LiveBall Sports

Cincinnati at Balitmore Two three and one teams will play for the right to lead the NFC North through the month of October today.  It’s the Bengals though who have been doing it with defense, and the Ravens have been doing it with offense, relatively speaking.  If things hold steady, I like the Bengals to get a big road win, although this game is basically a toss up, and the Ravens are the team with more upside.

Cleveland at Buffalo With the way the Bills have been playing, it would be hard not to think the Browns will get their first win today.

Washington at Carolina One of the worst teams in football to date has been the Carolina Panthers.  It’s been embarassing to watch this team fall all over itself in the past two weeks.  The Redskins have not been quite as bad, but you’d have to think that if the Panthers can correct just a few things after the bye, they’re a good bet to win.

Pittsburgh at Detroit Daunte Culpepper is under center for the Lions today which makes them a much better team overall.  But the Steelers offense will not struggle with the likes of the Lions and Culpepper has no chance to keep up the pace.

Dallas at Kansas City The Chiefs sit at 0-4 right now, and the turnaround is not coming just yet.  Not this week, at least.  The Cowboys know how critical it is to get to 3-2 in the NFC East, and against the Chiefs, they’ll be able to take care of business.

Oakland at NY Giants It would be easy to predict that the Raiders will show a sign of life, but that the Giants will still win the game.  I’m predicting you’ll see no such thing from the Raiders.

Tampa Bay at Philadelphia You already know that Tampa Bay is winless on the year, but have you heard that the Andy Reid’s Eagles have never lost a game coming off of a bye week?  Take the Eagles.

Minnesota at St. Louis Another matchup between a winless team and an undefeated team?  St. Louis will not break their winless streak in this one, and they will not break Minnesota‘s bid at an undefeated season.

Atlanta at San Francisco This one pits two teams who are probably a bit overrated, but certainly among the best teams in their respective divisions to this point, against each other.  The 49ers have earned their 3-1 start, but they are just the kind of team that the Falcons have preyed on the last two seasons.

Houston at Arizona I still don’t buy the Texans, but I hardly think that a bye week is going to fix what has been ailing the Cardinals.  The Texans offense has been playing as good as it ever has, and with the Cards sputtering, I’ll give the nod to the Texans.

New England at Denver We’ll let the legend of Josh McDaniels grow for one more week before we get to chip away at his legacy.  Denver is in store for another late season collapse, but the Broncos will beat the Patriots at home today.

Jacksonville at Seattle Seattle’s offensive line has been perhaps the most disappointing unit in the NFL to date.  Their secondary is a close second.  This situation isn’t as bad as last year with the receivers actually being both healthy and productive, but the Jacksonville Jaguars need not to set the world on fire in order to move to 3-2 after today.

Indianapolis at Tennessee This is an easy pick.  I don’t know what 0-4 Tennessee Titan team I can expect to see, but I know that no matter what version of them shows up this week, the Colts will beat the living daylights out of them.

NY Jets at Miami A grind-em-out ball control offense vs. a true rookie quarterback?  Throw out those records, and give me the Miami Dolphins at home.

Thursday’s UFL debut that featured the Las Vegas Locos and the California Redwoods didn’t arrive with much fanfare–or many fans, for that matter–but the teams showed that the principle that the UFL is built on: that there is a surplus of talent in professional football, held true.

Over the next six weeks or so, the biggest thing the UFL will have to fight against is the perception that they’ve simply re-instated NFL Europe here in the states.  One of the biggest advantages they have is that NFL’s usage of NFL Europe kept any true future talent from playing in the developmental league for fear that they might lose a player to injury.  Marketing the product of football without being able to rely on star power is impossible.

So in that respect, the UFL was smart to hire four coaches with NFL-name recognition, because it not only makes the games more interesting from the fan perspective, but makes it more appealing as a developmental league for players who aren’t rostered by NFL teams.

The league formerly known as the AFL (arena football league) tried to bill itself as “the league which created Kurt Warner”, which plays off the concept of star power.  But the league eventually went under because it failed to hold that marketshare over the years.  The AFL was a much different game, and really needed to take advantage of the differences, not to let itself become a gimmick or a punchline.

For the UFL, the legitimacy that they have on launch is more important than having a stadium full of fans in the first week.  Because the overall product feels a lot like NFL Europe.  But it doesn’t have to be joined at the hip with the NFL in such a manner, and certainly can distance itself from everything that is wrong with the NFL without becoming the XFL.

One of the things that the UFL seems to have done right is that it’s being used by NFL veterans who are currently unwanted by the 32 teams to show that they still have something to offer for a team during a playoff run.  If you play a season in the spring, one of the biggest disadvantages about your league is that players who perform well enough to get a look at the next level simply get one of 80 roster spots, which puts you just a rung below Jessey Holley on the NFL totem pole.  By having a full season, during football season, that ends in time for the home stretch of the NFL season, the UFL has really positioned itself to become the first true developmental league for the NFL: it’s doing what all of the NFL affiliates have failed at in the past.

Sure, a league where JP Losman to David Kircus is a top passing tandem leaves a lot to be desired for fans looking to get the best product for their dollar, but with NFL ticket prices at all time highs, I’m not going to sell the UFL’s ability to establish itself as just that, short.

Finally, you’ve got four pro-style offenses in the UFL, and one of the main things I think college football has suffered from in the past few seasons is that the proliferation of the spread creates a product that a lot of fans feel a disconnect to.  The spread may very well be an optimal form of offense for college teams, but if you can choose to watch Denny Green and Jim Haslett duke it out on a Thursday night, or you can watch Nevada-New Mexico, well, that’s a battle the UFL can win.  And more importantly, it’s the kind of competition the UFL needs to win to be viable in the long term.

So while I was hardly impressed by any of the football on the field, the fact that it was even being played represents a major step in the development of a minor league in football, and I’m in full support of the UFL’s attempt to find it’s niche in the football marketplace.