Tag Archives: football

Replacement Refs Need Replaced

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The NFL tried it’s best to downplay the use of replacement officials in the regular season. The truth of the matter is they nearly blew several games today. In the Green Bay Packer/ San Francisco game, you had a clear illegal block in the back that should have negated a 75 yard punt return by Randall Cobb. It was a touchdown that nearly reversed the game and the official picked up the flag. Why?? Every camera angle clearly showed the hit in the back.

San Francisco held on for a 30-22 hard fought victory but that call put their control of the game in jeopardy. There were calls in that game that were downright awful. Clay Matthews III was called for an unsportsmanlike foul when he was in the midst of tackling Alex Smith. This is still football right?? Several pass interference penalties that were of the ticky tack variety. Granted the calls went against both teams so at least they could each complain.

In the Seattle Seahawks /Arizona Cardinals game we had a Chris Webber moment. Seattle is racing down to take the go ahead score yet didn’t have any timeouts left. With under :40 seconds to go and in the Cardinals redzone the Seahawks called for a timeout. Cardinal players started protesting immediately they didn’t have any. In the booth, the head of the officiating, Mike Preira stated the “damage is done” with the long stoppage to argue the case. The Cardinals were clearly cheated in this situation.  Thankfully the Cardinals stopped the Seahawks on the next three plays or all hell would have broken loose at the NFL offices.  When the score is 20-16 in the 4th quarter, officials have to understand the entire situation just like the players and coaches do. To possibly have your opponent get an extra opportunity to rest and regroup could have proven disastrous.

The regular officials should be celebrating tonight with the bad officiating everyone was making sport of. Even in the telecast of the Steelers v. Broncos, Cris Collinsworth chimed that Al Michaels had more officiating experience than the guys on the field. Yes NFL, it was that bad and the regular officials need to have a deal made before week 2. Now granted it may have been the first week and the officials may make fewer mistakes next week but why take the chance? What happens when one of these gaffes results in a team losing?? Its not fair to the players, coaches, or fans to have that occur. Get the real officials back before the game suffers…

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2012 NFL Season Opener

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Here we go… the beginning of the regular season and The Chancellor of Football is already 0-1. Thanks Giants. Yet it’s time to pick the other games.

Indianapolis Colts @ Chicago Bears – Bears.. Julius Peppers should be all over Andrew Luck

Philadelphia Eagles @ Cleveland Browns- Browns in this week’s upset special….their defense is underrated

St Louis Rams @ Detroit Lions- Lions begin a championship march with a big win in week one

Miami Dolphins @ Houston Texans- Texans… just a better team. Not as strong as they could be this season from a personnel standpoint.

Atlanta Falcons @ Kansas City Chiefs- Chiefs should win their opener… Tony Gonzalez is back in KC for first time.

Jacksonville Jaguars @ Minnesota Vikings – Vikings at home will win their opener.

Washington Redskins @ New Orleans Saints_ The Saints will be too much for RG III in his first game.

Buffalo Bills @ New York Jets-  Bills will win with Mario Williams and a revamped Bills defense descends on the Jets pass pocket.

New England Patriots @ Tennessee Titans- Patriots should get after Jake Locker…Brady should do well in the opener.

Seattle Seahawks @ Arizona Cardinals- Cardinals and Larry Fitzgerald should win the opener…

San Francisco 49ers @ Green Bay Packers- Packers in a tight struggle. Rodgers is a great quarterback and should win this game late.

Carolina Panthers @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Tampa should win this one with a revamped defense and improved ground game.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos- Steelers Big Ben will win this game late and Manning will struggle against the Steelers as he did in Indianapolis.

Cincinnati Bengals @ Baltimore Ravens- Ravens will win it by suffocating the Bengals running game.

San Diego Chargers @ Oakland Raiders- Chargers will win it by being more solid on both sides of the ball.  Phillip Rivers starts a bounce back season with a win in Oakland.

 

 

 

2012 NFC Picks & Prognostications

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Well the 2012 season is upon us and the question beckons: Who will make it to Super Bowl XLVII?? Every NFL team believes they have made moves to improve their roster yet only 15 or so really has a legitimate shot to make it to New Orleans. Each NFL season takes on a new look as new players make names for themselves, injuries derail teams and give hope to others, and then you have teams that come from out of nowhere. The latter rarely happens but when it does it makes for great theater.

An interesting thing happens the season after a surprise champion wins it, everyone thinks the team that should have won it, will win it the next year. Many are pointing to last year’s 15-1 Green Bay Packers to win it all. They were defending Super Bowl champions last year right? If the NFL were a television show like the NBA has become, I could understand your argument. However injuries and performance peaks and valleys alter a football team’s fortunes every season. In 2010, the Green Bay Packers were 10-6 with 16 players on injured reserve. Yet they rode the momentum of winning their final regular season game all the way to a championship. Last year they rested their players going into the playoffs and the Giants promptly took their lunch money in a quiet exit from the playoffs. The Giants used the same method Green Bay had used the year before: Get hot going into the playoffs.

As for The Chancellor’s crystal ball on the NFC this year:

2012 NFC Playoff Predictions

1. Detroit Lions 13-3 ##  NFC North Champs Homefield Advantage

2. Atlanta Falcons 11-5  NFC South Champs

3. San Francisco 49ers 11-5 NFC West Champs

4. New York Giants 10-6 NFC East Champs

5. Green Bay Packers 11-5 Wild Card

6. Chicago Bears 10-6 Wild Card

NFC CHAMPION: Detroit Lions

It’s hard for some to wrap the thought of the Lions playing in the Super Bowl but this team is growing in stature and has the perfect blend of youth and talent. The strides they made last season with a healthy Matthew Stafford were immense and puts them in position to come out of the pack in 2012 a better football team. They will mature into that team as this season progresses. The NFC North as a whole will be the scourge of the league with the Packers and Bears also making the playoffs. The Packers took a big loss when they placed 2011 leading tackler Desmond Bishop on injured reserve. If they lose 15 more, that’s the recipe for their winning it in 2011…

Many folks point to the Philadelphia Eagles as a team to come into this season with something to prove. Yet their recent history has Michael Vick missing several games due to injury and 2012 will be no different. In the first six games he faces 3 of last year’s top ten defenses. Andy Reid’s job will be on the line with another 8-8 season as owner Jeffrie Lurie alluded to, but they will win 10 games.

Now many Saints fans will think their team is back in the hunt with the suspensions of Jonathon Vilma and Will Smith overturned. The Chancellor doesn’t see that. First off, the team has an interim coach standing in for interim coach Joe Vitt. The game plans of Sean Payton and in-game adjustments will be missed. The loss in continuity with players missing all those practices and which coach has what responsibilities will result in a few clock management mistakes. Count on it. Many point to Drew Brees as though he can overcome all of these obstacles, not without his confidant in Payton. The Saints will struggle.

As for the Dallas Cowboys, right now they have the number one defense in the NFL… except no one else has played. They did look good  in the win over the New York Giants. DeMarco Murray ran hard. However it was just week one and the NFL season is a marathon, not a short sprint. In a long race, the NFC North Champion Detroit Lions will be the team standing at the finish.

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2012 Regular Season Kickoff: Giants v. Cowboys

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I love the fact the NFL has started this kickoff classic series. The NFL season needed a celebration to start off the season the same as one is there to end the season with one team hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. Yet here we are…. Ready to go into the start of the autumnal part of the year and the last place for grills to be fired up is The New Meadowlands. The New York “Football” Giants are the heavyweight champion having won Super Bowl XLVI just 7 months back are hosting the Dallas Cowboys. Now seriously Jerry Jones has talked about the Cowboys chances this season and intimating that wholesale changes be made if there is another disappointing season. Well…kickoff is in a few minutes.


The Giants are going to win this one…. 27-19 

On This Date In 1994: Jerry Rice Eclipses Jim Brown’s Touchdown Record

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On this date 18 years ago, Jerry Rice scored this touchdown against the Raiders. It was his 127th touchdown to break the record of legendary running back Jim Brown.

On the first Monday Night Game of the 1994 season, there was an outside chance Jerry Rice could break Jim Brown’s touchdown record of 126. He entered the season with 124 and was in the prime of his career. The San Francisco 49ers were retooling their team to take down their arch nemesis in the Dallas Cowboys who bested them in the last two NFC Championships. At this time fellow Hall of Fame member Michael Irvin was starting to move into the “best receiver in the NFL” talk as well. All of this kept an already certain Hall of Famer Jerry Rice motivated.

In came the Los Angeles Raiders who had been a playoff team the year before. They had a defense that ranked 9th overall in 1993, and fifth against the pass. To bolster their defensive secondary they signed free agent CB Albert Lewis formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Raiders had just lost Howie Long to retirement yet thought this game would show they were still among the league’s elite. Surely with a young Terry McDaniel and Albert Lewis manning the corners they would stop Rice in the season opener…right??

In what was a microcosm of the 1994 season, the 49ers slaughtered the Raiders 44-14 on national television. This was the great 49er team that signed Deion Sanders, who went on to be NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and multiple free agents from the 1993 Pro Bowl. They would coast to a fifth Super Bowl trophy four months later.

Looking back at how great that team was with Sanders, Ricky Jackson, Richard Dent, Steve Young, and Jerry Rice all in the Pro Football Hall of Fame now was the greatest of the 1990s. In fact it was one of the best in history and the man who led by example on this day 18 years ago became the all time touchdown record holder. His record of 208 touchdowns will never be broken.

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2012 NFC East Previews & Predictions

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Robert Griffin III, the new hope for the Washington Redskins.

Its always interesting to watch the reaction of division foes when you have a surprise NFL champion. There will be responses from the Jerry Jones’ comments on the Cowboys “Super Bowl window closing.” As though they too can make the necessary leap from also ran to world titlist. You’ll have teams like the Washington Redskins make an immediate splash that will pay future dividends in drafting a dynamic quarterback like Robert Griffin III. While a loaded Eagle team, long thought to be the division’s most dominant, do minor tinkering figuring this to be the year they put it all together.

Meanwhile the steady Giants have just marched along with a ‘business as usual’ quiet approach to the new season.  However they did make a move in signing TE Martellus Bennett formerly of the Dallas Cowboys He will want to make an impact against his former team this Wednesday in the NFL’s Season Kickoff Classic.  How will things play out in the NFC East for 2012??

2012 NFC EAST PREDICTIONS

New York Giants 10-6 *

Philadelphia Eagles 10-6

Dallas Cowboys 6-10

Washington Redskins 4-12  

Hate to say it but the buzzards will be circling Cowboys Coach Jason Garrett by week 10. Take a look at Dallas early schedule and tell us who they will beat in their first 8 games. Maybe Seattle and Carolina as the only sure wins. Then they follow that up with back to back road trips to face a playoff bound Falcon team and the hated Eagles. Of 2011’s top 13 ranked defenses, they face 8 of them in a total of 10 games which doesn’t include the two with the World Champion Giants. For a fan base that doesn’t entirely believe in Tony Romo this could be it as the Cowboys will face a truly difficult season. The pressure heaped on an under talented team by one Mr. Jerry Jones will come back to haunt them.               https://taylorblitztimes.com/2012/05/26/the-chancellor-weighs-in-on-jerry-jones-comments-on-cowboys-super-bowl-window-closing/

As for the talented Eagles, they will frustrate their fans with games where they look like world beaters and then come up anemic against a team they should beat handily. Truth of the matter is we may have seen the best of Michael Vick already. At 32 years of age this isn’t the spry kid running around the SuperDome with Virginia Tech anymore. The hits have mounted and he has missed 7 games in the last two years. Now they have former Buffalo Bill Trent Edwards, who was a starter that was cut and not traded, backing him up and not a somewhat proven Mike Kafka. Uh oh!! Losing former Pro Bowl Tackle Jason Peters to injury this off-season is not going to help matters. Vick has to be more controlled with his feet and use his arm more to cut down on his hits. He goes down for another 3 or 4 games this season, that will be the losing streak that will allow the Giants to take the division from them when they face each other in Week 17.

McCoy operates best in space. To do so he needs Vick to remain healthy to be most effective.

For Eagles fans they have to realize the tactical disadvantage for RB LeSean McCoy this year if Vick goes down for any significant time. Sure he ran for 1,309 yards and 17 touchdowns but did so with Vick and Vince Young as quarterbacks. Peeling defensive ends and linebackers had to pay attention to those two mobile quarterbacks first. This gave McCoy freedom he won’t see with a stationary Trent Edwards on the field with him.

Although the Eagles ranked 8th in total defense in 2011, many are considering this a bounce back year for them. They did sign former Texans underrated LB DeMeco Ryans to anchor the middle of their defense and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is the new starting corner opposite Namedi Asomugha. They definitely need Namedi to live up to the billing as the top cornerback in football after signing him to that big free agent contract last year. Have they found the best way to utilize him yet?? Time will tell but the truth of the matter is this isn’t the same Eagles team of promise at the end of 2010. They have come back to the NFC East pack.

The Robert Griffin III experience will start in DC. Much like Cam Newton did last year he will have the chance to start Week 1 and offer a glimpse of the Redskins future. The talent level of the rest of the roster will keep this team in the division cellar as Griffin III develops. It will be a season of growing pains as defenses in the latter part of the year will know his limitations and game-plan better. It happened to Cam Newton last year as it has every young quarterback once defensive co-ordinators have studied a young quarterbacks tendencies. How well will Shanahan and the Redskins adjust?? Long season but hope for the future.

Two time Super Bowl winner and coming into the prime of his career, Eli Manning.

For the 2012 season, the World Champion Giants are the best team in this division for an entire season. Each team will have their moments or 3 to 4 week stretches where they look great…but for 16 weeks?? Eli Manning becoming one of the NFL’s vanguard at quarterback. Jason Pierre-Paul coming into his own as another great New York pass rusher. Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks have the talent to be the best starting WR combination in football. The only weakness this team has is running the football for the tough 3rd and 1 or goal line situations. They will work that out with Ahmad Bradshaw as the season progresses. As for defense of their Super Bowl title?? Starts this Wednesday when they host the Dallas Cowboys and expect to chase Tony Romo out of the building.

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