OK…I’ve settled down a little bit after yesterday. Here’s how yesterday’s hate session got rolling…well, I woke up at 6:15 listening to the people who live above me having a raging morning bang. They have hard wood floors up there, and the bed was making this stupid scraping sound and there was moaning, lots of moaning. Seriously, whenever I have morning sex, I give it the ol’ 3 pokes and a squirt, roll over, and ask when my waffles are going to be ready. I’m not a morning person, and as a matter of fact, the less human contact I have before I get some caffeine in me, the better.
But no, these people were banging like they were in front of a camera and shooting for an AVN award. So needless to say, getting waken up by that put me in a sour mood, let alone having to talk about 3 of the shittiest franchises in professional sports, though, that was eased by the awesomeness that is the Cleveland Browns.
So…onward! The SEC of the NFL AWAITS!!!
Indianapolis Colts: Peyton Manning is my favorite non-Brown NFL player other than TO. When the Brady/Manning debate comes up, even after last year, I still believe it’s a hands down, no contest, Peyton is by far and away the better man. I appreciate guys with ridiculous work ethic, and I’m not saying Brady doesn’t have it, I’m just saying that Peyton LIVES, SLEEPS, BREATHES, EATS football, and it shows. I admire obsessive qualities in people because I’m obsessive myself, and while Brady sure as hell isn’t a slacker, seeing his douchey face parading around town with some stick figure, butter face for some reason gets under my skin.
I love the offense with Addai, Reggie, Ugoh and Saturday. The defense, while I prefer an attacking style full of blitzes, is a scheme that has few holes, is more than the players that occupy the positions. You could put clown and Hef at the CB spots, and as long as Freeney, Mathis and Bob Sanders are manning the 3 important positions, they’ll be fine.
Plus…good QB’s win football games, they’re the difference, and when every other QB in the AFC South is an overrated piece of garbage, I like Peyton’s chances.
But Dungy is a bitch for sitting his starters against a divison foe and not trying to win…they do this shit every year, and the one year they don’t rest their starters, they win the Super Bowl. It’s not a fucking coincidence Dungy, don’t rest your starters. This has no correlation with them ruining the Browns’ chances for a playoff spot, none whatsoever (ok, I’m lying).
Prediction: Streak continues…12-4.
Jacksonville Jaguars: David Garrard is not a good QB. Listen…when you’re surrounded by a beast, mauling line, two Pro-Bowl caliber RB’s, and have giant, swift WR’s and TE’s (regardless of talent) you’re not going to have much pressure on you. Garrard threw only 3 INT’s last year…whoopedy do. I bet he threw the ball more than 15 yards downfield 10 times the entire year last year…in comparison, the Browns’ average gain on a completion was 12.5 yards…meaning the Browns actually wanted to score, the Jags just wanted to putz down the field.
I’m not saying they’re not good, far from it. The Jags should be called the Anacondas (lame) because, coupled with their ridiculous defense, anchored by the man-mountain John Henderson, they eat the fuck out of the clock, and when you’re losing the time of possession battle by 10 minutes, you panic and get squeezed to death.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4cXZGkRMCY&hl=en&fs=1]
They’re an incredibly dangerous team, but my only issue with them is, unless Garrard improves and starts getting the ball downfield, their ceiling has been reached. If he starts getting the ball downfield on a regular basis, they go from playoff contender to Super Bowl favorite, yes, even over the Pats, Cowboys, Chargers and Colts.
Prediction: Essentially a carbon copy of last year…11-5.
Houston Texans: This defense has all the makings of being a FORCE for a long time. Mario Williams was the one guy to beat Joe Thomas for a sack THE ENTIRE YEAR, something Jason Taylor, Terrell Suggs, James Harrison, Justin Smith, Aaron Schoebel, and every other RE the Browns faced couldn’t do. DeMeco Ryans is a decade-staple at MLB and Amobi Okoye is a 21-year old who already has a year of experience and played extremely well. These guys have a Hall of Fame ceiling.
Andre Johnson very well could be the best WR in football. He’s bigger and faster than Braylon Edwards, he runs routes like Reggie Wayne and can run people over like Marques Colston and Anquan Boldin. So what’s the downside? Oh, that’s right, Matt Schaub is the QB and he can’t stay healthy and really isn’t anything special (despite his metrics)…oh, and they have a TERRIBLE O-line and NO running game.
FAIL.
Prediction: Defense vastly improves to a top 10 unit, offense does the same thing as last year, still an improvement. 9-7.
Tennessee Titans: I want to like the Titans, I really, really do. There are two kinds of QB’s…surgeons (Manning, Brady) and artists (Romo, Vick – RIP)…oh, and then there’s Charlie Frye…fuck Charlie Frye. Vince Young is an artist…an artist who, because of AWFUL drafting is trying to recreate Guernica with a set of Crayola markers. Hey, Jeff Fisher, why do you want ANOTHER 4.3 running, workout wonder when you NEED FUCKING WIDE FUCKING RECEIVERS?!?!?!?! Jesus fucking Christ.
Has a great potential talent like Vince ever been saddled with such crap? Yes, LeBron James has…but LeBron plays in a sport where an individual can make a huge difference. Vince is facing 11 guys in a 15 yard x 52 yard box because the Titans have NOBODY who scares defenses. If the Titans had ONE downfield threat, they’d be a killer team. They have a great running game, serviceable line, but the worst group of WR’s this side of San Francisco.
Their D is insane, scratch that, Albert Haynesworth is insane. Back when I played football, I was a lineman (I also weighed 290 lbs) and to me, there’s nothing as crucial as owning the line of scrimmage, that’s where games are won an lost, not in the air or in space like the highlights show. Albert Haynesworth, in 2007, by his lonesome, owned the entire line of scrimmage. Yes, he was that good. Note, when he was out of the lineup with injury, the Titans D went from extraordinary to suck, lickety split, it’s not a coincidence. Keith Bullock is a sick mofo, Kyle VandenBosch is great too and I’m glad Chris Hope isn’t on the Steelers anymore.
Yes, Haynesworth is still there, but the Titans lost Travis LaBoy and Antwan Odom…this is not good. They went from 8 deep, to pretty thin in one offseason, and it’s not making Haynesworth happy…and you wouldn’t like Haynesworth when he’s angry.
Prediction: They just don’t have the WR/TE’s to push them over the hump…BIG regression, but HEY! Michael Crabtree should be eligible for the draft next year! 4-12…with ONE good WR…10-6.
Up next: AFC West…do I really have to talk about the WHOLE AFC West? Can I just talk about how awesome the Chargers are?




You used to be 290?!?!?
/off to buy me and Roman some jazz guitars
Seriously, what happened to Part 1 of this series?!
sportsgal, it was on wednesday. 1 a day. AFC East i think.
http://majorleaguejerk.com/2008/07/23/non-mlb-post-nfl-training-camps-are-getting-started-part-1-afc-east/
Thanks, I missed it (obviously).
clown…so when do we start our lessons?
seriously, roman – you’ve seen spencer. He probably weighs a buck thirty five. I’ll do whatever he’s doing. Short of moving to Ohio.
clown..I know man…crazy…I just got my new diet package in the mail…I need to lose a few pounds and by few I mean about 70lb..you know for the good of my heart…hopefully it works..if it doesn’t off the Cleveland with my Les Paul
what diet are you doing? Nutrisystem like your boy Golic? Let me know how it works. I’m at a hump right now that I can’t seem to get over.
Titans should go after Bolden… he wants out of Arizona badly now.
lost 80 lbs in 3 months…ate 1,200 calories a day, didn’t leave the gym until i burned 1,200…it was dumb, don’t do it. i got down to 179 lbs (where i was in my facebook pics – 4 years ago…ugh) that way after 5 months and was way too skinny.
then i learned about diet and exercise and got up to 225 with 5% body fat, but said fuck it after awhile because i was eating 4500 calories a day (pound of chicken, pound of beef or fish, 500g of carbs, 120g of fat like clockwork) and it was too much work to maintain because i sped my metabolism up too much.
extremes don’t work, if you wanna lose weight the best way, it’s not too hard, just work out 3-4x per week with weights, do some light cardio, watch your diet (eat smaller meals more frequently), don’t drink coke and be patient.
man spence that sounds like a lot of work
@August – I’ll second that. I doubt Arizona will let him go though.
Keep it coming, spencer. This is good stuff.
/olsen twins’ed
dammit, that didn’t work. let’s try this:
I know that this is a little petty, but anyone else worried about Manning coming off a surgery a week before training camp? Even with him at 50%, the Colts are still the best team in that division, but that should be something to keep an eye on.
/fist pump
spence, how tall are you? I’m assuming you’re over 6 feet since you played o-line, but 179lbs sounds really skinny to me. Then again, the weight to height ratio for guys is totally different than it is for girls, so I could be wrong.
@pki – I think Manning is so important to the Colt’s success that they would not rush him back and risk losing him for much longer.
im not really concerned about Manning’s surgery. it’s not really that major and he’s had knee problems in the past that haven’t hurt him too bad. plus, it’s not like he’s gets out of the pocket that rarely anyways.
SG…6′1”
Manning had the same Bursa Sac issue in college, and from what I remember it didn’t cause a problem there.
What ever happened to the Marvin Harrison case? Did it just go away?
that’s a good question…I haven’t heard anything about MarHar in a long ass time.
Good question, August. No mention of the incident here:
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8378422/Harrison-practices-with-Colts-at-training-camp
I don’t know what the big deal is. He was only allegedly involved with someone getting shot (at?) Who cares? He’s a pro athlete/famous person can’t they do anything they want?
@clown Re: weight loss slump – do you change up your work out routine? After 3 weeks of doing the same routine, I noticed I wasn’t having the results I had earlier. Once I started changing my routine up every week, the I started losing weight again.
sarcasm?
yep sarcasm forgot about the /sarcasm or whatever thingy