Bergeaux's list of things - Week 11 (1 Viewer)

bergeaux

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Week 11
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The list of-

Things I Know
Things I Think I Know
Things I Know I Don't Know.



Things I know.


Phillips and Childress aren’t the only head coach in trouble. Pretty easy statement to say, but Mike Singletary, John Fox, Marvin Lewis, Gary Kubiak and Josh McDaniels are candidates to say goodbye before the season is up. I know McDaniels might surprise some to see on this list, but think about this: Since week 8 of 2009, the Broncos are 5-15 and they don’t seem to be getting better. The more McDaniels puts an imprint on the team, the WORSE they get.


Coaching matters. It’s probably obvious, but some tried to deny it with Phillips and Childress. And it isn’t just play calling, but team attitude, team unity, team leadership. It all starts at the top. Yes, there are obvious coaching mistakes this year such as botched time management on offense and seriously botched play calling (i.e. Houston’s late defensive schemes…), but there is a lot that goes on outside of that. Fundamentals aren’t even the topic here, but they matter too. It’s about being prepared correctly. It’s about teaching these young athletes maturity.


There’s a lot of football left to play. Six out of sixteen games left doesn’t sound like much, but Nov and Dec is a lifetime in an NFL season. Teams riding high will fall, teams in the middle of the pack will rise. There are four teams that “if the playoffs started today” wouldn’t make it in, but just this coming week could take the lead in their divisions, and two of them could jump from out to the third out of six seeds. And that’s just ONE week of play. There is the potential that the AFC West division lead could change hands between three teams in the next three weeks and only one team is probably coming out of that division. The AFC South could potentially change hands the same way in three weeks as well.


Things I think I know.

Ben Roethlisberger is quietly having a great year. Because of everyone’s focus on yardage, Big Ben isn’t getting noticed a lot. He’s only played 6 games so far, but has 101.9 QB rating, has an 8.4 yds/att average and is averaging 263 yds/game with 12 TDs and 4 INTs. He had a little slump in a two game stretch, but I think he’s getting hotter and hotter and might just well surprise some people. Watch out for this offense that no one is really talking about.


Either Vince Young or Jeff Fisher appears to be leaving Tenn. It appears that the Titans ownership is forcing the issue with Young for next year. If that’s the case, I think that Fisher may be gone. If this indeed is the case, Young should be gone before Fisher. Fisher knows football and is an excellent coach. If ownership decides to force Fisher out for Young, I think it will be a mistake that will haunt Tenn for a long time. What a shame considering how much Fisher has given to that organization.


Coach Frazier should sit or cut Favre. Why would they play Favre? He’s not the future. Heck, he’s not the present. He’s playing awful; he’s making game killing mistakes. Why not try Jackson and see if he learned anything in the last season and half watching Favre? Heck there are a few practice squad QBs on other teams that might be worth trying out if you cut Favre. If only Childress hadn’t traded Sage Rosenfelds to NY Giants. What a debacle Childress left.



Things I know I don’t know.

Will there be any NFL football in 2011? It’s not looking good for even a scrub season. The players union is positioning for decertification. If that happens then the teams couldn’t have a draft or any sort of order to signing scrubs or line crossers. The owners are pretty serious about their demands to lower player costs and up the season to 18 games. The players union is not happy about either. There doesn’t appear to be any fire under either side to get something done. If there is no contract by the combine, it doesn’t look good to even have a draft.


Will we see an 8-8 division winner this year? And will we see an 11-5 team miss again? Those two likelihoods are probably related. It’s looking like the NFC West could produce an 8-8 division winner. The AFC West will all come down to San Diego. If they remain hot, they will likely win the division with a decent record. Otherwise, it’s very possible that division also produces another 8-8 division winner. We also have a potential 11-5 team missing in the NFC. And does that mean anything if it does happen?


Can the Colts recover from all the injuries? It may not be obvious to most, but the Colts are in trouble. Yes, they are tied for the division lead, but lose in tie breakers. And in the ever famous “if the playoffs started today” scenario, the Colts would be sitting at home out of the playoffs. They’ve lost two of their last four and are really banged up. Already thin at the WR, RB and DB spots, they need to get healthy and hot quick or they will be sitting at home. The other question is how does Jim Caldwell handle this adversity? This is the first real rough patch that he’s faced as a head coach. The Colts still have enough talent to pull this off, but it’s not going to be as easy as one might think.
 
Decertification means that the owners won't be able to lock the players out, which means that we WILL have football in 2011. The draft happens with or without a lockout and with or without a players' union. The Union decertified back in the 90s, and things went on OK.

Regardless of what happens, there will be NO scab players.
 
Will there be any NFL football in 2011? It’s not looking good for even a scrub season. The players union is positioning for decertification. If that happens then the teams couldn’t have a draft or any sort of order to signing scrubs or line crossers. The owners are pretty serious about their demands to lower player costs and up the season to 18 games. The players union is not happy about either. There doesn’t appear to be any fire under either side to get something done. If there is no contract by the combine, it doesn’t look good to even have a draft.

You really don't understand the labor situation at all, do you?
 
I'd hate to see Kubiak get fired. The Texans remind me of the 2007-2008 Saints. We didn't know it then but we were right on the cusp of tremendous success and I think the Texans are in a similar situation. Just like our team then, all they need is some defense. Maybe they'll hire John Fox as DC this offseason. They've got some players on D (Mario, Cushing, DeMeco); mostly what they need is some leadership on that side of the ball. I think they're *that* close and it would be a big mistake to 86 Kubiak right now.
 
I'd hate to see Kubiak get fired. The Texans remind me of the 2007-2008 Saints. We didn't know it then but we were right on the cusp of tremendous success and I think the Texans are in a similar situation. Just like our team then, all they need is some defense. Maybe they'll hire John Fox as DC this offseason. They've got some players on D (Mario, Cushing, DeMeco); mostly what they need is some leadership on that side of the ball. I think they're *that* close and it would be a big mistake to 86 Kubiak right now.

Kubiak is a doofus and should of been fired last year. He has ZERO killer instinct.

Bottom line Kubiak has been there 5 years now, and last year was their first winning season at 9-7, and its looking like another 8-8 this year if they are lucky, maybe 9-7 again if they are really really lucky. Most likely he is toast and rightfully so.
 
You really don't understand the labor situation at all, do you?


Are you sure that you do? The only information we can go on is what we hear either on NFL Network (bit of a bias there maybe?), on the web from bloggers (Florio...) or what you may glean from the NFLPA's website (again, biased).

Of course nobody wants to derail the money train, but the facts as they stand right now include:

Ownership/League want 18 games per season, players don't.
The implication by the League that the NFL is one entity, not 32 separate businesses, which is how they CAN stage a lockout, which leads to why the NFLPA has been taking steps toward decertification. That is the only way they can force the hand of ownership in the event of a lockout.

Negotiations are at an impasse and have been so for a long time. They likely will continue until the very last minute. Until then, you don't know any more about the labor situation than the OP.
 
Yeah I was thinking the same thing about McDaniels. Too bad cause I think he's a good coach. Can't chop as many heads as he did without hurting morale.

I live in Nashville and I think Fisher stays. Fisher wants to see Young mature too. But what we could see developing is another Jerry Jones Syndrome where the owner has too much imput on his team.
 
Decertification means that the owners won't be able to lock the players out, which means that we WILL have football in 2011. The draft happens with or without a lockout and with or without a players' union. The Union decertified back in the 90s, and things went on OK.

Regardless of what happens, there will be NO scab players.

You really don't understand the labor situation at all, do you?

Hence the category, things I know I don't know.

Exactly.

Here's what concerns me and what I don't know. If there is no contract and the players decertify, how do the owners have a draft without breaking labor laws? If you were coming out of college as an accountant and accounting firms tried to have a draft that determined where you were able to go work and that's the only company you were able to negotiate with, how would that be legal? It wouldn't. The only reason the NFL can do that is because they had a contract with the players union and the 32 NFL teams.

Without that union and the contract, the draft is illegal. The only answer is to not have a draft at all. I don't understand how this will work (again hence the "things I know I don't know") and it seems to me to be really dicey. Maybe, I'm wrong, but what the decertification does is shut down the NFL completely with no scab players, no games, nothing, unless the players are allowed to negotiate with the teams like the wild wild west with no restrictions. That said, I don't see how the owners will be forced to go through with the 2011 season. They are businesses and they can just suspend operations for a specific time period like any other company can. (again maybe I'm wrong)

The owners have prepared for this possibility financially, the players have not. Which is why they are trying to pull out the "nuclear option" of decertification.

I admit, I don't really know for sure how all this works, but I don't think many on this forum do either. If anyone can explain how the NFL can have a draft and any sort of order to player movement without a union, I'd love to hear it. Also if anyone can explain how decertification forces the teams to play games, I'd love to hear that explanation. I'm not saying I know, I'm saying that logic tells me otherwise. Maybe I just don't know the rules/contracts well enough.
 
Yeah I was thinking the same thing about McDaniels. Too bad cause I think he's a good coach. Can't chop as many heads as he did without hurting morale.

I live in Nashville and I think Fisher stays. Fisher wants to see Young mature too. But what we could see developing is another Jerry Jones Syndrome where the owner has too much imput on his team.

Who knows what will happen with McDaniels, but he's not off to a good start. He's basically blowing up the team and starting over from scratch and maybe he explained that to management before hand and has the runway to get started and will be fine, but most teams wouldn't wait too much longer for some results. Things are getting worse not better as they approach the 2 year mark of the McDaniels experiment.

I hope you are right about Fisher staying. For the Tenn fans sake. He's a great coach. We'll see what happens.
 

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