NFL 2012: I'm a Substitute for Another Ref

Sometimes I just like to put a Who reference in my titles... but really, the number one story of the NFL season as it begins today is those replacement refs. Will they screw up royally and change the outcome of a game/season? Or will they miss just as many calls as the regular refs do? Let's face it, the regular refs didn't always get it right either, and pro football does have the benefit of replay. That being said, I'm sure people will find The Replacement Refs to be even worse than the movie "The Replacements," where Keanu Reeves leads a ragtag bunch of scab football players to victory. I'm not sure if that will be the case, but it does give me a chance to say that the band The Replacements was pretty damn good back in the 1980s. There ya go, a football preview AND a Paul Westerberg reference...

Anyway, let's do this quick and dirty, as the season did kick off for the most part today, and therefore these picks already have a limited shelf life. Starting in the AFC East with my New York Jets... how about that 180 degree turn of events this afternoon? Apparently, Rex Ryan didn't just keep the Wildcat plays in his playbook; he kept THE ENTIRE OFFENSE in there. After scoring zero touchdowns with the first-string offense in the preseason, the Jets hung 48 on the supposedly stingy defense of Buffalo this afternoon. They scored in every possible way... Mark Sanchez throwing touchdown passes, Jeremy Kerley returning a punt for a touchdown, even a pick-6 for the Gang Green defense. Nick Folk even managed to kick two field goals successfully. Now obviously, this is a very small sample, but it's much more encouraging than what we saw in the games that don't count. Had I made my Jets pick before today, I probably would have said 8-8 and even that would have been wishful thinking. Instead, I think they're a playoff team again. Not good enough to beat the Patriots for the division title, but definitely a wild-card.

I hate the New England Patriots. I really do. But as long as Bill Belichick keeps coaching and Tom Brady keeps playing quarterback, and the front office keeps drafting players like SU alum Chandler Jones, there is no reason to believe they will relinquish their stranglehold on the AFC East. Buffalo had been considered a trendy wild-card pick by a few prognosticators. I think they're eating their words tonight with some extra Frank's Red Hot on them. CJ Spiller impressed with his 2nd half output, but they didn't get far without Fred Jackson last year, and if he's out for any extended period of time after his first-half leg injury, they won't get far without him in 2012. Or without the defense they were supposed to have, for that matter. Then there's Miami... um... well... at least you still have the Heat.

The AFC Central has been a tug-of-war between the Ravens and Steelers for the last few years. This year, there's a clear favorite. Baltimore will win the division. The Steelers are taking a step back, and will have to contend with the Bengals for a wild-card, and even then, neither team may get in. Sure, Andy Dalton impressed as a rookie last year in leading Cincinnati back to the postseason, but what can he do for an encore? In this age where kids go straight from first-round pick to wowing on Day One (see: Robert Griffin III), it's still important to maintain that success once you get there. I don't think the Bengals can do that. Cleveland may be playing for the first pick in next year's draft. Based on their recent draft strategy (and Brandon Weeden's first-game performance... you cannot tell me that he's better than Colt McCoy), they'll probably take yet another quarterback.

It was impressive enough that Houston won the AFC South and made their first-ever playoff appearance last season; that they cleared the last couple of hurdles with their third-string QB was even more impressive. Matt Schaub is back behind the controls, and the Texans have no real competition in their division. Sorry Tennessee, you're not that good. The Colts have their new franchise QB in Andrew Luck, but there was a lot of talent that needed to be replaced in Indy after last year's 2-14 debacle. It took 2 years for the Colts to jell around Peyton Manning to the point where he became the cornerstone of the franchise for a decade. It will take Luck at least that long. They'll be better than Jacksonville, though. The mere fact that the Jags recycled Mike Mularkey and gave him another head coaching job ensures that the Colts will finish higher. Meanwhile, people in Los Angeles continue to scratch their heads, and ask, "How is it that Jacksonville still has a team, and we don't?"

Speaking of Manning, he's now in Denver, and if he truly is back to normal, that would lock up the AFC West for the Broncos, right? Well, not so fast. I'm not sold on Manning as being 100 percent, not until I see half a season out of him, and with my doubts firmly in place, I'm going elsewhere to pick a division champion. The Chargers had a down year in 2011, but somehow Norv Turner kept his job. This isn't gonna be the case if they continue to struggle this year. Turner may soon be Chris Berman's new "Rasputin" coach, the title he once hung on former Detroit head coach Wayne Fontes, who always seemed to be one more loss away from getting whacked. San Diego wins the West. Denver contends for a wild-card. If Manning lives up to his past successes, they're in. If not, they settle around .500 where you'll also find the middling Kansas City Chiefs. The Oakland Raiders will plunge back to the AFC West cellar because... well, they're the Raiders. All of that optimism from last year will evaporate as soon as Raider Nation realizes that Darren McFadden can't play 16 games, Carson Palmer is past his prime, and you don't whack a head coach when you're on the verge of getting back to the playoffs.

Turning now to the NFC East... this is where I ask (like I seem to do every year) what the hell NFL experts are smoking, thinking the Dallas Cowboys will return to prominence this year. Yeah, Tony Romo may get an unfair share of the blame for the Cowboys' missteps in the past few years (well, except for their postseason failures, which are ALL on him), but it sure seems like there have been a lot of wastes of good efforts in Big D recently. He puts up numbers, but not W's. The defense is good, but doesn't win games. There just seems to be something hanging over the franchise, like some force that prevents good mojo from associating itself with "America's Team." Oh that's right, I figured out what it is... Jerry Jones. Anyway, the division is up for grabs between the defending World Champion Giants, and the Philadelphia Eagles, who will have to do way better than they did today to A) make the playoffs, and B) stop the fans from calling for Andy Reid's head on a weekly basis. Oh Eagles fans, you're nothing if not mind-numbingly consistent. "Yay, we're 1-0... but fire him anyway!" Oh yeah, how about that RG3? Washington's new savior hung 40 on the Saints today; apparently, he wasn't done putting video-game numbers up on the scoreboard when he left Baylor. Griffin will make for entertaining football, which Redskins fans desperately want to see, but it will only be good enough to put them ahead of just the Cowboys in the East.

I called it last year when I thought Detroit would become a playoff team. At the time, however, I thought they were building toward something greater. That went out the window when half the roster landed on the police blotter during the offseason. Despite the appearance of having less talent than a year ago (particularly with Jahvid Best injured yet again), the young Lions have learned how to win, and put that together with Matthew Stafford and Megatron, and they have a chance at sneaking back into the postseason this year. The Packers started the 2012 season with a spectacular thud against the Niners, but they're too good to stay down for too long. Chicago will be right there in the mix as well. The Vikings are getting a new stadium soon; now the question is can they build the team up to be a contender by the time it opens?

I expected better of Cam Newton today... because he's my fantasy quarterback, and because, well, he was another one of these awesome rookie QBs from last season. But give new Bucs head coach Greg Schiano credit for taking care of business and holding the Carolina offense largely in check. Tampa Bay pulled off a huge opening week win, and it kinda makes the NFC South a little more wide-open than we may have thought. Now Atlanta is the team to beat, but they always seem shaky, like they're capable of pulling off a stinker like they did in the playoffs last January at any time. New Orleans may not have to worry about losing their players to suspension after "bounty-gate," but you just have to wonder about the psychological toll on the franchise of losing their head coach for a year, the now-overturned suspensions, and the tense contract negotiations with Drew Brees right before training camp. So Carolina may have had an opening with Newton's continued improvement, but as we saw today, you can't just assume it will continue unabated.

Finally, in the NFC West, San Francisco took a giant leap forward today in convincing people that Jim Harbaugh's first season as head coach was no fluke. This is a team that is just rounding into form, with plenty of upside. In fact, they could be heading to the Super Bowl this February. It helps that they again will have no real competition in their division. Even with the Niners' success, I still consider the NFC West to be the Worst Division in Football. Seattle got a lot of hype as a possible challenger with Russell Wilson at quarterback, but they tripped over themselves and lost to the lowly Cardinals today. The Rams aren't a bottom-feeder, but they're not world-beaters, either. Arizona is still trying to figure out how to recapture the magic of their Super Bowl run from four years ago. So like I said, no real competition.

Here's how the records will shake out in 2012 (playoff teams marked with *)...

AFC East: New England 12-4*, NY Jets 10-6*, Buffalo 6-10, Miami 4-12
AFC North: Baltimore 12-4*, Pittsburgh 9-7, Cincinnati 8-8, Cleveland 1-15
AFC South: Houston 11-5*, Tennessee 8-8, Indianapolis 5-11, Jacksonville 3-13
AFC West: San Diego 10-6*, Denver 9-7*, Kansas City 8-8, Oakland 5-11

NFC East: Philadelphia 10-6*, NY Giants 10-6*, Washington 7-9, Dallas 6-10
NFC North: Chicago 12-5*, Green Bay 12-5*, Detroit 10-6, Minnesota 4-12
NFC South: Atlanta 10-6*, New Orleans 9-7, Carolina 7-9, Tampa Bay 6-10
NFC West: San Francisco 13-3*, Seattle 8-8, Arizona 6-10, St. Louis 5-11

Hoping for Mediocrity

As a sports fan, I'm pretty glum right now. Looking at where things are and where they're going for the various teams for which I root, glum's the word.

Recent 4-game winning streak aside (including finishing up a 7-2 season at Citizens Bank Park), the Mets have been absolutely dreadful since the All-Star Break. The low-water mark may have been when they followed up getting swept at home by the last-place Rockies with a series-opening loss to the Houston Astros, the worst team in baseball. At that point, the Mets had "successfully" compiled a 4-13 record against the three worst teams in the National League (including the woeful Cubs), and had an 11-30 record since July 7, the worst in baseball. Two-thirds of the starting outfield was sent to the minors: Kirk Nieuwenhuis after slumping badly for most of June and July, and Lucas Duda after not homering for 6 weeks and becoming a distraction in the clubhouse.

In a desperate move to stay in the race, Terry Collins sent Johan Santana to the mound twice with a bum ankle, only to see him get thoroughly shelled, sent to the DL, and eventually shut down for the year. The top pitching prospect, Matt Harvey, was stuck at Buffalo while an injured Santana, an ineffective Jeremy Hefner, and an over-the-hill Miguel Batista started instead. By the time Harvey finally got the call, it was too little too late. He has pitched quite well, going 3-3 with some great strikeout numbers, but he has gotten poor run support. All in all, we're looking at a 72-75 win season, and despite tonight's win over the Marlins, there is still a very real chance that the Mets will end up with the last-place finish everyone expected of them.

Now before the season, I would have been THRILLED with a 72-75 win season. Experts were saying it would be a good year if the Mets didn't lose 100 games. The problem is that when you tease us into thinking this team is better than it really is, that tells me that a rah-rah guy like Terry Collins is only effective for half a season. I didn't like the hire of Terry Collins to begin with, and what happened in Houston and Anaheim when he managed those teams is happening here. Good, encouraging starts, followed by miserable endings. The last two times a Mets team overachieved in a first half, hit the All-Star Break in contention, and then completely imploded (2004 and 2010), the GM and manager were both gone after the season.

I don't hold Sandy Alderson responsible for this mess, however. He's doing the best he can with the situation he has been handed. I still think the Wilpons should just sell the team, but that's not going to happen. Now Alderson has made some bad moves, most notably in the bullpen, but he got rid of the dead weight, made a culture change with Collins, brought along some good young talent, and things actually look brighter now than they did going into the season. But we need a manager who can really take this team into contention for a full season. Collins ain't it. He's shown previously that he's the guy who puts you in position for the next guy to finish the job. He got fired in Houston in 1996 after (wait for it) a late-season collapse. Larry Dierker promptly came in and won 3 straight NL Central titles. Collins got whacked in Anaheim in 1999. Mike Scioscia came in the next season, and 2 years later won the World Series. After this season, the Mets should look for their Dierker/Scioscia who will take this mix of solid veterans (R.A. Dickey, David Wright, Santana) and great young talent (Ike Davis, Harvey,  Daniel Murphy, Jonathon Niese, Ruben Tejada) and make a playoff run sooner rather than later. Naturally, they should also extend Wright's contract and keep him in Flushing for the rest of his career.

So with the darkening skies of the baseball season starting to push off, it's time for football. I'd be excited about my New York Jets, but they just got done failing to score a single touchdown with their first-team offense for the ENTIRE PRESEASON. It's hard to believe the Jets will make the playoffs with such an anemic offense, but Week 1 will tell us a lot when the Jets play the Buffalo Bills, a team that also struggled mightily on offense in the preseason. If one team gets it together in the opener, you have to think they're an early contender for the AFC East's lone Wild Card entry. If one (or both) continues to scuffle, it's gonna be a long year. I'll go deeper into the NFL in my customary pro preview next week.

College football opens this weekend, and opened quite well for my current school, Temple. Now, of course, they were playing Villanova... but it wasn't that long ago that Villanova beat Temple (2009). And the next year, Temple had to pull victory from the jaws of defeat against their Philly FCS rival. The last two years have been more one-sided affairs. Tonight's margin was 41-10. Temple joins the Big East this year, and just about everyone has them finishing last. Why? Because they're Temple. When last we saw the Owls in the Big East, they were pathetic (except against Syracuse). When the Big East kicked them out of the conference, Temple almost dropped football entirely. But in one of the true feel-good stories in college football, Al Golden resurrected the program in the MAC, got the Owls to a bowl game, and after Steve Addazio guided Temple to another bowl berth (and a win) last year, they were welcomed back to the Big East with open arms. And then promptly predicted to return to their losing ways.

There's real talent on this Temple team, particularly on offense. QB Chris Coyer is right out of the Tim Tebow mold, 6'3 and 230 pounds, and he will not only run you over, he will lay you out blocking for one of his running backs, as he did on one play tonight. Like Tebow, his passing needs work; although he looked good against Wyoming in the New Mexico Bowl, he threw too many passes at receivers' feet tonight. Matt Brown is the smallest guy on the field, standing just 5'5. He's also the most exciting. He rushed for 141 yards tonight and had a couple of electrifying kick returns. Montell Harris, the active FBS career rushing leader, joins Brown in the backfield after being kicked off the team at Boston College during the offseason. He was ineffective tonight (6 carries, 15 yards) and injured his hamstring, but you have to figure that a healthy Harris will cause some problems for Big East defenses. Also, third-stringer Kenneth Harper looked impressive, breaking a 38-yard TD run.

The defense has some impressive players, like freshman LB Nate Smith and ballhawking CB Vaughn Carraway, who tonight had a pick-6 and a fumble recovery that led to another Temple TD. However, Villanova's mobile backup QB John Robertson seemed to give the Owls defense fits at times when he was on the field. The secondary also struggled to cover receivers, although the Wildcats helped them out with a few drops. One wonders how they will do against a QB like South Florida's dynamic B.J. Daniels or Syracuse's Ryan Nassib. Next week will be a much better test, as the Owls play a Maryland team that they demolished last year in College Park. Temple seems to have Terps' coach Randy Edsall's number, having also beaten him in his last year at UConn in 2010. If they take care of business at the Linc and go to 2-0, the Big East should be served proper notice that the Owls will not be a cellar-dweller in 2012. However, the sky isn't exactly the limit either; this is still a tough conference. My call is 6-6, good enough for another bowl bid, as Temple picks off a couple of Big East foes and lays the groundwork for better years to come.

That brings me to Syracuse. My Orange, the team I have rooted for my entire life, were on the verge of recalling the glory days of the 80s and 90s when they followed their 8-5, Pinstripe Bowl-winning 2010 season with a 5-2 start to 2011, capped by a nationally-televised rout of West Virginia. Then, the wheels fell off. SU lost their last 5 games, and in doing so, whipped the obligatory crowd of Anonymous Internet Morons into a frenzy. The 'Cuse has the toughest non-conference schedule in the country; everyone has mentioned this. They open with a Northwestern team that went bowling last year, followed by top-ranked USC in a "home game" at the Meadowlands. FCS foe Stony Brook is no pushover, not with Iowa transfer and former 1000-yard rusher Marcus Coker joining the Seawolves backfield. Minnesota isn't the toughest team in the world, but it's a Big Ten opponent on the road. Missouri is also a road game, and they're certainly going to be a challenge. The experts picked Syracuse to finish ahead of only Temple in the Big East. Most predictions land around 6-6; some optimistic Orange fans think an 8-4 or 9-3 season is possible, and wouldn't it be great to take a Big East title with us to the ACC next year? Internet trolls are saying 4-8 or 3-9 and hoping head coach Doug Marrone will be dismissed after the season.

The upside is this SU team has a lot of depth right now. They have Nassib, a third-year starter who broke several passing records last year. They have Marcus Sales returning from suspension to be a deep threat at receiver, alongside reliable Alec Lemon. They have three running backs with game experience in Prince-Tyson Gulley, Adonis Ameen-Moore, and Jerome Smith. They have flashy freshman Ashton Broyld to run the "wildcat/stallion/whatever-it's-called." The defense goes two-deep at linebacker with players who have game experience. The D-line is seasoned and deep as well. Kicker Ross Krautmann is a third-year starter who "underachieved" last year because he missed more than one field goal, falling shy of his unreal freshman year rate of success.

The downside is that a lot of these SU players with experience haven't had that experience when the chips are down. They've looked good in spots, against lesser foes, and are still quite young at most positions. We know now (thanks to a great piece in the Daily Orange) that a lot of the defense was banged up late last season. Do they have their swagger back? With Sales back in the lineup, can Nassib deliver the deep ball at which he failed to excel in 2011? Will running back-by-committee work? Can the offensive line give these playmakers time and space to do what we hope they can do (especially without standout tackle Justin Pugh, who is currently injured)? Those questions - and the continuing uncertainty of some about Marrone, despite his much-better record than predecessor Greg Robinson - are why SU fans aren't sold on this team. Which SU will we get this year? The 13-7 team from 2010 through the 2011 WVU game? Or the 0-5 team that finished last year?

We'll find out right away, because Northwestern looms tomorrow at high noon in a sweltering Carrier Dome. I don't like to say that the first game can make or break your season, but this year, that could be the case. Lose to Northwestern, and you're looking at 0-2 after USC... and 0-7 since that October Friday night against the now-Big 12 Mountaineers. The vultures will start circling quickly. I'm an optimist at heart, so I'm going with the 6-6 prediction of my peers. They will beat NW, Stony Brook, and Minnesota out of conference to go to a 3-1 start. They'll knock off UConn in their 2nd crack at Coach P, they will pull another Big East win out of their hats in October, and they will knock off Temple at the Linc on Black Friday to get back to a bowl game. Imagine if the Owls and Orange are both 5-6 going into that game (much like SU and Pitt were going into last year's finale). Talk about tension.

So I realize that I just made "optimistic" predictions of 6-6 for both Temple and Syracuse. It's kinda sad that with the teams I follow, I'm hoping for mediocrity and just barely squeezing into the postseason. Unfortunately, such is the state of things right now. Oh, and my Buffalo Sabres start training camp soon. My expectation for them? Being just mediocre enough to squeeze into the NHL playoffs (if there's a season of course, labor headaches notwithstanding). I am nothing if not consistent.