NFL at the 1/3 Pole

As we get ready for tonight's MNF matchup between the Jets and Dolphins, I have a few musings on my mind regarding what has happened.  A lot of things have left people scratching their heads, but if you've watched football for any length of time you should know that this is par for the course.  Here are some of the more interesting things worth noting.

Handshake-gate:



Alright boys...play nice
(from huffingtonpost.com)

 Yesterday after 49ers knocked the Lions from the ranks of the unbeaten, 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh in his exuberance raced across the field to shake hands with Lions coach Jim Schwartz.  When shaking his hand, Harbaugh seemed to give a somewhat forceful slap on the back, and according to Schwartz, uttered an obscenity in his direction.  Schwartz obviously did not take too kindly to this action and proceeded to chase Harbaugh all the way down the field toward the tunnel, having to be physically restrained from Harbaugh while Harbaugh is jawing back at him.  It appeared that Schwartz may have been challenging Harbaugh to a fight.  What to make of all of this?  The answer: absolutely nothing.  Nothing. At. All.  OK, I get it.  Coaches are supposed to set the example for the players.  The fact that this has drawn out more than 24 hours after the fact is purely childish.  Schwartz didn't like the way Harbaugh shook his hand, fine.  Gripe about it at the postgame presser.  Coaches naturally have the moral authority over the players, but you lose it immediately with the way he reacted to Harbaugh.  However, the fact that this is being played up as big as it has been is utter nonsense.  We saw the same thing after Bill Bellichick gave a fishy handshake to Eric Mangini after the Jets beat the Pats a few years back.  Talk about what's on the field...except an analysis of the coaches shaking hands (or not). 

What's Up is Down and What's Down is Up

Many of the teams making noise right now are not who we thought would be at the start of the season.  On the other hand, some of the teams expected to be better have been nothing more than mediocre.  This shouldn't come as much of a surprise considering that the playoff turnover rate is over 50%.  Nevertheless, not many would have predicted the 49ers, Lions, and Bills would be at or near the top of their respective divisions.  On the other hand, the "Dream Team" in Philadelphia is only 2-4 and the Redskins, who many considered would be 0-fer at this point, are still 3-2 despite yesterday's result and still have the whole season in front of them.  The Colts, even without Peyton Manning, are 0-5, still very surprising.  The NFL's operative word for the last decade and a half has been parity, and this has not been more on display than in the last couple of seasons.  Now, do I think any of those aforementioned teams have a chance at winning the Super Bowl?  Perhaps, but then you look at a team like Green Bay who just looks downright unbeatable right now.  Then you have New Orleans, who looks like they are right where they want to be despite an opening night loss in Green Bay and a coach with a bad knee.  Then you also have the Patriots, who don't have as dominant a defense as they once did, but with Brady threatening 500 yards on a weekly basis, they look like they will be there in the end. 

The Year of the Quarterback

Many pundits are blaming the crackdown on illegal hits on defenseless receivers and the overprotection of quarterbacks for the explosion of passing statistics in the early season.  I humbly disagree.  Lest we not forget, there was no offseason this year due to the lockout.  Don't give me this nonsense of "player organized workouts."  They were just going through the motions for the cameras.  The coaches have the gameplans, both offensive and defensive, and no player was allowed any contact whatever with coaches for the duration of the lockout.  Therefore, what were the players learning?  The answer is not much.  Now, offense had as much contact with the coaches as the defense did.  However, this is where you have to look at the rules changes.  Give guys like Brady, Rodgers, and Brees any kind of time, they will pick defenses apart.  If the defenses had appropriate offseason time to prepare for these kinds of offenses, you would not have seen the glut of 300 and 400 yard passers like we saw in week 1.  Now that we are 6 weeks in, you are actually starting to see the defenses catch up, and the offenses are coming back down to Earth.  You could argue that we are now finished with the "preseason" and defense is about where it should be going into week 1.  Thus, we are not seeing several teams routinely crack the 40 point mark.  Games with lots of points are definitely exciting, but at the same time the chess match that comes with a defensive game makes for lots of intrigue. 

There are just a few musings as we wrap up week 6 tonight and get ready for week 7 tomorrow.  Can you believe that we are already 1/3 of the way through the NFL season???