Hacking Up Hairballs

Written by Rich Burkhardt Wednesday, 30 December 2009 19:17

With the end of the regular season almost upon us, just thought I’d take the time to offer up a few dubious “awards” as a result of some of the recent activities in the NFL.

5 hairballs and a big ol’ smelly cat fart to: Colts coach Jim Caldwell. With the 14-0 Colts leading the 7-7 Jets 9-3 at the half, Caldwell pulled a lot of his starting offense and let the Jets run all over them in the second half, resulting in a 29-15 win.

Now, I know Caldwell said in advance that he planned on resting players the last two games in what are essentially meaningless games for the Colts. They already had home field secured for the playoffs, and the thinking in Indy has always been that you don’t want to risk injuries to key players in that kind of game.

Still, it sucks. I’m not looking at it considering a perfect season; that’s irrelevant. I don’t even really care about the fantasy football implications, though I’m sure a lot of owners do. But everyone had plenty of chance to prepare for that and adjust their lineups accordingly if they so desired.

No, the reason this really sucks is because of the effect it had on the playoff picture. There were two 8-6 teams and six 7-7 teams going into week 16, all fighting for their playoff lives, and the Jets were one of them.

By pulling his starters, Caldwell gave the Jets an unfair advantage that the other teams didn’t have; they all had to play teams that were TRYING to win for one reason or another. The cheap win the Jets were handed by the Colts gave them a huge advantage: win in week 17, and they’re in.

Granted, they will have to beat the 10-5 Bengals in Cincinnati, but the way the Bengals have been playing recently ….back to back losses to the Vikings and Chargers followed by an unimpressive 17-10 win over the lowly Chiefs…that might not be the world’s toughest task.

Football fans everywhere, and particularly those of the other teams that were still in the AFC playoff hunt, should be outraged by Caldwell’s roll over and die attitude in this game. No. Caldwell doesn’t have an obligation to do anything other than what he thinks is best for his team.

Still, it’s sad that he decided that giving a game away to rest a few people last week was more important than trying to win. The last game of the season against the Bills in truly meaningless; he could have played his starters for the full Jets game and then rested them against Buffalo. Considering they’ll have a first round bye, which will give them two full weeks off to rest players, that would have been the more reasonable thing to do.

Four hairballs to: The New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings: These two teams are supposed to be the elite of the NFC right now. But with the top seed in the conference possibly on the line in week 16, neither of them could manage to win against far lesser competition.

The Saints, who were 13-0 two weeks ago, lost their second in a row and gave the Vikings a chance to at least catch them in a race for the top seed. Now, a loss to the Cowboys, who have been playing better as of late and are still in the playoff chase, is somewhat understandable. But an overtime loss at home to the Bucs, a 2-12 team coming into the game that they had demolished 38-7 in week 11? You’ve got to be shitting me.

Putting just 17 points on the board against a team that ranks 28th in the NFL with 25.3 ppg allowed is just ridiculous. Maybe the Saints are just not as invincible as was once thought. After all, they just barely managed to beat the Redskins and Falcons, and only put 17 on the board against the Cowboys. At this point, it has to be questioned whether or not they peaked with the 38-17 blowout of the Patriots in week 12.

Then there are the Vikings, who when faced with this golden opportunity, managed to somehow grasp defeat from the jaws of victory with a 36-30 OT loss to the 5-9 Bears. Not only did they lose the game; they made a mini-hero out of Bears QB Jay Cutler, one of the worst starting QBs in the NFL this year.

Going into the game, Cutler had a grand total of 19 TD passes vs 25 picks, and had been sacked 31 times, hardly stellar numbers. But against the Vikings, he managed to throw for 273 yds and 4 TDs to 4 different receivers. For one of them…TE Desmond Clark… it was his first TD catch of the season.

Two others, WRs Earl Bennett and Devin Aromashodu, both had one prior TD catch this year. Aromashodu had only 12 catches for 102 yds going into the game, but he got 7 for 150 yds and a TD against the Vikings.

Looks to me like both of these teams had better beware going into the playoffs. Right now the 11-4 Eagles, riding a 6 game winning streak, are a scarier team than either of them. The 10-5 Packers, who have only lost once in their last 7 games, the 37-36 thriller against the Steelers, are also dangerous right now, and even the 10-5 Cowboys look pretty good.

In fact, if the Giants rise up and beat the Vikings this week and the Eagles handle the Cowboys, the Vikings will drop to the #3 seed and miss the first round bye. Pretty sad for a team that was so hot a couple of weeks ago.

I’m sure I could come up with a few more hairballs, but my throat’s kinda sore from all of these, so I’ll stop for now. Maybe week 17 will provide me with some more fodder for fun. Enjoy the last week of the regular season, and good luck to anyone who still has teams in fantasy playoffs!