F#&$ing Patriots 52 - Good Guys 7

Okay, take a deep breath Redskins fans. I haven’t posted since the Lions victory, so let me catch up.

The Skins should have beaten the Packers and should have lost to the Cardinals. No net change to their record there. And, the Skins got whupped by the best team in the NFL...right now. The only shame in that was the seeming lack of indignation on the part of some Skins players and possibly coaches, especially on defense. They should have taken some Pats’ heads off.

The F#&$ing Patriots 52 – the Redskins 7
The Pats made an absurdly bad mistake by running it up and trying to humiliate the Skins. I don’t buy what many fans said or what Riggo said on his radio show. Yes, the Redskins should have stopped them. But, it is just plain wrong-—when the Pats were winning 38 to 0 with 12-minutes left in the game-—for Brady and the Pats to go to a spread formation, in shotgun, and throw a 35-yard (in the air) bomb to Moss. Hell, it was just plain wrong for Brady and the rest of the starters to be in the game at that point. You do not do throw passes in that situation in D-1 college football when the final score could be beneficial to your BCS standings, and you certainly do not do that to professionals when the game has already been decided. The Pats scored a TD on that drive to go up 45 to 0, and Brady celebrated the TD as if it came in overtime. But, as they say on late night TV, “wait there’s more.”

The Pats were not content to stop there. Oh, BeliDick showed some mercy. BeliDick pulled Brady at 45 to 0. But, then he proceeded to have the backup QB, Casssel, throw on three of his first four plays...from shotgun formation...with multiple receivers spread out. One of those passes was a 21-yarder...on fourth down...with seven minutes left in the game! They were winning by a score of 45 to 0! Seven minutes!

What a dick.

But, wait there’s more. In that series with the backup QB, there was an incomplete pass. Cameras showed Brady on the sideline whining, begging, cajoling and finally yelling at the referee to call pass interference on the Redskins. In a 45 – 0 game...with seven minutes left. When Cassel scored a TD on another fourth down play, he and Brady did a leaping high five. I’m as competitive as anyone, but who raised these guys, Mephistopheles?

Good luck trying to get through the rest of the season with that huge frickin bull’s-eye on your back, Mr. Brady. You can thank your coach for putting it there and you can thank yourself for making it as big as a frickin house. I’d say good luck in the Super Bowl, but I don’t think your team will get there when you're on crutches and Matt Cassel is the starting QB. Manning will get all of the endorsement money again after another Super Bowl appearance this year. I only regret that your torn knee ligaments won’t be the result of a meeting with Taylor, Landry & Washington, LLP.

Back to the Skins
As I said, take a deep breath. It was only one game and it was one they were supposed to lose. Look, I hate to make predictions about individual games, but if they respond as I think they will, they will easily beat the Jets this weekend. Judging from the number of fans in the stands for this week’s Jets game, it could be like a Redskins home game. With a win, they will then finish the first half of the season with a 5 – 3 record. I do not know one Skins fan who would not have taken that before the season started.

Included in that 5 - 3 record are two games they should have won but lost (Giants and Packers), and one they should have lost but won (Cards). Given that information, they could easily have been 6 – 2 heading into the second half. If you average both of those highly probable outcomes (5 – 3 and 6 – 2) and project that out, they would finish 11-5, just as I had predicted at the beginning of the season. That will be good enough to win the NFC East this year.

How they get to 11 - 5
After the win over the Dolphins, I wrote a post in which I broke their schedule into three groups to estimate their potential wins. One was a group of five games in which I said that in order to get to 11 – 5, they had to win three. The five games included the Giants (H/A), Lions, Cards, and Packers. Well, they have two wins in four of those with one game left (Giants (A)), so they are on track to accomplish what I expected against this group.

Summary for ungrouped game:
Dolphins W

Summary for Group A (need win against Giants plus Groups B & C outcomes for 11 wins):
Giants L
Lions W
Cards W
@Packers L
@ Giants TBD

For the second group, I conceded that they had four tough games: the Bears, Pats, and two against the Cowboys. To get to 11 – 5, I said they would need to split these four. That’s no easy task; especially since they have already lost one (Pats) and now have to win two out of the remaining three. But, the Bears are not nearly as good as I thought they would be, so a split with the Cowboys and a win over the Bears in DC on 12/6 gets them where they need to be to earn eleven wins. So far, so good.

Summary for Group B (need a 2 – 2 record for 11 wins):
@Pats L
@ Cowboys TBD
Bears TBD
Cowboys TBD

In the final group, which consisted of six games, I said they would need to split with the Eagles and sweep the Jets, Bucs, Bills, and Vikings. Well, they have already earned at least a split with the Eagles by beating them in Philadelphia. The next Eagles game is 11/11 in DC, and the first of the four games that seemed very winnable at the beginning of the year is coming up on Sunday against the Jets. But, the Bucs at 4 - 4 and the Bills at 3 – 4 are playing better football than I expected. Here is where we might find a chink in the armor, especially since four of the six are on the road. Still, the Bucs did lose to the Lions, a team the Skins crushed, and the Skins get to play the Bills in DC.

Summary for Group C (need 5 -1 record for 11 wins):
@ Philadelphia W
@ NJ Jets TBD
Eagles TBD
@ Bucs TBD
Bills TBD
@ Vikings TBD

Given this framework, I think there are three key games that will decide whether they win the division, win a wild card, or go home for the playoffs. First, if they can find a way to sweep the Cowboys and not settle for a split, they are practically a lock for the division title. The second key game is against the Giants, although for reasons that I will make clear in a minute, that game is not as important as a second win against the Cowboys. The final key outcome will be whether they can win against the Eagles in DC and not have to settle for a split. It should be no surprise that I think the remaining games against division opponents are the most important.

A win against the Eagles will give them a cushion that I did not expect them to have at the beginning of the year. A win against them allows them to lose a game that I expected them to win, say the Bucs game, and still get to eleven wins. A sweep of the Cowboys gives the Redskins the tie breakers against them for the NFC East title. But, a win against the Giants just gets them to fulfill what I expected at the beginning of the year for the Group A games. I do not think they will need the series-sweep tie breaker against the Giants. It may seem crazy to say this about a Giants team that is currently 6- 2, but the Giants could conceivably lose six of their last eight games.

And I am not saying this just because the Giants have gotten off to fast starts in the past two years and then faded. I am not trying to reprise the prediction that I made last year after their hot start; a prediction that turned out to be correct. No, I am saying this because the extremely soft spot in the Giants schedule is behind them. The combined record of the Giants last four opponents is 4 wins and 26 losses. You can look it up. It gets much more difficult for the Giants from here.

Seriously, the Giants could easily lose each of the following games: Dallas, at Detroit, at Chicago, at Philadelphia, Washington, and New England. If they play way over their abilities and go 3 – 3 in these six tough games and sweep the Bills and Vikings, they will finish the year 11 – 5, but they will still miss out on the division title if two of those losses come against Washington, Dallas or Philadelphia. Why? The Giants would be 3 – 3 in the division. The Redskins or Cowboys would have a better division record and take that tie-breaker.

The Cowboys play five of their last eight games against division opponents, which are always tough games no matter what the teams’ records look like. In addition, they have to play Green Bay in Dallas and the Lions in Detroit. Say what you want, but the Packers (6-1) and Lions (5-2) just keep winning, so these are no gimmes despite the fact that the Skins trounced the Lions and should have beaten the Packers. Dallas’s five division games include two against Washington, and the last game of the year—which could decide everything—is in DC.

Given my three-part schedule breakdown, then, the Skins have some flexibility. Wins over Philadelphia, NJ Giants, and one win over Dallas along with the other outcomes that are likely and the Redskins are assured of a wild card spot and probably the division title at 11 – 5. A sweep of Dallas and they can take their 12 - 4 record to a bye and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. A split with Dallas and a loss to the Giants and Eagles leaves them at 9-7 (Ed: corrected a prior calculation error) and a wild card berth. The only really bad scenarios would be the latter one coupled with an unexpected loss to the likes of the Bucs, Jets, Bills, or Vikings. Even then they likely make the playoffs at 8 – 8, given the state of the NFC. Two unexpected losses and they’re likely out.

So, only two unexpected losses will keep them out of the playoffs. Take a deep breath Skins fans. With one caveat, the Redskins are a playoff team.

The Only Caveat
When will the injuries stop? C, RG, ROT1, ROT2, ROT3, SSLB, WSLB, RC, HB1, KR, WR1, and WR2 have all missed significant playing time this year. ROT1 and RC have been IR’d and RG will be IR’d if they are eliminated from playoff contention. Please make it stop. Seriously, it is statistically crazy for one team to have this many injuries two years in a row.

“High-Powered” Redskins Win 34 - 3 “Shootout” vs. Lions

If I had to hear one more time about the Lions “high-powered” offense in another pre-game show, or read it in another newspaper, I would have burst a blood vessel. If I had a buck for every analyst who said the Redskins could only win this game in a shootout if they could just manage to stay close, I’d be a lot wealthier today. No one wanted to talk about the quality of the Redskins yesterday. They only wanted to talk about the quality of the Lions.

The D
Well, well, well. For two and half games the Redskin defense had been as dominating as I expected, but all of the naysayers came out after the loss to the Giants and concluded that the Skins’ D was not as good as it appeared in the first two wins. What game were they watching?

The Redskins defense spent most of the second half on the field against the Giants because the Redskins offense only got one first down prior to their last possession. Their first three possessions in the second half were threes-and-out. The Giants did not expose a flaw in the Skins’ D, they exposed the growing pangs that the Redskins had to go through with a quarterback who only had nine starts under his belt. But yesterday, clearly, the Redskins proved that they do have a dominating defense, maybe the best in the Conference, and they may have proved that Jason Campbell is all grown up.

The Lions came into the game with the NFL’s top-rated passing offense. They were averaging 313 yards per game in the air and were scoring 28.5 points per game. Yesterday, the Redskin defense held the Lions to 76-yards passing (144 overall) and three points. They sacked Kitna five times including one for a safety. They forced four fumbles, but the Lions miraculously managed to recover every one of them including one in which the call on the field was that the Redskins’ Rocky McIntosh recovered the fumble. The turnover was overturned on replay when the ball was ruled out of bounds on the old “electricity” rule. The ball was in bounds, but leaning against McIntosh’s leg when McIntosh’s hand was out of bounds. There were also some penalties that erased big Redskins plays. The score was not as close as the scoreboard suggested.

On top of it all, Sean Taylor and LaRon Landry kept knocking Lions players out of the game with punishing hits. Look for Taylor’s block on James Thrash’s big punt return on ESPN tonight.

So, with one-quarter of the season completed, let’s recap the defensive effort for the season using the notion that if the defense keeps the other team out of the end zone, they have pitched a shutout.

The D gave up one touchdown in the first game against the Dolphins when the Dolphins—down by three-points with four seconds left in the first half—went for a TD on fourth down from the five yard line. If there were 1000 chances to call a play in that spot, professional football coaches would call for the field goal unit 999 times out of 1000. That was a virtual shutout for the D and I am counting it as a shutout.

It was a veritable shutout for the D the next week versus the Eagles in Philadelphia when they kept the Eagles out of the end zone. By the way, the Eagles found the end zone EIGHT times the following week.

The D recorded a shutout in the first half against the Giants when the Redskins moved the ball on offense. Then the Giants scored three TDs in the second half.

Finally, The D recorded a shutout yesterday. That’s fourteen shutout quarters in sixteen quarters of football.

Championship Depth
The team has been decimated by injuries but has proved that it has a lot of depth; championship-quality depth. Their number one wide receiver Santana Moss did not play yesterday. Antwaan Randle El took over the number one spot and caught seven passes for 100 yards in the first half. He injured his leg late in the first half and did not return. James Thrash then became the number one wide receiver, followed by Keenan McCardell whom they signed on Monday and Reche Caldwell whom they signed last week. It did not matter one bit as Campbell continued to show great poise and check down to whoever was open.

Campbell had time to check down because he was not sacked and was hardly ever hurried. He was protected despite missing two starters on the right side of the offensive line and having a third O-line starter who just joined the team on August 24. That’s depth.

JC
Campbell easily had his best day as a pro completing over 79% of his passes for an 8.6 yards per attempt average, with two TDs and no picks. But it wasn’t his numbers but his sound judgment that impresses the most. He was almost flawless yesterday, and after the Giants game he showed the leadership of a veteran when he told everyone to calm down because they were 2 - 1 and in great shape. Maybe I underestimated him and how long it would take him to be a top QB in this league. I did not expect him to have the type of game like he had yesterday until week ten or so. That would have coincided with his sixteenth start, or one full year of games. Maybe he has already arrived. If so, my eleven-win prediction is too low. They already have the defense and running game for a deep run in the playoffs. If Campbell has already arrived, then we should expect home field throughout the playoffs.

Another Unbiased, Level-Headed, Hall of Fame Voter

The guy who wrote the attached quote wrote it in his weekly column ranking the teams in the NFL. He also gets to vote for Hall of Fame inductees. Can you guess who it is? Do you think he voted to induct any Redskins players recently?

Maybe the Commish should evaluate whether his league has the optimal HOF voting process.

"Here come the screams, from Alexandria to Bethesda. Hey, punk! Titans go up one on their bye, Jags go up two, Skins go down two. Damn unfair, two? Well, Dan Snyder started it. He called me all those names, and in front of witnesses yet."

The New York Freds: 21 Straight Years of Futility and Counting

Julio Down by the Ball Yard and Other Random Mets Adventures
As I watched Jorge Julio of the Rockies do his best to try to lose the Playoff for the Wild Card spot last night, I was reminded that Julio was the guy the Mets just had to have last year. So they traded away a top, veteran starting pitcher, Kris Benson, to get him. Benson was as good a number three starting pitcher as there was in Major League Baseball—a valuable player—and the Mets gave him away for nothing plus an unproven John Maine. They sure could have used Benson last year…and this year for that matter. I know he was hurt this year, but you don’t know what would have happened if the Mets had kept him. It couldn’t have been worse than trading him away.

I was then reminded that the Mets dumped Julio like a hot tamale after only a few months in a trade for a pitcher the Rockies were only too happy to get rid of themselves. That pitcher was Orlando Hernandez, a sixty-two year old Cuban player prone to breakdowns. Orlando was hurt a lot of this year and only managed to pitch 148 innings.

Orlando, it turns out, was the guy who replaced Steve Trachsel in the rotation. Steve Trachsel needed to be replaced because Willie Randolph could not stand him. Oh, Willie didn’t have a problem with his ability to pitch, at least he shouldn’t have. Trachsel was with the Mets for six years and was the team leader in wins in four of the five years that he was healthy. The only healthy year in which he didn’t lead the team in wins was 2002 when he finished with two fewer wins than Al Leiter. No, the reason Willie could not stand Trachsel was personal, and so the Mets did what was best for Willie and not what was best for the ball club. Trachsel, by the way, averaged 184 innings per year and allowed the bullpen to rest. Do you think the bullpen could have used a little rest this year?

Are you getting the sense that no one is in charge here? That there is no direction; no strategy for winning; no plan?

The 2007 Freds
Until now, I avoided writing about the 2007 New York Mets because I did not want my negative feelings about this team to bring me down. But, now I need a catharsis. For today at least, I am going to identify this team by their true name—the Freds—because this joke of a team is the culmination of twenty-seven years of Fred Wilpon’s ownership. Many things have changed over the past twenty-seven years. GMs came and went—Cashen, Harazin, McIlvaine, Phillips, Duquette, and now Minaya. Managers cycled through--too many to count. Players appeared and disappeared. Two things remain the same: the Wilpons still own the team and the Mets still fail to win World Series championships; twenty-one straight years and counting.

This 2007 team is Fred’s team. Each of the teams that blew pennants (1988, 1999 and 2006), blew World Series championships (2000), or more likely didn’t make the playoffs in the past 27 years (1980-1985 plus 1987 plus 1989-1998 plus 2001-2005 plus 2007), they were Fred’s teams, too. Four playoff runs with only one championship in twenty-seven years of ownership is pathetic for a major market team with no salary cap. It is arguable that half of the playoff runs would never have materialized if Nelson Doubleday was not an equal partner with Wilpon in those years. You may recall that Wilpon did his best to veto Doubleday’s trade for Piazza, who put the team on his shoulders for the run to the NLCS in 1999 and the pennant in 2000.

Fred Wilpon is a sophisticated businessman who is known for his real estate acumen, but when it comes to baseball, Fred is about as sophisticated as Fred Flintstone. Mr. Met never made sense as a mascot for the New York Metropolitans, but then again what does represent a Metropolitan? No, the perfect mascot for the Freds would be Fred Flintstone or a GEICO caveman.

Instead of cheering “Lets Go Mets,” we could cheer “Yabba Dabba Doo.” Whenever another Mets reliever blows a save, the Freds could blare Barney Rubble’s laugh over the loudspeakers. The bullpen car could be the Flintstone mobile powered by Rick Peterson’s feet. Whenever a Fred managed to reach home, Dino could be there to pounce on him. All of the ball girls could be called Hanna or Barbera. Ann Margrock could sing the national anthem while Stoney Curtis threw out the first pitch. With any foresight, they would have been the team to draft Chris Young out of Prinstone Univerity instead of the Pirates.

What the hell, Green already tracks down flies in right field like he’s wearing stone shoes, and Jeff Wilpon looks and acts like the Great Gazoo; inventing the doomsday machine (which he used this September) and floating around the team calling everyone dum-dums.











Let’s review: Last year at around this time I wrote that the 2007 Freds would be in trouble unless they addressed several deficiencies. Specifically, I said the Freds needed to do the following:

• Obtain two starting corner outfielders who could play defense. They needed to replace the aging, plodding, or always-hurt Green and Floyd;
• Obtain a starting second baseman;
• Obtain a pitcher worthy to be called a “number one” starting pitcher; and
• Keep the bullpen intact;

So what did the Fred do? The Fred went out and replaced Floyd with another ancient outfielder who had trouble staying in the lineup. Don’t get me wrong, Alou is a great hitter, but baseball players need to do more than that. One thing they have to do in order to help their team win is be healthy enough to play, but that’s often tough for forty year olds. The Fred also kept Green, whose first name is Itdropsinfrontof. Or was that Itsoverthegloveof? The Fred also failed to get a number one starting pitcher.

Okay, failing to acquire ALL of the players they needed, players that many other teams were also looking to acquire, is one thing. I wouldn’t have paid Zito all of that money either. But, not acquiring anything on this list by the start of the season and only getting their second baseman at the trading deadline, and then only because of an injury to Valentin? Come on. What's worse is not only did they fail to do the easy thing and keep the bullpen intact, they completely dismantled it.

I guess they thought that the bullpen was made of interchangeable parts and that they could just stick anyone out there. They let Chad Bradford walk when $3.5mm per year could have kept him. Because of his ability to get ground balls, Bradford has been one of the most effective relievers in MLB since he first made an MLB roster. He earned an entire chapter in Lewis’s book “Moneyball.” Bradford has a submarine delivery, so they replaced him with a sidearmer named Joe Smith. Who? I guess they figured they could get any unorthodox pitcher and get the same results. Really, none of it made any sense. It was as if they had absolutely no plan.

Goals Schmoals
I’m sure that I was not the only one who saw these deficiencies, so what does this say about the front office? Are they completely incompetent or is winning championships just not a priority? After twenty-seven years, I believe it is the latter. I think the Wilpons could care less about championships. Last year, when a championship should have been the only goal, the Fred lowered the bar and said he hoped the team would just make the playoffs. This year his goal was again to just “get into the playoffs…and do it the Mets way.” Huh? What the hell kind of goal is that? I don’t think Steinbrenner is sitting in Tampa over the winter saying: “Gee, I hope we can win enough games to squeak into the playoffs.”

Well, the Freds blew it this year because their starting pitching was horrible in the second half led by sub-par second halves from Perez and Maine. Each of the Freds starters saw their ERAs go up in their last ten outings. They blew it because of the disappearance of Martinez until mid-September, the disappearance of Glavine after his 300th, and Orlando Hernandez’s Alzheimer’s.

As I said last year, the Freds could probably expect that one or two back-of-the-rotation starters would emerge from the group of Maine, Perez, Humber, and Pelfry, and two back-of-the-rotation starters is exactly what they got. They got exactly what they should have expected from Glavine. Martinez pitched way above expectations when he finally showed up, but he wasn’t Pedro; he is no longer a legitimate number one starter. They should not have expected more. They also blew it because the bullpen sucked. If anyone was paying attention, they would have known it was going to suck.

Baseball's Biggest Joke/Laughing with Conan
So, the Freds are now Major League Baseball’s biggest joke after setting an all-time choking record by blowing a seven-game lead with seventeen to play. Conan O’Brien has had a running gag for several nights where Mr. Met tries to commit suicide but cannot find a noose or oven door big enough for his head. His stubby fingers cannot load a revolver. He comes home from an away game to find Mrs. Met in bed with the Philly Phanatic. It’s good stuff. But, honestly, the Freds should be congratulated for ever owning a seven-game lead with all of their shortcomings.

Wallpapering Citi Field
So, what was Fred Wilpon thinking this year? Perhaps he was too busy counting the revenue from his new cable channel and season-ticket suckers (um, holders). Perhaps he was deciding what color wallpaper to put in the bathrooms at Citi Field. Or, perhaps he got exactly what he aimed for. Yabba Dabba Doo.

Today, I received an email from the Freds apologizing for the team’s collapse. After thanking the fans for “record-breaking revenue” (er, “support”), the Freds said:

“…Ownership will continue its commitment in providing the resources necessary to field a championship team.”

That is exactly what I was afraid of, a continuation of the same commitment of the last twenty-seven years. Hey Gazoo, do I look like a dum-dum?

Protest
I will not subscribe for season tickets again until the Fred sells the team. You should not buy season tickets from the Fred either. It’s a simple plan to help bring a World Series championship back to New York National League baseball by getting rid of what stands in the way-—the owners.

It’s so simple, a caveman could do it. Don’t even give fifteen minutes to the Fred even if he promises to save you fifteen percent on tickets.

It is time for the Fred to sell the team.