NFL Power Poll
The narrative today has to be about Drew Brees.
Sure, there continues to be a large increase year-to-year in penalties, especially roughing the passer calls. Yes, we had protests last Sunday as Eric Reid returned to the sideline and kneeled during the anthem.
Still TV numbers continue to climb. All of Sunday’s windows other than the 4 p.m. Game of the Week slot were up from 2017. (The 4 p.m. slot was filled by Cowboys-Packers in Week 5 last season.)
But those story lines will continue to swirl.
As for Brees, he’s part of a few amazing sports conversations.
Think of some of the biggest “What ifs” in the NFL and Brees was a part of at least two of them.
Brees was drafted by the Chargers only after San Diego traded the No. 1 overall pick to Atlanta. The Falcons – because they are the Falcons – drafted Mike Vick who became the most awesome Madden video game QB and the most famous dog fighter ever.
The Chargers landed LaDainian Tomlinson and Brees in the first two rounds of that draft. Wow.
Also, there is the near miss of Brees almost went to the Dolphins in free agency when he left the Chargers and went to the Saints. If the Dolphins had signed off on Brees’ surgically repaired shoulder, well, who knows how that would have worked out. But if his success there at least matched the success he and the Saints have had over the last decade, there would be a really good chance that some dude named Nick Saban would still be in Miami rather than T-Town.
Brees became the all-time leader in passing yards Monday night and before he’s done, Brees likely will have his name atop the list of every meaningful statistical passing record. In fact, the question we’d like pondered is his place on the pantheon. (And man, if the Minnesota Miracle had not happened last year, well, who knows.)
To the Power Poll.
Los Angeles (5-0). The Rams edge the Chiefs for two reasons. Amazing balance and adjustments Sunday considering they rallied to remain perfect without Brandin Cooks and Cooper Krupp, each of whom suffered a concussion. Also, we simply trust the Rams defense more than the Chiefs.
Kansas City (5-0). Yes, Patrick Mahomes is the talk of the league. Did you see his 70-yard, in-the-air throw Sunday? And the Jacksonville Jaguars were impressed with the second-year gun-slinger. (And for the last remaining folks wondering why Alex Smith will always be Alex Smith, well, did you see Monday night’s game?) Seriously, when Rams-Chiefs play, the over/under has to be in the 60s right?
New Orleans (4-1). Wow, as fast as the Saints started, they looked even more robust offensively Monday. Yes, playing at home with all the Drew Brees love was part of it. But the biggest jolt was the return of Mark Ingram from his four-game PED suspension. Man, dude looked fresher and faster than everyone else on the field last night.
Chicago (3-1). Are we to a place in which the Bears, who if not for the second-half magic of Aaron Rodgers in the opener, have to be considered the favorites in the NFC North? With that defense and myriad of offensive options – a couple of RBs, a productive tight end, Allen Robinson, to name but four – we think so.
New England (3-2). Yes, the Bengals are 4-1, but we’re still not buying long-term stock in the Lewis-Dalton leadership combo. Plus, with Julian Edelman back we can make an argument for the Pats have the best collection of skill players in the league. Seriously. Is there another team that can go QB1, two RBs, TE1 and three WRs better than Brady, Michel and White, Gronk, Edelman, Gordon and Cordarrelle Patterson? We’ll wait.
Powerless
Atlanta (1-4). Enough about the injuries. Yes, they have decimated the defense. But at what point do the guys there not step forward and make a play. And can we put Vic Beasley’s photo on a milk carton already? Dude played 38 snaps in Pittsburgh Sunday and had as many tackles as I did. Unacceptable.
Oakland (1-4). If he was being honest with himself, do you think Jon Gruden watches Monday Night Football with the volume turned down and does the announcing with a wistful look and a tear in his eye. We say yes.
Arizona (1-4). Hey, way to go Cardinals. Moved out of the cellar. Speaking of that, Buffalo is out of the bottom five after beating the Titans. That was a brutal loss for Tennessee.
New York Giants (1-4). Hey, the Giants scored 30 points in a game for the first time since 2016. Still lost. There’s a bigger conversation here about Eli being cooked, but let’s have that one another day, can we?
San Francisco (1-4). Man the high hopes of the Jimmy GQ era have been dashed, at least for year one. And come next year, it will be interesting to see what they can put around a quarterback who already has a nine-figure deal before make 10 NFL starts.
Alabama junior cornerback Trevon Diggs, shown here breaking up a pass at Ole Miss on Sept. 15, is going to be out indefinitely after breaking his foot in Saturday’s win at Arkansas.Statements
Alabama could score 30 on the Buffalo Bills. Overstatement. But we think the results of the Tide vs. the worst NFL team will start to get some discussion. But think of it this way: The Falcons are right there among the worst teams in the league and may have one of the worst defenses we’ve watched in a long, Long, LONG time. Do you not think that Matt Ryan and that bunch would not score on almost every possession against the Tide? Of course they would. Still, the Tide might get four-plus TDs against the injury-riddled Falcons defense.
The Alabama-Missouri over/under will be in the 70s. Statement. It currently is at 74 with Alabama minus-28.5. That line stinks friends, and we truly believe that after Arkansas put up 31, the Alabama defense is going to be wicked angry come Saturday.
The SEC deserves eight ranked teams. Overstatement. Big time. Auburn is dreadful and would have a hard-time topping 30 on Sale Creek. And here’s to the comments Monday that had the SEC top four at Bama, UGa, A&M and UK. That’s not that far off.
Notre Dame just punched its playoff ticket. Overstatement, but just slightly. We think the Irish are headed for the playoff. The last half of the schedule is not overly challenging. And, remember last year when everyone was defending the Alabama schedule with “Well, no one knew that FSU was going to to stink” after the season opener? Well, Notre Dame will have that same argument considering that USC and FSU as well as Michigan are all on the Irish’s slate.
Georgia laying 7 right now is a steal. Understatement. Massively. If you can the Bulldogs from your entertainment broker right now and buy the half to 6.5, sweet buckets of entertainment overflow to pay for Christmas, we’re down with that. Friends, LSU had a September that will get Coach O an extension, but with the perspective of time, Miami’s struggles with the worst FSU team since before Bobby Bowden started cheating and Auburn’s parked-in-neutral offense make that amazing start less appealing, no?
Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker, left, and Freddie Freeman, who had the game winning homer, celebrate beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 of MLB baseball’s National League Division Series in Atlanta on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2018. The Braves won 6-5. (Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)Baseball, bye Braves
We will start with a rarity.
We’ll start with a thank you. To all of the Braves.
To the front office for keeping a young core together. To Brian Snitker who has endured the doubts and the long wait to maneuver his way toward being NL manager of the year. To Freddie Freeman, the lefty slugger with the Arnold Palmer-like abbreviated finish and baseball’s Godfather of hugs. To a middle infield that always surprises.
And especially to Ronald Acuna Jr., who is a flamboyant version of an up-and-coming Andruw Jones.
The Braves delivered a baseball season that was beyond expectation by almost every measure.
And more importantly than that, it was fun. I watched more Braves baseball this year than any season i recent memory, and watched a lot of the back-half of the season as Acuna was making his at-bats must-see TV.
It’s over now, the Braves finishing their run way beyond the places most of us would have expected, but still disappointed in the end. Everyone is, unless you are part of the beer-spraying postgame carnage that is crazed locker room of the World Series champs.
And, as TFP ace sports columnist Mark Wiedmer shares here, the Braves believe their best days are ahead.
It’s impossible not to think that way in truth.
The Braves have a ton of salary flexibility. As great as the story from Sun Trust in Smyrna was, it was easy to forget that the Braves paid almost $40 million to Adrian Gonzalez and Scott Kazmir to not play for the NL East champs. That’s $40 million right there to spend.
That $40 million, coupled with the the $11 million the Braves paid Nick Markakis is a pretty stout nest egg to fill some glaring gaps. (That said, we’d love to have Markakis back, but after his career year in 2018, the soon-to-be 35-year-old likely could get closer to $15 million. And let’s be really clear here, if right field becomes high on the Braves’ list to address, we can all agree that we’d rather spend $25 million on Bryce Harper than $15 million on Markakis, right?
If asked to play ghost GM for these Smyrna Braves – and since this is our family-oriented, interweb-based daily chat, well, we’ll give it a go – we’d set our list as follows:
Let’s start with what we have. Braves are set across the infield. Freeman is under contract, Albies, Swanson and Camargo all each still at pre-arbitration levels. (Because the Braves are the youngest team in baseball, here is a very brief explanation of the “pre arbitration levels” which is a term that applies for a lot of the Braves young rising stars. When a player gets drafted or originally signed as a free agent – meaning his first contract with any team – an organization has five years to call said player to the big leagues or they lose his rights. Once a player is called to the majors, his clock starts, which means the franchise has seven years of his ‘rookie contract’ when the clock starts. After the first three full seasons, the arbitration process starts. That’s one of the reasons the Braves did not start the season with Acuna on the roster. His clock started but this was not a full season, so he will not be eligible for arbitration until after the 2021 season. There are three (and very occasionally four years of the arbitration process before the seven years is fulfilled and a player becomes a free agent. So the Braves trio of young infielders are under their initial contracts (i.e., team-friendly) and will be until they go through the first three-to-four years in the majors before the arbitration process kicks in for the next few years. Understand?)
The Braves have Ender Inciarte and Acuna under contract in the outfield. Side note: That Shelby Miller for Swanson and Inciarte – a pair if Gold Glove-level performers at two of the most important positions in the game – looks better by the day. Miller’s 2018 numbers: 16 innings pitched, 24 hits allowed, five homers allowed and a 10.69 ERA. Egad.
Tyler Flowers is under contract for 2019 and while he was aces behind the plate he was less-than-effective at the plate.
Now will the Braves spend the type of money the Dodgers did in 2018? Of course not, but Flowers is a nice start to the bench and there still are some up-and-coming pieces like super third-baseman prospect Austin Riley. More on him and several of the young arms in a moment. (Side note: Could you believe how deep these Dodgers were in this series? When you have the assets to have David Freese, Matt Kemp, Brian Dozier and Chris Taylor coming off the bench, man, that’s hard to handle. The Dodgers’ platoon system is legit.)
Simply put the free agent market – unless a name such as Kershaw, Sale or Bumgarner opts out or does not have the team option picked up – for legit A1 starting pitchers is thin. According to wins above replacement (WAR), the top name on the free agent market is Patrick Corbin, who had a fine year in Arizona but certainly will get 150 percent of his true value because of supply and demand.
There are a few familiar names that could aid the bullpen, something that needs to be addressed beyond just saying, “Hey, this hard-throwing 22-year-old can do it because he throws it 96.”
And the Braves pitchers have to fix the walks thing. It has to be addressed or regular-season success will always become postseason struggles when every pitch is scrutinized and every at-bat made more meaningful.
So, what do we do?
Glad you asked. We try to move some of names in the the over-run of hard-throwing young arms. The Braves rotation next year will feature Newcomb, Foltynewicz, and Teheran. That leaves Gausman, Fried, Soroka and a couple of other young players available to move. Now add a Riley and a Dansby Swanson into that mix and you could make a package to a Houston or someone else for a legit A1 starting dude.
Then spend the free agent kitty on Manny Machado. Dude is a baller.
Will they do it? Probably not. Swanson’s a fine player who grew up 20 minutes (traffic included) from Sun Trust. But Machado is a game-changer and a top half of the order that goes Acuna-Albies-Freeman-Machado-Camargo-whomever is in right field-a catcher-Inciarte for a rotation that has a legit ace and Newcomb, Folytnewicz, and Teheran would be hard to handle.
Forget pleasant surprises. That would be down-right fun.
Again.
This and that
– All of the Divisional Series are done other than Boston-New York. Boston reclaimed home field with a record-setting 16-1 destruction of the Yankees. It was the largest road win in playoff history and the largest playoff loss for the Yankees ever. (Side note: Saying something was the “worst” anything in “Yankees postseason history” carries a little more weight and measure than saying the “worst loss in” say Padres history, you know?) Game 4 is tonight in New York and if needed Game 5 would be Thursday in Boston.
– As for the remaining postseason schedules, the Dodgers will play at Milwaukee in games 1 and 2 of the NLCS Friday and Saturday. Times have not been announced. Game 1 of the ALCS is scheduled for Saturday. The Astros would travel to Boston for the first two games; Houston would host the Yankees.
– Excellent Tweet here from NotBillWalton. “Indians lost. Braves lost. Redskins getting blown out. It really is Columbus Day.”
– Shouldn’t mistakes for umps and refs come with a consequence. Take Angel Hernandez last night for example. He had three – yes three – calls overturned in the Boston-New York game. Sure it did not have an effect on a 16-1 game, and MLB can thank its luck stars for that. (If that was a 5-4 game with three calls by the same ump, can you imagine the up roar?) Seriously, sports is a billion-dollar BID-ness that is about to be covered in the shadows of gambling. And as we talk about the “fix” being in, gamblers could not afford to buy-off players with today’s salaries. But umps and referees? Who knows. Again, Angel’s devilish night in the Bronx was not about the fix being in. But three overturns in the first four innings should at the very least require a call to the bullpen, no? Send him down the right-field line or someplace where he’s not going to mess up anything else.
– So, a 12-year-old girl in Philadelphia is denied a chance to play football because the area archdiocese is fearful of “inappropriate touching.” Hey, if anyone knows all about inappropriate touching, it would be the Catholic church. This story will get national attention sooner rather than later friends.
– And not to be outdone on a national story-level, Taylor Swift has jumped into politics with both guitars. So there’s that. OK, before we got to the point in which the political divide in our country made the Grand Canyon look like a pot hole, what kind of odds could you have gotten that Trump’s biggest support would Kanye and a former country music princess would go to the other side?
Today’s questions
True or false. True.
True or false, Drew Brees deserves a spot on the Rushmore of QBs.
True or false, the Braves will go farther next in the playoffs next.
True or false, eight SEC teams ranked in the top 25 is too many.
You know the drill. Answer a few, leave a few more. Play along from home if you like.
Oct. 9 is International Beer and Pizza Day. Yes, please.
It’s also Moldy Cheese Day, which begs the question of why does Moldy Cheese need a day?
On this day in 1926, NBC was formed.
As for a Rushmore, well, we asked about it earlier, so let’s have it.
Rushmore of NFL quarterbacks. Go.