Dappa Dan

Green bay AND the Saints not in the Championship game? Wow... How strong is the NFC this year. It's a shame one fo the two didn't make it through, the Giants don't deserve it at all, Green Bay handed them the game. Would love to see 49ers go to the Superbowl. They play with heart. But how gooddo the Pats look. Rumbling.

Agree with all of that DL7.

This league is nuts.

We got nothing. They'll use injuries as an excuse, but I think they're a bottom 10 side. Maybe even bottom 6. A lot of other apparently crap teams, with as easy a draw as the eagles have had, would have racked up as many wins as the Eagles, or more. And if Tebow can get the Broncos up, but Vick can't, that says a lot about the quality of the DC and OC, as well as the team in general. Awful.

Yikes. Now season's officially over. I don't know how that works, that it was over 6 weeks ago, but somehow they were still a chance. Fire sale at Philly... Jackson, Rodgers-Cromartie, Reid... Rollins and Howard from the Phillies... Going cheap.

By the way Nuggets, how can you NOT have any wild enthusiasm for the Pack at the moment? I gotta say if my tea were playing like them I'd be going off my tree. Or the niners for that matter.

If Young had screwed up badly, the Eagles would play Vick. They do have a tendency to lean on him. Reid's mancrush on him is intense. And it's fair enough too. The losses we've had have not been his fault by any stretch. Thing with Young, he'll throw an Int for every TD he drives you to. With a defence allowing only 29 yards rushing, and only giving up 10 points... that's better than any NFL team's average... on both counts.... by a mile. ANY quarterback would win. Vick would have won by a lot more. I'll take Vick at 80% over Young. But then, Young at 100% and with a LOT of confidence out of that game would be better than a winged Vick. Give me until the second half of the game I might change my tune. Especially with our secondary leaking big plays to Brady. Meh. Why are we talking about Eagles? They don't deserve any attention.

You think I haven't considered that last part? This is what the Eagles do though. They exist on the edge of oblivion, and then when they've done incredible things to put themselves into an enviable position, they blow it. Last year v the Giants perfect example. 3rd last game of regular season, they're losing by 3 touchdowns with 7 minutes to go... if they lose the game, Giants go a game and division record ahead (basically two games) and pretty much go straight through to playoffs. Instead, Vick leads the team back into it and Jackson runs in the punt before overtime and we win... thereby almost assuring Giants were finished for the year. Sure enough, we lose the last two games (resting everyone) then in the first playoff game against the Pack, Mick the [censored] Vick throws a pick. What a dick.

Gonna pick the Lions tonight over GB... they have to lose one, this may as well be it. Dallas will beat Miami, unfortunately. San Fran to make it 10-1 over Ravs. Over to you Nuggets.

QB merry-go-round looking interesting. Orton actually landed somewhere he might actually get a start, with Cassel gone for the season. Vick probably won't play on Sunday. Young actually looked pretty good last week. Awesome.

Stafford CAN play. Miami coming good just as the Eagles are due to play them. Palmer is Oakland's season... some say they're the biggest chance to win the AFC. Big call. Bears are 50-50 to make postseason with Cutler hurt. Niners are just fantastic. NFC championship game is all but theirs and Packers. They'll definitely get 1+2 seed. Giants and Saints won't. We'll know MUCH more in about three weeks. All these hangers-on will be gone. Steelers and hopefully Bengals will get the wildcards in AFC... and Lions and I think Falcons will get them in the NFC. Bears to drop out. Which is a real shame, they probably deserve it. Love their D.

Starting to take shape. Though in the NFC there's a glut of teams still in the running for the wild cards. I reckon the 49ers, the way they're playing, could go all the way to the superbowl. But I reckon they'll be playing the Packers in the NFC championship game, and will likely lose. I don't even know who to like from the AFC anymore. Ravens must give their fans heart attacks. Nobody believes Cincy are good enough, even though they're winning, Everybody thinks the Jets are a threat, despite getting knocked off by a college QB. Oakland might be up there? Pats? Steelers? ANd nobody seems to want to talk about the Texans who have a lovely balance.

Holy crap. ONe game to go this round and I picked 3 right out of 15 so far.... jeeeesus.

Season = over... not like it wasn't already. I'm a nasty loss to the Giants away from changing my Avatar. Disgusted. Rodgers-Cromartie, Jackson, Reid all gone. Vick half the player without the second two names there. And the rebuild that was suppose to happen last year is happening from now.

Nuggets, do you know of any other way of viewing games not scheduled (even delayed or postponed) on Foxtel or regular TV? And not on "gameday" either?

Yeah. I like what I've seen of Luck. How much would it hurt if the Colts bumbled their ways to having him after having Peyton all this time. Yikes.

Really? The College game (I'm sort of a default Crimson Tide fan), I just can't keep up with. As for the big games... The NFC East is going to be the big game division week in week out from here on in, I think. Or at least be up there. Mostly because of the profile of teams like Giants and Dallas, and how close that division might end up being. I would LOVE it if they did what the AFL did. Gave us something to watch 5 out of 7 days. They have enough games to do that. You could even divvy it up so that clubs play Sunday and Monday night games for half a season... then a bye to readjust... then go into less favoured time slots so everyone gets a go at it. Would be awesome. Football that often! Standings/ladder would be pretty hard to follow too, but we love that. Question for all NFL acolytes here. How in favour of the "conference" and "division" system are we in terms of the AFL? I'm 90%+ in favour of it. The only reason not to be would be the lack of enough teams. The idea that you'd obviously put interstate teams all in one division, and the Vics in another, whoch would mean they'd travel more. And that it's non traditional... IMO though, tradition has to at least in part be overlooked, as there's really not a lot in an 18 team comp that's the same as the traditional all-in ladder.

I'm not a gambler. How does that work? Do ALL of those teams have to win? My picks: Already picked SD... ouch. Atlanta to beat Saints. Carolina to get some reward finally. Steelers over Cincy. Ben to give Dalton a lesson. Tough one here.... I'll go Rams over Browns. Buffalo to smack around Romo... I hope. Colts to finally win one against Jags. Chiefs to beat Tebow... I mean Broncos. Redskins to beat Phins. Iggles over Cards. Texans over TB. Ravens to smash Hawks. Lions to smash Bears. No way Cutler will keep a clean uniform 2 games in a row. I hate to say it, but 49ers are due to lose one, and Giants have a LOT to play for in the next 4 weeks. Hope I'm wrong. Jets to smack leaky Pats... who will be the news of the week. 3 in a row. Green Bay to trample Minnesota. Want to pick against packers at some point. This will not be the game. [censored] Rodgers is amazing.

Nope. Couldn't disagree more. I was looking at averages per attempt. McCoy and Forte average more than a yard more than him per go, which is ENORMOUS in reality. Not only that but there have been games where McCoy DIDN'T get used as much as, say, Peterson and Jones-Drew who you HAVE to use. So no... Not only are there a handful of RBs that have been as good as Foster, there's a few that have been a LOT better. We're not the only ones who think this too. Which is not to say that Foster isn't a great weapon, but even since his injury, he's not up there with the big 3. You could easily have him ahead of that bunch from 4th onwards though, I'll give you that. Looking good. And best of all, no-one's taking about them despite the fact everyone thinks they'll take their division. Good position to be in. No pressure. They're tough those lists though. I think the Cutler love comes with the fact that everyone feels guilty that he gets sacked SO much. And the fact that now that they've stopped the sacks, he's showing how well he CAN throw. Is it enough that I WANT to like Ryan, and I WANT to hate Cutler ?(like everyone else) I agree though, I think his 15 minutes of fame won't last. He's part of that reeeeaally long list after the top five where you could place whoever wherever you like, and explain it pretty sensibly. ie, Ryan this year hasn't been as good as last year. Also, Cutler and his stats are pretty well the same in most areas. I liken it a bit to Eli (on a much smaller scale obviously). I hate Eli with a passion, and I don't think he's a top 5 QB in the league. But his production this year is what you have to go on, and in the end, I look ridiculous NOT putting him in the top 5. And in that sense, Cutler's not been awful. He's no McNabb...

I've been thinking that for weeks. The worst part of the media thinking the Eagles were "back" after smashing Dallas was the fact that you KNEW everyone would be quick to jump on their backs as soon as they dropped a game. If they're not already, they're fools. Haven't seen a bad game from them. Yeah. Then it'd be more like our footy. And yeah, would be nice just to have more sport to watch, and more variety in competitors. There's some talk of making it an 18 game season. Perhaps... But then McCoy had over 100 yards from scrimmage... and no turnovers. Tough one to call. Certainly on the season, Forte's marginally ahead. Peterson's the front runner here, but is somewhat vulnerable. Shame all three are NFC. Going to be competing with one another for the pro-bowl spot.

Harsh on McCoy, but I guess Peterson has to be first, and Forte has receiving yards. Top 5 WRs is a funny one. Just cos it seems to change wildly every year, and if you don't have a good QB, you'll never look that good. 1: Smith. Wow. Is it the Newton effect? Or the other way round? 2: Welker. Has a good QB, and should probably be further down. I reckon he gets no love mostly cos he's a shortarse. But his height is the only down point. He's awesome otherwise. 3: Megatron. What a terrifying, terrifying footballer. 4: Wallace. 5: Fitzgerald. Been in my top 5 for years. Or at least would have been since 2007ish, was I a fan. What a pro.

Yup. SD for mine. How is that division, by the way. Even Tebow is only a game from everyone else's .500...

I would agree that 10-6 might be enough (particularly with Philly's strong division record) but with now also Dallas in the hunt, it makes it mathematically more difficult, as they and the Giants still play one another. Also, Dallas' schedule is very ridiculously easy. If it was just the Giants they needed to reel in, that's one thing. But with both? That's gonna be hairy. Meh. After a 1-4 start, it was always going to be nearly impossible. I think what makes more of a difference is what we see in how they play. There's a few good players, and some elite footy going on. The Vick and McCoy factors particularly. But so much has gone wrong. What got them feared last season was their big-play ability. Jackson and Maclin in space. But since they got to 10-4 last season, they are 3-8, and in that time I haven't seen a single game that they won with that explosive footy that was a hallmark of the team when Vick took over. I would be all for the Eagles making 7-1 in these last 8 games, if they were playing their best. But they've played exactly 1 good game this season, and 7 mediocre/poor games. They'd have to mirror that to even have a chance. I just don't see it happen. Not to worry. It's not AFL. But it does suck that it'll be months before I can cheer on a team that can maybe make finals/playoffs. In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye on the pack. I like the way they play. And maybe the 49ers.

Was a bad loss, yeah. Though I've seen worse. Important stats: -There was 2 turnovers each, so on that basis, you would think we should get up, since there was an equal amount of disasters. -We handed Cutler his second EVER game where he wasn't sacked. EVER! -We got ten points behind, and midway through the third we were 7 up... from there, there isn't any excuses. -The last couple of possessions were what hurt us. Maclin dropped two absolute sitters all by himself during the game, then on fourth down he took a catch, and lost his footing a couple of yards short of the 1st down. -We went for a rare fake punt pass... we had 2 wide receivers completely left alone. The punted got it, and his throw was a few yards short of the WR on the right side. He had plenty of time, a wide open player, it should have happened. And if it did, it would likely have gone all the way to the house. The Bears played a great game. Cutler was very very good. But the Eagles had this one in the palm of their hand, and like the rest of the year, when the pressure's been on, we completely blow it on multiple occassions. Devastated.

Eagles season = Over. With that loss we're not going to be able to compete with the wild card teams like Chicago, Falcons, Lions etc... And the Giants are now 3 games clear, Dallas 1 game clear. Even if we went 8-0, we wouldn't make it.