LiveBall Sports

LiveBall Sports sort of kicks off it’s NFL Draft Coverage with a look at quarterbacks who can earn millions with a strong second half of the season.

Nothing kills an NFL franchise quicker than spending a high draft pick on a poor QB prospect.  Yet, teams throw millions of dollars at quarterback prospects that they clearly have not done their homework on.  It happens every year.  Will teams ever learn?

From the other perspective, drafting a successful quarterback can be an instant boost to a team that needs it.  Having the team infrastructure conducive to success is critical to helping a young player develop, but once you have the infrastructure, you risk losing that delicate balance if you don’t quickly find the correct trigger man for the offense.

So, keeping in mind that not every struggling team should be looking at quarterbacks until they fix their large picture issues, LiveBall Sports offers you this preview of some potential NFL Draft prospects at the quarterback position.

All prospects are graded based on the assumption that they will enter the 2010 draft.  For those of you reading this article with regards to the 2011 draft, a lot of the musings here will still hold, but the rankings for the juniors who don’t declare will fluctuate greatly.

1. Colt McCoy, Texas McCoy currently wears the title of “system” quarterback within the NFL draft, which was news to me until recently.  I guess it’s the same “system” that was responsible for that one Vince Young highlight that people keep showing me.

Here’s where McCoy stands: he’s a highly efficient college quarterback who is coming back to earth after an out-of-this-world Junior season in which, I felt, he was robbed of the Heisman trophy.  Here’s the thing though: McCoy’s college productivity is regressing due to a downturn in the quality of the Texas offense around him, but his completion percentage is still well over 70% of his passes at 71.6%, and still comes off as a top-flight NFL prospect.

It’s 2009, and we know by now that there will be an offense for Colt McCoy at the next level, but scouts will have their three months to fret over his relative lack of height and arm strength, which of course will be completely irrelevant come Sundays in the NFL season.  McCoy’s arm is merely adequate, but you can be a franchise quarterback without the ability to throw a ball through a brick wall.

2. Sam Bradford, Oklahoma The thing about Bradford is that he’s viewed much more realistically as a prospect right now than he was after his Heismann winning Sophomore year.  Bradford had no reason to go back to OU as a 5th year senior because it easily could have resulted in a tanking of his draft stick to the point where he becomes a mid round pick.  By coming out now, Bradford is going to be a first round pick for someone.

The reasons that Bradford, who has a better arm than McCoy, is behind his buddy from UT at this point is due to simple uncertainty.  Neither came out after their best college season and both players are more likely to end up in a beneficial situation because of it.  No longer does either project as a savior.  But the difference is, you look at what McCoy is doing this season, following up a historically great college campaign, and an NFL team has to be thinking, “I can work with this”.  The overall college production may not be there, but his team is winning games, and any team with two quality receivers has to be thinking that McCoy would look good getting the ball out quickly to them.

Well, with Bradford, that feeling is replaced with general uncertainty.  Yeah, teams should be able to win with this guy at quarterback, but…what if?  Bradford should be far more prepared for life as an NFL rookie coming off of this injury riddled year than he would have been coming off of a Heismann-winning season, but between his shoulder injury, etc. you just don’t know a lot about the differences between Sam Bradford, and OU QB 07-09.

3.  Tony Pike, Cincinnati Pike is a pure quarterback who may never be able to shake durability concerns caused by recent injuries to his throwing arm, and his tall, slender body frame.  The thing we know for sure about Pike: he can absolutely sling it.

Pike combines an NFL-caliber arm, with great field vision, some mobility, and leadership skills into one lower end first round prospect.  But what Pike brings that no one else in this class really does is consistent productivity on the back end of his college career, which is traditionally a great indicator of pro success.  It’s one thing to be great from the first snap, continue to be great throughout a career, and be projected at the top of the round, but the rest of the first day picks tend to be the guys with tools and the guys who improved throughout their four years and came around to get it done for their teams.  That’s who Pike is.

4.  Jimmy Clausen, Notre Dame Clausen is here because he’s having a better season than anyone else in College Football as a pure passer.  Of course, this makes him something of a one year wonder, but he wasn’t exactly chopped liver as a sophomore.  As a three year starter, Clausen’s resume is every bit as good as Matt Stafford’s was last year, when Stafford became the number one overall draft pick.  Of course, 2008 was not a particularly strong QB draft, so Clausen remains a low-end first round draft pick as of right now.  If he returns to school in 2010 and has an even better season, he’s the first overall pick in 2011.

5.  John Skelton, Fordham Skelton, a native Texan who plays his home games up in the Patriot league, will likely be playing on Sundays after graduation.  The four year starter has all the physical tools that are needed and watched by the scouts at the next level.

He will also benefit from the Jay Cutler sort of resume, where the player puts up decent numbers with no real team around him, and then goes to the combine and wows all the scouts, and develops a strong draft following.  Has high-first round potential, but realistically, he’s a second or third rounder.

6.  Tim Tebow, Florida Tebow has tendencies that would make doubters out of even the most open minded of NFL scouts (and there aren’t many on that end of the continuum), but you can’t overlook what the guy actually is: a three year starter and a four year contributor as a passer and a runner at a premier national powerhouse.

It’s because of his running that there isn’t a whole bunch of statistical evidence on Tebow as a passer, but what we do have suggests that he will be adequate, and not great at the NFL level.  A lot of scouts doubt the chance he will be adequate, though.  The franchise who takes Tebow must be willing to use more than just his passing acumen to get the most out of him.  Tebow can be easily worked with to throw to open players from the pocket, but unless he’s going to have wide open receivers in the NFL, his TD/INT rates will always be in the 1:1 range.  Teams that win with quarterbacks who produce like that have highly efficient passing games (which fits Tebow well), but also win with the running game.

Tebow has been somewhat exposed as a passer over the last two weeks or so, but he’s been so good for so long that he’s tough to write off.  He’ll be a first day pick.

7. Dan Lefevour, Central Michigan Another player who will have to answer questions with regards to having a rushing complex is Lafevour, who also happens to have thrown for 2,500 yards in each year of his career.  Lefevour has 25 total TDs in this season alone.  Better yet, he’s enjoying his most efficient year as a senior, with 70% of his passes completed for 7.6 yards per attempt.

He was recruited by Brian Kelly at Central Michigan out of Downers Grove, Illinois.

8. Zac Robinson, Oklahoma State Robinson, the starter for the Cowboys the last three years, is enjoying another great season.  Robinson’s ability to succeed as a professional passer will be based on his impressive downfield accuracy, which has been on display for the last three seasons at OSU.

The best of the rest…

9. Jake Locker, Washington (underclassman)
10. Tim Hiller, Western Michigan
11. Jarrett Brown, West Virginia
12. Max Hall, BYU
13. Jevan Snead, Ole Miss (underclassman)

Perhaps one of the more surprising outcomes of the NFL season is that the Arizona Cardinals are on track to outpace their regular season record from last year’s team that would go on to win in the playoffs three straight weeks.  The Cardinals are 4-2, and have quality victories over the Jaguars, Seahawks, and Giants.

It’s a team that’s currently geared to make another playoff run, so long as the offensive line and quarterback can hold up.  Which, to many, might be the most surprising part of their successful start.  The offense has been sorts of average this year, with the running game still struggling along, even while the passing game is barely keeping it’s head above water.  Beyond that, the special teams for the Cardinals are who we thought they were: nothing special beyond a reliable kicker, Neil Rackers.

The only difference between the current Cardinals and the de-facto 2008 division champs before they had done anything in the playoffs to separate themselves is the defense.  The defense that performed well enough to get all the way to the Super Bowl last season, but not well enough for Clancy Pendergast to keep his coordinator job.  This year, the Cardinals have combined their stingy run defense with a top ten passing defense to help befuddle their opponents.

Nothing the Cardinals do on defense is particularly confusing, as a review of the game tape for their match-up with the Giants shows.  The Cardinals are a disciplined team who could have the best defensive line in football.  This is not a resource they didn’t have in the past, but it’s clear that the Cardinals, under Pendergast, did not necessarily use every bit of the talent they had.  DL Darnell Dockett simply isn’t getting talked about enough as an MVP candidate in football circles.  Along with Albert Haynesworth, we’re talking about the two best defensive lineman in football right now.  Haynesworth has become better known as the “million dollar man”, while Dockett is just some dude that plays for the Cardinals.

Equally important to the implementation of their team philosophy is the physicality of which their secondary brings.  Antrell Rolle isn’t a particularly adept free safety, but he brings the sideline to sideline range that is standard for the position as well as a hard-hitting attitude that is channeled by the rest of the defense.  S Adrian Wilson has long been a superstar in this league, but his game isn’t about the versatility displayed by, say, Troy Polamalu.  Wilson is a guy that you put in the box near the line of scrimmage, and then he attacks.  Tight ends, running backs, quarterbacks, Wilson is a guy who will sort through the trash and make a play for you.  And Bryant McFadden is another name who can make the transition over to the new Cardinals defense after being developed by the Steelers.

The Cardinals don’t have a great system that will churn out superstar after superstar at linebacker, in fact, they don’t quite have the LB situation sorted out yet.  But while the process might not yet be finished, the results have been there for this unit this season.  Once again, they emerge as the favorites in the NFC West division, and the strides they have made as a team under Ken Whisenhunt this year should not be ignored, as he has to be the frontrunner for NFL Coach of the Year.  The bottom line: the Cardinals defense is the unit that no one wants to face right now.

During the 2007 season, the Dallas Cowboys won 13 regular season games behind a healthy, effective Tony Romo, a fantastic year from a 34 year old Terrell Owens, a very good season from No. 2 WR Patrick Crayton, and a typical between the hashes season from superstar TE Jason Witten.

Put simply, Romo played well, and the Cowboys had some GREAT weapons, as well as some good OL play.  A year later, the OL fell apart, Owens vastly declined, and much of what the Cowboys offense accomplished was done with smoke and mirrors, and Romo’s third down play.  The 2008 Cowboys were never a great offense.  They had no help from the outside, not from mid-season acquisition Roy Williams, not from Owens, not from Crayton.  Jason Witten had a nice year, but the offense was not dynamic, it was merely functional, and only when Romo was healthy enough to make all the throws.

Simply, the Cowboys weren’t going to be a factor in 2008 unless the Cowboys could get back to being the type of offense they were in 2007.  Over the first five weeks of the season, the Cowboys showed they could establish balance and run the football as well as any team in the NFL, but they did not show that they could sustain that balance.  Tony Romo was putting up good numbers, even prior to this last game against Atlanta, but his mistakes had been so mind-bogglingly awful that it was tough to see the Cowboys as a contender if the passing game was so horribly flawed.

But in their last two games, the Cowboys, and Romo in particular, have developed quite the number one target.  Instead of sticking with what wasn’t working in the passing game, and trying to justify the ridiculous trade for WR Roy Williams from Detroit, Romo has completed 421 yards worth of passes to their third receiver, Miles Austin, an undrafted WR from Monmouth who has been in the Cowboys’ system for 4 years.

Of course, that was third receiver Miles Austin.  Now, it’s go-to receiver Miles Austin, not only the best receiver on the Cowboys, but perhaps the very best route runner in the NFC East.  It’s Austin who will allow Patrick Crayton to go back to the slot where he has been effective in the past before, and will allow Roy Williams to hopefully settle in as a No. 2 reciever on a team that still has that running game to balance it’s passing game.

The unsung heroes in the remaking of the Cowboys offense is, well, the offensive line.  (No disrespect meant towards Marc Colombo’s career as a vocalist).  It’s an offensive line that was just horrendous last year, but now with a healthy drummer Guard in Kyle Kosier, the offensive line has solidified itself as a competent unit in a division dominated by defense (and generally poor OL play).

For the Cowboys to be competitve, they have to have the best offense in the division to account for their defensive shortcomings.  And with Romo functioning with help from Miles Austin, Kyle Kosier, Jason Garrett, and a three-headed running game, the new Cowboys are the best offense in their division, and a team that could ride this newfound strength all the way to the NFC playoffs.

Major League Baseball got what they wanted in this World Series match-up: they got the defending champs against the franchise that has won more titles than any other in history.  They got all the storylines and the intrigue that October, er, November baseball is supposed to be about.  When you consider that this league has had to suffer through (in recent years) Tigers-Cardinals, Red Sox-Rockies, and the intriguing but still terrible Rays-Phillies matchup, these two large market franchises playing each other are good for baseball.

What’s good for baseball is not always good for the national fan though, and I simply do not care about Phillies-Yankees.  I wish I could, but I’m thinking if I’m sitting around on Thursday night, I’ll be more inclined to watch the college football or UFL games than the World Series.

And that’s just the way it’s been for me in most years.  I love baseball.  I just haven’t gotten caught up in the playoffs since, oh, I’d say 2005.  I lived in the Chicago locality when the Cubs made their NLCS run in 2003, and when the White Sox won it all in 2005.  I lived in Michigan when the Tigers made their 2006 run.  As a fan of a team who hasn’t been to the postseason in my lifetime, I’ve had every reason to get caught up in the baseball postseason despite not ever having a dog in the fight.  It’s just never been all that importnant to me.  And now with the Yankees and Phillies matching wits in the Fall classic, it’s going to be just another off-season where I won’t be able to tell you off the top of my head who the world champion was.

Which does not mean I don’t have an opinion on what will transpire.  I’ll tell you this: the best pitcher in this series is not CC Sabathia, it’s Cliff Lee.  I don’t think the Yankee’s line-up is appreciably more dangerous than Philly’s.  And I don’t think you can say at this point that the Philadelphia bullpen is a liability.  It may not come down to it, but how much better of a job has Charlie Manuel done in the playoffs that Joe Girardi?

In my mind, the key players in this series are: Yankees outfielders Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher, and Phillies LHP Cole Hamels.  When the Yankees have had prolonged hitting slumps, it’s because they’ve been lacking in production from their outfielders, as you would expect.  I certainly don’t see a pitching advantage for the Yankees, maybe a negigible defense advantage, but if both Damon and Swisher have big series, they’ll be tough to beat.

Cole Hamels was great in the playoffs last season, but his up and down regular season (exemplified by a very good 1.29 WHIP, but a pedestrian 4.32 ERA), has led to three relatively disappointing playoff starts.  In this series, all he has to do is provide more production for the Phillies than Andy Pettite can give the Yankees.  If he does that, the Phillies have the stronger rotation, a very competent bullpen, and the edge in the series.

I’m picking the Phillies over the Yankees, in seven games.

Picking the thirteen games that will kickoff today and tomorrow.

Season record: 54-36 (60%).

Green Bay at Cleveland Cleveland has struggled to move the ball all year, and they’re more likely to give up points on offense than they are to score them.  Green Bay can’t protect their quarterback, but he’s not going to make enough mistakes for it to matter.  Packers.

San Francisco at Houston With the way Matt Schaub is finding seams in coverage, the 49ers’ gameplan to slow down Steve Slaton won’t much matter.  The world wants to see what Michael Crabtree is made of, but the Texans’ defense is coming together at the right time, specifically the pass rush (not so much the coverage).

San Diego at Kansas City In a game that could end up being a barn burner, Kansas City won’t really be able to keep up, as the Chargers get back to .500.

Indianapolis at St. Louis I have no thoughts on this game.  Just a pick.  Colts.

New England at Tampa Bay (London, Wembley Stadium).  The grass at Wembley stadium never holds up, which will negate a lot of the speed advantage the Pats have.  It won’t negate the chasm in coaching experience.

Minnesota at Pittsburgh Antwan Winfield is out.  Troy Polamalu is in.  Big Ben’s line is healthy.  And the Steelers will win by a TD.

Buffalo at Carolina Does Carolina deserve to be 3-3?  Not at all.  But after this game they will be.  Panthers win.

NY Jets at Raiders I’m pretty confident that the Jets have jet to fix what is wrong with them.  The Raiders may never fix what is ailing them, but they’ll very visibly look like the best team on the field today.  Both Mark Sanchez and JaMarcus Russell are young quarterbacks whose best days in the league might already be behind them.

Chicago at Cincinnati The Bengals are the team who is better in the trenches, and the Bears are the team will will win this game.

Atlanta at Dallas Because of the way they can run the football, and toss the football, and kick the football, I think the Cowboys can outlast the Falcons, who have some minor issues to sort out.

New Orleans at Miami Miami can do a lot of things to attack Gregg Williams defense, but they can’t do it in a manner that would catch Drew Brees and the Saints, who will light up the scoreboard against Miami rookie CBs Vontae Davis and Sean Smith.

Arizona at NY Giants If this game was happening between the 09 Cardinals and the 08 Giants, the match-up would probably favor the Cardinals.  However, with the G-Men really spinning the football in the passing game, and Eli Manning looking comfortable in the pocket, the improvement in the Cardinals run game will not mean much.  Giants throw it, and win big.

Philadelphia at Washington Washington’s defensive line is going to surprise a lot of people with it’s dominance of the Eagles’ OL, but a Redskins win would require Donovan McNabb to struggle against the rush.  Of course, he probably will.  I’m taking the Eagles anyway.

Because the Cowboys and the Falcons are playing.

While Steelers and Vikings is being billed as a possible super bowl match-up, it merely ends up as a regular season contest which is a minor help to the division title hops of the winner, and a minor deterrent to the loser.  Atlanta’s trip to JerryWorld is so much more than that.

For one thing, this game could very easily decide a  playoff berth.  The way the NFL tiebreaker system is structured, head to head match-ups decide all.  And with the Giants and Saints comfortably headed towards first round byes, both the Cowboys and Falcons might be looking at wild card seasons.

Of course, they’ll have to knock off each other before they can worry about the playoffs, but I want to demonstrate just how important this game is for the Cowboys in particular.  If they fail to beat the Falcons at home:

• They fall to 1-2 at Cowboys Stadium this year.
• They fall effectively three games behind the potentially 5-1 Falcons in the NFC Wild Card race.
• They still have one of the toughest schedules in the NFL the rest of the way, with only Oakland, Washington (twice), and perhaps San Diego as winnable games.
• At 3-3, the Cowboys will be behind the Eagles, Bears, Packers, and perhaps the Cardinals as well in the NFC Wild Card race, and with their playoff hopes in dire straights.

Of course, if the Cowboys do win, they’ll sit effectively a game ahead of the Falcons, and in the pilots seat for a playoff berth.  And things won’t be quite as dire for the Falcons.  But even the Falcons won’t play an inter-divisional opponent in the next two months who will have a greater effect on their playoff odds than the Cowboys.  Consider, if the Falcons lose:

• At 4-2, they could find themselves two games behind the Saints in the division.
• The Panthers, left for dead in the NFC prior to this, could move to 3-3 against the Bills.
• They still have to play the Giants, Eagles, and Saints (twice).
• They would fall to a disappointing 1-2 on the road, opening serious questions about their viability to play well away from home.
• They lost CB Brian Williams for the season, and they have major questions to answer about their defense.

All questions will be answered for one of these teams on Sunday.  For the Vikings and Steelers, the same certainly can not be said.

What does it mean to have offensive balance?

Normally, it’s an easy term for a television blowhard to credit for the improvement or decline of the unit.  Other times, it can be referred to as the delicate balance between the run and pass.  The real answer is either, “it doesn’t mean anything,” or somewhere between those two.

One of my biggest preseason criticisms of Brett Favre coming to play in Minnesota was that there was no way changing the quarterback was going to fix all their offensive issues.  Here was a team who didn’t protect the passer last year, committed a ton of penalties, employed a dynamic talent at running back who had a turnover problem (not to mention an ineffective backup).  As a result of all those things, plus inconsistent quarterback play, no one really knew what the Vikings had at receiver.  It seemed resonable to project that they didn’t have very much.

Turns out that the Vikings actually did have a lot of talent there, and the Favre acquisition just helped to bring it all out.  But it’s not all about Favre.  Adrian Peterson has upped his game, the offensive line has upped theirs, and Brad Childress has found a perfect blend of offensive balance.

We can’t really understate the value of that last part.  Too many times, plans like these have fallen flat because of a desire to “establish the run” with your best player, despite the prior two years as evidence that you cannot have one productive player and have an offense.  Childress knew that, as important as it is to get Peterson his expected level of touches, the offense is non-functional unless you can protect Brett Favre in any down and distance.

The biggest schematic improvement with the Vikings has been with the protection schemes.  Specifically, the right side of the line — different than last year — is getting the blocking back help it sorely needs.  The Vikings are relying a lot on misdirection runs to spring Peterson and even Chester Taylor.  They are pacing their screens much better as well, not just using them out of desperation like last year.  The key man has been C John Sullivan.  Matt Birk was a big loss, but Sullivan is no dummy, and as helped to solidify the interior OL.

Defenses have also made it clear to Childress that they will 8-in-the-box Peterson at any point in the game, which is just fine to Favre.  Peterson, in interviews, remains adamant that at some point, teams will back off and defend Favre.  That’s not happening anytime soon.  The Vikings are so tough to match up with right now, which they weren’t either of the last two seasons.  Favre hasn’t had to do anything spectacular yet, but he has been spectacular.  At no point in his career has football been this easy for him.

On top of everything else, the Vikings are great this year because they are healthy.  They’re more or less the equivalent of last year’s Panthers: a much improved OL plus a great bill of health plus a well coached defense that runs hard to the football is a winning recipe in the NFL.  Just remember, Viking fans, these are concepts just as fickle as the right arm as your veteran quarterback from the Gulf Coast.  The Vikings are not built on a principle of sustainable success and growth.  They are built to win right here and right now, and as long as they keep the balance and keep defenses guessing, this team is going to be pretty much unstoppable for the balance of the regular season.

In an upset that could have featured a few headlines: a pidgeon that covers kicks, Jamarcus Russell’s stunning show of competency, and Andy Reid’s surprising dedication to a lifeless pass game, I’m going to highlight the one that simply could not have made Al Davis look any better on Sunday afternoon: Richard Seymour.

One game can not make a trade worthwhile.  This is especially true when the other team is forced to play some guy named King Dunlap at LT because second rounder in 2006 Winston Justice cannot cut it at LT.  To make the trade worthwhile, the Raiders will need to win games because of contributions made by Richard Seymour.  This game is a nice building block; nothing more and nothing less.

Critical numbers: two sacks, a forced fumble, four tackles, and countless amounts of pressure on Donovan McNabb, who was sacked six times, and the Raiders did it completely with pressure on the passer: star CB Nnamdi Asomugha left in the first quarter.

The Raiders did it with pressure, while the Eagles failed in many different phases of passing.  When they were successful, they found Brian Westbrook in the open field, either by a well-executed draw play or short open field pass to an uncovered Westbrook, or a short crossing route to DeSean Jackson.  McNabb has long been an inaccurate passer, but when he posts numbers such as 22/46, it means he’s not seeing the field like he normally does.  The six sacks support this explanation: McNabb wasn’t seeing the field because he didn’t have enough time.

For the Eagles, this doesn’t strike me as just one game.  It’s not like they could have leaned on the running game more as Westbrook’s backfield mate, LeSean McCoy, got 13 yards on 5 carries.  Westbrook’s injuries prevent him from being a feature back at this point in his career, so when he goes for 50 yards on only 6 carries, someone needs to be able to capitalize on his effort.  The Eagles did not score a touchdown in this game, and that can be blamed on passing game inefficiency.

It was in an inefficient game in part because the Eagles managed to make Stanford Routt and Chris Johnson look like a decent CB duo, in spite of the loss of Nnamdi Asomugha.  The Eagles failed to take advantage of the coverage mismatch of Michael Huff against DeSean Jackson, as Huff is just now beginning to live up to his first round billing.

The Eagles are seemingly missing the contributions of Correll Buckhalter, who has moved on to better things in Denver.  Buckhalter was always an injury concern, but he was a very good player, and there’s been a small drop-off to McCoy, who was unproductive in this game.

The Eagles offensive issues are real, and can be exploited next week by a Redskins defense that is playing very, very well right now.  The Raiders get a reeling Jets team who will look to use receivers Braylon Edwards and Jericho Cotchery to stretch a secondary that doesn’t know if it will have Asomugha back yet.  I’ll say this about the Raiders and their defensive effort: Richard Seymour made a career out of kicking New York’s butts twice per year.  If he shows up and dominates a reeling Jets team, the Raiders have a fighting chance to make something of this season.  But it’s a series of must-wins for them up until the bye week, and they’ll need all hands on deck to challenge the Broncos and the Chargers this year.

Week six already?  Holy crap!

Season Record: 45-31 (59%)

Houston at Cincinnati If this game comes down to Carson Palmer picking on the Texans “secondary” in a game winning drive situation, then you have to like them.  But who says it won’t be the Texans who have the ball last?

Detroit at Green Bay Calvin Johnson, out.  Matt Stafford, out.  Mark Tauscher, in.  Better protection gives the Packers a comfortable victory.

St. Louis at Jacksonville St. Louis will come closer to a win this week then they have at any point in the past five weeks, but the Jaguars should be expected to hold on and win.

Baltimore at Minnesota The Vikings have a lot of offensive holes that I expect the Ravens to be able to attack, but in a close one, the Vikings are still the most complete team at this point in the year.

NY Giants at New Orleans The Giants may be a great team, but coming off of the bye, the Saints appear to be an unbeatable team.  They’ll win.

Cleveland at Pittsburgh Troy Polamalu returns, Derek Anderson stays.  Steelers in a blowout.

Carolina at Tampa Bay The Bucs are slowly improving under Raheem Morris, but the Panthers can keep them winless for at least one more week.

Kansas City at Washington The Redskins, for all of their faults, are undefeated at home this year, and Kansas City will not end that.  I’m taking Washington.

Philadelphia at Oakland I could abstain from picking, but I’d like the free point, so I’ll take the Eagles by a 17-21 point margin.

Arizona at Seattle The Cardinals managed a thoroughly unimpressive victory against the Texans with a horrendous second half that featured a INT returned for a TD, a goal line stand, and a lot of awful football.  This week, they’ll fall to the Seahawks.

Tennessee at New England I really think Tennessee has a good shot against a reeling Patriots team, but I still don’t see the Pats losing in consecutive weeks.  It’ll be close.

Buffalo at NY Jets Those three weeks were fun while they lasted, but they dumped the Bills at 1-2, and since then, the complete lack of talent on this team has carried the day.  Today, the Jets rebound easily.

Chicago at Atlanta Last year, the Falcons had a game winning FG drive that spanned six seconds and one play to take a win from Kyle Orton.  This year, they’ll beat Jay Cutler, and won’t take til the last second.  Maybe the last minute.  Falcons.

Denver at San Diego San Diego needs this win in the worst way, or their consecutive string of playoff apperances and division titles could be over in October.  I think the Chargers will get this win by the skins of their teeth.

Quick, pick the better conference: Big East or Big Ten?

Most people would agree that the Big Ten has been down the last year and a half (after all, Penn State did win it).  But the same people would likely argue that the gap between the Big Ten and the Big East is bigger than the gap between the Big East and the Mountain West.  There’s being down, like the Big Ten, and then there’s being out, like the Big East.  It’s a basketball conference, it’s not a profitable conference, it’s made up of programs that were C-USA programs less than ten years ago.

But you know what: while you might be able to look at where traditional powers Pitt and Michigan are and determine that both typify the state of their conferences, while noting that the depth of the Big Ten is stronger.

But when you talk about quality programs, I don’t want to hear about Ohio State or Penn State.  Because this year, Cincinnati is better than both of them.

Prior to his left arm injury tonight, Cincinnati QB Tony Pike was a legitimate leading candidate for the Heisman.  Who is the best player in the Big Ten, again?  Tate Forcier?  Can’t be.  Terrell Pryor?  Not yet.  Darryl Clark?  Barf.  The best offensive player in the big ten right now is either Penn State RB Evan Royster, Illinois WR Arrelious Benn, Wisconsin RB John Clay, or Iowa OL Kyle Calloway.

There’s star power in the Big Ten, but it’s all hype.  Meanwhile, the Big East as a conference is in under the radar, despite having West Virginia, South Florida, Rutgers, and Cincinnati making up 1/2 of the conference.  Pittsburgh is a historical powerhouse who is a fringe top 25 team this year.  But because of Louisville, UConn, and Syracuse (which has it’s own star power if not any additional success), this is a weak conference?  I’m sorry, that’s not adding up.  Cincinnati is a better program than any in the Big Ten (possible exception Ohio State) and the Pac Ten (exception: SC).  If the Big East isn’t deep, it’s not deep because it has only 8 teams in it.  Which is not an argument.

Not only is the Big East not the worst conference in Division 1′s FBS division, and not only is it not an extension of a mid-major conference, it’s probably stronger than the two conferences that comprise the Rose Bowl game.  There’s tradition, and then there’s empty hype.  For all the detractors of the Big East, well, their arguments are empty indeed.