens in Detroit. That team is just a mess. (Except for Joey Harrington, he was never going to be a bigtime QB....sorry Duck fan)
- Omar Gathier. The natural instinct when a linebacker has a good game for the Eagles is to think "Oh my God! We finally have someone who can play!!" Gathier looked very good and what was most impressive is he played well against the pass as well as the run. Still need to see more though.
- Sean Considine & Michael Lewis. Considine at safety on most plays with Lewis roving at linebacker seems to work somewhat.
Game Negatives:
- Anything to do with defensive line play, ESPECIALLY Darren Howard. As far as I'm concerned, Andy Reid's two huge free agent signings of Jevon Kearse and Darren Howard have been busts. For the money they've gotten, the production has been very weak and inconsistent. But the blame can't stop there. Giving up all these yards to unknown running backs is out of control.
- 22 rushes, 23 passes. Why is this a negative? WHERE HAS THIS BALANCE BEEN ALL YEAR!?!?! If you do this with McNabb you win a few more games earlier in the year and maybe McNabb's not hurt. Eff!
Broderick Bunkley rant
I haven't talked much about Bunkley this year, mainly because he doesn't play at all. But at this point, it's out of control so I feel as though as a well respected member of the media (whom respects me is not a question you are allowed to ask), it's my duty to say something. I have seen Darwin Walker play football. He is downright sad. He gets tossed off the ball like a rag doll. I have seen Sam Rayburn play. He makes one tackle a game and the rest of the game he's blown off the ball. Mike Patterson? Young, played so-so yesterday, would like to see him a little fresher. Hey, how about throwing Broderick Bunkley in for 20-25 plays a game?? I have been watching like a hawk for Bunkley each of the last two games. He's sometimes used in goaline dime packages when the Eagles use 5 or 6 down lineman. In those circumstances it's really hard to view a guys play, even in HD. But yesterday I finally saw Bunkley. And on the one play I saw him he seemed to lightly push a guy and the guy flew like he was Darwin Walker. That tells me all I need to know. Get the guy in there already.
The Eagles now stand 7-6 and are holding down the 6th and final playoff spot in the NFC by virtue of their impressive 6-3 record in the NFC. Amazingly, they control their own destiny in the NFC (so does Dallas though). If the Eagles win out, they'll be 10-6 and win the division because of having beaten the Cowboys twice. The Eagles would have 5 straight wins and momentum going into a home playoff game. SNAP BACK TO REALITY!!!!
The realistic approach is this: They have two very tough road division games coming up. In all likelihood they're going to lose them. The key game is going to be NY's Eve against Atlanta. That is probably going to pit an 8-7 Atlanta team vs. a 7-8 Eagles team, for the final playoff spot (possibly battling Minny on tiebreaks - see below). And if this is the case, NBC will move that game to 8:15pm. NY's Eve Eagles night "playoff" game. Didn't we have that a few years back against Shaun King and the Bucs? Of course, all this could and probably will change by next week...
Next week the Eagles face the Giants. We owe them one. If we accomplish nothing else from this season I'd love to see the Eagles beat the Giants and put a huge hole in the Giants playoff chances. Yes, this is almost like saying "I don't care if we go 2-14 as long as we beat Dallas twice", but the Giants are just BEGGING for someone to put them out of their misery. Nobody wants to pull that final trigger though.
Around the NFL
Game of the Week: CAUTION! Due to lack of close, meaningful games we had to select Titans/Texans as the Game of the Week. But why not? It's fun to rip on the Texans. As Vince Young ran every yard of his 39 yard TD run each and every Texan fan had to be thinking "WTF did we take Mario Williams for?" In case people were wondering, Williams started off slowly and has actually played somewhat decent the 6 weeks. Note: I said somewhat decent. Vince Young and Reggie Bush have been off the hook lately (we're trying to learn the new cool lingo here at MMM so that we can attract the young audience).
MMM shouldn't and doesn't count Minnesota out of the playoff race. A tough hill to climb with a 6-7 record, but they have a 6-4 NFC record and a favorable schedule the rest of the way (Jets, @ GB, StL). They'll be heard from in the next few weeks I suspect.
Carolina really hurt their chances at 6-7 yesterday with a loss to the Giants. They now lose tiebreaks to Minnesota, Eagles AND Giants (lost head to head to each). They need to miraculously win a questionable Jake Delhomme to have a shot (Pitts, @ Atl, @ NO). A brutal schedule.
St. Louis can also jump into the fray with a win tonight over the Bears.
In the AFC things are just as jumbled. New England, Baltimore, Indy, and San Diego are close to being locks. Two spots remain with Jacksonville and Cincy leading the way at 8-5. but 3 teams at 7-6 are waiting in the wing.
As for Indy, they look terrible right now. Even in the Eagles game the defense looked shoddy, but right now their run defense is WORSE than the Eagles. Yes, I said worse. Maurice Jones-Drew (he started on my fantasy team in week 1 of the playoffs. Yeah boy) ran for like 3,000 total yards and Fred Taylor did about the same. They could've scored 80 points it seemed. David Gerrard has been amazingly good as backup QB. It's fun seeing Indy struggle.
LaDainian Tomlinson scored a few late garbage TD's to beat the Broncos and to set the single season TD record after just 13 games. He's amazing. The Chargers are going to be a tough beat, but as I state every week, BEWARE of Marty.
Phillies
Phillies make a big splash at the GM Meetings by trading for Freddy Garcia. The team is still a work in progress but the pitching staff is starting to take shape.
Pat Gillick is now looking for a righty bat, as well as some bullpen help. Jon Lieber is the name being brought up in trade rumors (to the Cards for Braden Looper and another reliever or Rangers for Akinori Otsuka (good rumor Cook))?
I think as Gillick steps back he's possibly thinking about trading Brett Myers. I certainly hope not, I think his off the field problems have been somewhat forgiven by Phillies fans. Myers could possibly land that big right handed bat that could protect Ryan Howard and Pat Gillick covets. Caution: Pitching wins. Chicks dig the longball.
Dragons Den
The Drexel Dragons beat the Villanova Wildcats. The Dragons beat a Big East team that went to the Elite 8 last year. Granted, most of this Wildcat team has gone pro, but this is still a huge win for the school.
The Dragons now take some time off before facing Syracuse, a nationally ranked Big East school. Before I get too out of control let's see what happens there.
Nobody should be surprised at the play of Drexel. They play in a conference in which a team made the Final Four last year (George Mason) and had 2 NCAA bids. They were very competitive within the conference also. With 4 returning starters this team is going to be very good this year, possibly the best in the city.
Bruiser Ball!!
NHL Week in Review By : Ed Wasser
- Think about this 24 hour period for Philadelphia sports fans. From Friday Dec. 8 to Saturday Dec. 9 the Sixers lost to the Wizards and the Magic, the Flyers lost to the Capitals and the Devils, and Villanova, St. Joe's, and Temple all lost basketball games. Sure Villanova lost to Drexel which makes one MMM reader happy but think about that for a second. 4 professional sports losses in 24 hours for Philadelphia. Like so many others, to combat the misery of the Philadelphia sporting disasters I often turn to the show "Little People, Big World" on TLC and watch the one midget kid playing soccer. A midget playing soccer, now that's comedy. Watching that soccer playing tiny terror has gotten this country through some tough times. At any rate at least we have the Philadelphia Barrage defending their outdoor lacrosse title coming up.
- For fear of being called on dereliction of duty and disappointing my loyal MMM reader (Yo Saurin, what's up?) I have still been watching the Flyers. I actually have to hand it to the Flyers, lately
they've added about 15 pieces of flair to their ineptitude. Sure any team can be bad, but not every team can be record breaking bad. I'll give you an example; last Friday the Flyers lost 2 - 0 to the Devils. On the surface it looked like your standard everyday pathetic Flyers performance but it turned out that the game was Martin Broduer's 84th career shutout, tying him with Glenn Hall for 3rd place on the all time list. By the way, I'm not sure but I think about 77 of Broduer's shutouts have come against the Flyers, I'll have to look that up. So that was a nice touch for the Flyers. Saturday's game against the Capitals was a real gem. Not only did the Flyers lose the game 5 - 3 to a team that, no lie, prominently features Donald Brashear on the power play, Flyer forward Kyle Calder committed a penalty that left me so stunned that when I saw it I looked like Chief Brody the first time he sees the shark while tossing chum in the ocean. OK, when you look at the box score it looks like Capital Chris Clark got a hooking penalty and Kyle Calder got a tripping penalty both at the 4:13 mark of the first period. But what really happened is that Chris Clark got the hooking penalty and was sent to the box. On the ensuing face off, as the puck was still in the air, before 1 (ONE!!!!!) second had ticked off the clock, Kyle Calder tripped a Capital and was sent to the penalty box. It was the shortest power play in the history of the NHL. That is weapons grade stupidity. And speaking of Kyle Calder, he lead the Blackhawks in points last year, this year with the Flyers he's played in 26 games and has 0 goals and only 3 assists.
And another thing about the Capitals. If Alexander Ovechkin gets into the Hall of Fame he had better thank the Flyers in his acceptance speech because he has made that team his bitc...well, I'll just say he plays well against them. Sidney Crosby too. They own the Flyers.
posted by Monday Morning Mehta at 10:04 AM
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