NFC tidbits for saavy bettors
By TED SEVRANSKY
Bears
Brandon Lloyd was an impact receiver in his tenure at Illinois, but he’s been a real bust in the NFL – until today. Lloyd was a difference maker on an offense that was desperate for a deep threat with Devin Hester sidelined.
That said, Kyle Orton didn’t throw a pass longer than 10 yards in the first quarter. His first deep shot was intercepted. And his interception that got returned for a Tampa Bay touchdown was downright awful, an ugly showing in front of the home fans once again.
Orton’s struggles extended to the red zone – three first half field goals, no first half touchdowns. As soon as Ron Turner opened up the offense in the second half, Orton looked better, finally hitting wide receivers down field and passing for his first touchdown in three games this season.
Bucs
This offense is not moving the football on the ground at all. With no running game, it was all on Brian Griese and Griese is prone to mistakes. After an early offensive touchdown, the Bucs had three turnovers and four punts on their next seven drives.
Year after year, week after week, this defense continues to make big plays - game changing plays and game winning plays. This week it was rookie Barrett Ruud stealing a pass away from the receiver in the end zone, Gaines Adams returning an interception for a touchdown and a forced three-and-out to get the ball back with enough time left to score the game-tying touchdown in regulation.
Cardinals
Be aware of West Coast teams traveling east for early start games. Arizona looked half asleep throughout the first quarter and was lucky to be trailing by only 10 points. Warner threw a surefire pick-six that was dropped and Washington couldn’t convert on a couple of scoring chances.
Even the coaching staff seemed out of it, unable to decide in a timely fashion whether to go for it on fourth down, costing them the chance after a delay of game penalty.
The Cardinals will be spending the week at a hotel in the DC area instead of returning home, then traveling up to New Jersey on Saturday to face the Giants, potentially alleviating this problem for next week.
Why? After the loss today, Arizona is now 2-15 SU in the eastern time zone since 2003, something Ken Whisenhunt is hoping to change. At least they woke up by the second half. I’m not sure there’s a quarterback in the NFL who throws the deep ball better then Kurt Warner; who had perfect touch on the touchdown bomb to Larry Fitzgerald.
Giants
This defensive front four is every bit as good as advertised, notching six sacks for the second consecutive week. But when the pass rush doesn’t get there, this secondary is vulnerable to big plays.
This team lost at home by double digit margins three times last year as a favorite and based on this performance, there’s absolutely no reason to trust them in this role any more in 2008 than we did in 2007.
Bet ‘em on the road, bet ‘em on the rare occurrences when they are underdogs, but do not lay big points with this team at home.
Panthers
This offensive line was completely dominated by the Vikings DL. Six false starts and a delay of game go a long way towards taking an offense out of rhythm.
There was no running game at all and Jake Delhomme put the ball on the turf when he took a hit more than once. Jon Beason was arguably the best rookie defender in the NFL last year and he looks even better in 2008. He’s all over the field, making tough tackles in space. We even had a Julius Peppers sighting, basically MIA for the last year – Peppers switched to right end and notched a sack, pressuring Gus Frerotte all afternoon.
Rams
St. Louis entered the game after converting only three of 24 chances on third down this year, by far the worst in the NFL. Even with their 5-12 here, it’s not much of an improvement for a team that went three-and out on their first four possessions and by the time they got the ball back for a fifth time, they were already trailing 24-3.
Marc Bulger is more than a little bit gun shy after all the hits he’s been taking. He has happy feet in the pocket and is rushing his throws.
But the offense isn’t even the biggest problem here – this defense is absolutely atrocious, giving up big plays galore. They can’t stop the run, they can’t stop the short pass or the deep pass and they can’t contain the quarterback from scrambling out of the pocket. Everything about this team is just awful.
Redskins
Antwan Randle El has been struggling, so Jim Zorn was forced to put Santana Moss back on the punt return, which isn’t exactly a best case scenario for the team’s top receiving threat.
Jason Campbell looked nearly flawless early, completing his first eight pass attempts - incredible for a quarterback who has had to learn three systems in four years in the NFL after learning four systems in four years at college.
Good decisions, snappy releases, accurate throws. He’s a completely different quarterback now in comparison to how he looked in Week 1 against the Giants’ ferocious pass rush.
Vikings
This passing game doesn’t look much better with Gus Frerotte behind center than it did with Tavaris Jackson. Frerotte has a big arm, but he tries to force things into coverage way too much and frankly, this receiving corps wasn’t making things happen.
This front seven is dynamite. Linebacker EJ Henderson was flying around the field, leading the team with 11 tackles. This defense has scored 14 touchdowns since 2006, most in the NFL.
Here, Antoine Winfield came in on a corner blitz, slammed Delhomme into the turf, forced the fumble, then picked it up and raced into the end zone, a real momentum-changing play.
It’s pretty clear that Adrian Peterson is not 100 percent, so why aren’t they pounding the ball between the tackles with Chester Taylor? I really don’t like the play calling here at all.
They finally put together one good drive before halftime, but, just like last week, it stalled in the red zone and they settled for a field goal. Their only offensive score came on a big pass play from outside the red zone. Their next red zone drive got down to the three yard line, then suffered back-2-back holding penalties, forced to settle for three again.