Week 17 Coin Toss: Let's Talk About Playoffs!

Coughlin's job could be on the line
Sunday night against Dallas. (Getty)

Stally: Let's defy Jim Mora and talk about playoffs!

I'll take the NFC to kick off with the coin toss. The only spot that's still up in there poises to be a great Sunday night matchup between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys. But, there's one problem: it's hard to label a winner-take-all game as "great" when the two teams playing are both 8-7.

Theoretically, the AFC West can be won at 8-8, while the NFC East will at least have a team over .500. However, the NFC East is surprisingly bad this year. Can we return the long-lost title of "NFC Least" to this division?

Food for thought: is it getting old seeing these mediocre teams (2010 7-9 Seahawks, 2008 8-8 Chargers) making the playoffs because they won the division? Should there be some change in the system to ensure that, say, the 2008 11-5 Patriots or 2010 10-6 Giants (or Bucs) don't get hosed out of a spot for some team they could stomp all over?

Week 16: Season's Greetings

Sorry for the formatting weirdness. We'll fix it when we can this afternoon.

New Yorkers are guaranteed that one of
their teams will win this weekend. (AP)

It's a busy day for the OXen.  Stally has his Alumni Hockey game, while Austen is going to the Meadowlands yet again for the New York rivarly game.

We want to wish a Merry Christmas to all our readers and a Happy Hanukkah to Cougar, Fisch and any other animal named fraternity brothers we might be forgetting.  Travel safe, be merry and watch football!

Stally (Eight-Point Pick) - @Pittsburgh over St. Louis

Stally: Big Ben not starting kind of hurts the aura of the Steelers, but, let's be real, Charlie Batch won three of four for Pittsburgh as a sub last season.  Plus, the Rams are terrible.  Oh yeah, and the Steelers are at home.  I'm still confident with this pick.

Week 16 Coin Toss: Quarterback Controversies

There are questions about whether Blaine
Gabbert even cares about winning. (Getty)

Stally: This week, we're going to talk about the quarterbacking future in the AFC South.  Fair enough to say that Matt Schaub is the long-term solution in Houston, Matt Hasselbeck is the short-term in Tennessee with the hope that Jake Locker can learn from him and take over at some point.  Entering the year, Indianapolis had one of the better QBs of all-time in Peyton Manning, while the Jacksonville Jaguars had just drafted their quarterback of the future, Blaine Gabbert.

The Jags were so confident in the ability of the 10th overall pick that they cut last year's starter, David Garrard.  Gabbert ascended to the starting position midway through a Week 2 blowout the Jets, but he hasn't ascended anywhere past that since.  His 65.6 QB rating is dead last among the 32 qualifying quarterbacks.  He's even worse the Indy's Curtis Painter (66.6).

He completes 50.6 percent of his passes, averages a measly 148 passing yards per game, has thrown just 11 touchdowns in 12 starts and has been sacked 36 times.  The one bright spot is that he's still managed to throw more TDs than interceptions (10), but I'm really just trying to find a silver lining here.

A Day Late and A Buc Short

Stally's Goal Line Stand

Freeman's stock has taken a big hit. (Getty)

It's a day after the Tampa Bay Bucs lost to the Dallas Cowboys 31-15 to fall to 4-10.  The final score doesn't do the rout justice, as the Cowboys were on a 28-0 romp at halfime and more or less put it in auto-pilot the rest of the way.

The rough Saturday night home loss comes one week after they lost to the then-3-9 Jaguars by an embarrassing score of 41-14.  Not only has Tampa Bay not won many games, but they haven't been in many of them either.

They lost 38-19 two weeks ago to a similarly bad Carolina team, and they've also lost 37-9 to Houston and 48-3 to San Francisco.  Forty-eight to three in the NFL!?  That's almost as bad as Indy's 62-7 loss to New Orleans!

While Austen and many other analysts saw some sort of sparkle with this team, I always identified it as a pyrite (fool's gold).  Sure, they won 10 games last year, but nine of those came against teams with losing records.  (The 10th was a Week 17 win over a New Orleans team that was locked in the NFC's fifth seed.)  They beat the Browns and Bengals by three and the Rams and Redskins by one.  They were far closer to being a 7-9 team than a legitimate playoff team.

Week 15: Margins of Victory

Tebow would waste his time praying
to be better than Brady.  He'll need
to focus on scoring points! (Getty)

After several dissenting opinions last week, in which the OXen basically tore the sandwich down the middle and each ended up half, their on the same page this week.  In fact, if you count out the Bills-Dolphins game that nobody cares about, the biggest argument seems to revolve around how much the Patriots victory over the Broncos will be.

Other than a few good late and/or prime time games, most of them seem to have a decided favorite and no one's really sticking their neck out on a huge upset.  Several of these games might end up lopsided.  Here's the S.O.B. story for Week 15:

Austen (Eight-Point Pick) - @Atlanta over Jacksoville

Austen: Well the Falcons already blew out the Jags so I won't spend too much time on this one. However, the Jags are a complete mess, especially on offense. They simply can't get anything going and as long as Blaine Gabbert is their starting quarterback, it won't get any better this season.

Week 14 Final Score

Other than MJD's four TDs, there
weren't many surprises. (Getty)

It was a good week for the OXen.  Austen got all eight of his draft picks correct, while Stally only missed two.

Tampa Bay's loss to Jacksonville was the only one game that both picked incorrectly, amounting to large pick 'em totals for each, despite several disagreements over the games (Austen won that battle 3-2).  Austen was able to win the week, thanks to Arizona's big upset over San Francisco, but he still suffers chronically in the season draft, where he falls to 3-11.

Week 14

Week 15 Coin Toss: Franchise Decisons

Miami turned the lights off on the coach
that always wore sunglasses. (AP)

Stally: Two coaches were fired this week.

Miami's Tony Sparano was let go after a 26-10 loss at home to Philadelphia. The Dolphins have won four of their last six, but started the season 0-7. Sparano originally got the job in 2008 and led the Dolphins to the playoffs in his first season, thanks in part to the then-revolutionary Wildcat offense that he often ran with RB Ronnie Brown lined up in the shotgun.

Meanwhile, Todd Haley was canned by Kansas City. He was in his third year and the team has dropped five of its last six after starting 4-3. The Chiefs had plenty of injuries to go around and did make the playoffs last year under Haley, but he was just 19-26 in his Kansas City coaching career.

Breaking them down separately, what do you make of the two firings, Austen? Were they justified and would you have made the same decision as the GMs that fired them?

Austen: Let me start with the Dolphins situation. Tony Sparano should have been fired after last season. I am not saying he deserved to be fired, but the Fins went after Jim Harbaugh, failed, and then told Sparano basically, "I guess you are our best option... for now."

Monday Night Misery

Stally's Goal Line Stand

One flop on MNF was more than enough
from the Rams this season! (Getty)

I've managed to get a Goal Line Stand out each week so far, but this weekend it seemed too close to everything else we were putting out to force another article on everyone.  Plus, I have something that really needs to addressed and directly relates to Monday, so I figured I'd roll it out at the appropriate time.

As hypocritical as it might sound after my stand last week that Andy Reid's tenure with the Eagles was about over (I never called for his head, merely conjectured an outcome), I don't usually find it fair to call for someone's job.  Heck, even today, I found a post on the Facebook wall of NH Motor Speedway saying that the organization should investigate the social media person (me).  The guy was mad that the Deal Share people for people to sign up for required an email.  (Um, hello?  That's how we contact you about cheaper tickets!)  I disregarded it, but it's always offensive having someone saying you should be fired.

That said, whomever oversees the Monday Night Football schedule at ESPN, should...be...fired!

The games that this person approved for MNF are routinely some of the worst games of the week.  Even before a team like the Colts or the Chiefs turned out to be far more inferior than expected, we had a terrible slate:

Week 14: Varying Opinions

Ravens look to sack the Colts to leave them at lucky 0-13.

There's a lot disagreement with this week, with the OXen arguing over five different outcomes.  Let's get right to it!

Stally (Eight-Point Pick) - @Baltimore over Indianapolis

Stally: We've both lost our top picks at some point this season.  Something neither of us have lost: picking against Indy.  It seems like the logical choice again this week.

Austen: Ditto. There is nothing to say here. The Ravens could win this game if they started Ray Rice at quarterback.

Austen (Eight-Point Pick) - @Pittsburgh over Cleveland

Austen: Well this game already happened and the Steelers almost fell to the Browns due to an injury to Ben Roethlisberger. Lucky for me, the Browns offense is terrible and the Steelers defense held strong. That's why I took this first overall because there was almost no scenario in which the Browns could have won this game.

Week 14 Coin Toss

I wonder if Ditka could even coach this
decimated Bears team into the playoffs...

Stally: Let's talk about daaaaa Bears!  Each week, we seem to address the impact of injury.  Thankfully for those of you down in Houston, for once, we're not discussing one of your players.  (Although, for the record, I'm very worried about another possible Andre Johnson injury and how it will affect my fantasy team.)

The Bears lost Matt Forte with a sprained MCL, which is expected to keep him out 2-4 weeks.  My honest opinion?  I always find recovery from injuries like this take a little longer than expected.  What do you think, Austen?  As a cornerstone of Chicago's franchise, there's no way he gets rushed back, is there?

Or, is there?  The Bears are precariously perched at 7-5, tied with the Falcons and Lions and just a game in front of the Giants for the two Wild Card spots in the NFC.  The offense looked awful in a 10-3 home loss to Kansas City, in which it mustered just 181 yards.  With Jay Cutler already out, what's the impact of Forte's injury on the Bears' season?  Can they still make the playoffs with Caleb Hanie at QB and Marion Barber at RB, or is it time to fold up the flag on their season?

Also, just out of curiosity while we're on topic: Ditka or God?

Austen: Trick question, Ditka is God.

Moving on from Chris Farley, I really think the Bears are screwed. I would be shocked if Matt Forte was back for the regular season because he is in a contract year and I am sure he will not want to aggravate his injury going into the offseason and allowing teams to low ball him because of it. Because of this, let's take a look at the Bears' remaining schedule and see what they have in store.

Week 13 Final Score

Arizona's upset helped Stally pile on the points. (AP)

For the second time this season, Arizona went to overtime tied 13-13 at home.  And, for the second time, they delighted fans with a long touchdown score.

The game put Austen on the wrong side of the big upset over Dallas and capped off a week in which he saw his seven, five, four, three and two picks all go in the wrong direction.  All in all, it led to a lopsided win for Stally, as he set a SOB record high for points, and opened up a large lead with just four weeks left in the regular season.

At this point, it looks like the race to keep an eye on will be the Pick 'Em race.  Stally closed in two games and Austen now holds a four game lead.

Week 13

Week 13: Rivalry Re-rout-ed

Orlovsky is no Peyton Manning. (Getty)

The Patriots versus the Colts.

Tom Brady versus Peyton Manning.

It's one of the biggest rivalries of the past decade in the NFL.  One that's ironically played out every single season with the exception of 2002 and often flares up in the playoffs.

Except this season.  This year, it's Tom Brady versus Dan Orlovsky.  Brady's the best quarterback of all-time, Orlovsky is appearing in just his 16th game in a seven-year career and has never won a start.

This rivalry definitely won't be the same this year.  It projects to be one of the most uneven matchups of the season and should be a rout.  It's where we start this week's picks.

Austen (Eight-Point Pick) - @New England over Indianapolis

Week 13 Coin Toss

There's plenty of blame to go
around in  San Diego. (Getty)

Stally: I don't follow the draft that closely, especially as we get deeper and deeper into the rounds.  However, I do follow college football some, so I'd obviously heard of University of North Carolina quarterback T.J. Yates, who's now with the Houston Texans.

He played for a perennial bowl contender in the ACC (never finishing in the Top-25) and threw to targets like Hakeem Nicks, Greg Little and Brandon Tate.  His stats in college were good, not great, and he was drafted in the fifth round this past spring (152nd, or 47 spots earlier than Tom Brady was once taken).

The Tennessee Titans are two games (three, when you factor in probable tiebreakers) behind the Texans.  I think we can both agree that Houston should win the AFC South, but what's the prognosis on Yates?

The Flight of an Eagle

Stally's Goal Line Stand

The Eagles are no longer responding to Reid.

There's a simple theory of gravity that states: what goes up must come down.  In sports, there are very few that ever defy the laws of gravity.

Tom Brady, the best quarterback of all-time, led his team to an 18-0 season, but landed with a thunk in a Super Bowl loss to the mediocre Giants.

Wayne Gretzky is the best hockey player to ever play the game, and remembered as such, but he put up some forgettable years as a head coach and, while he avoided any sort of charges, he was loosely affiliated with a (post-career) sports betting ring.

Andy Reid has brought the Philadelphia Eagles to nine playoff appearances in 12 seasons as the Head Coach.  His resume includes five trips to the NFC Championship games (unfortunately, he only won once and then lost to Brady's Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX).  But, he's returning to the ground at an alarming rate.

Week 12 Final Score

Stevie Johnson's drops gave the Jets a win.
Austen was happy; Stally won his pick. (Getty)

The Stubborn OXen are starting to pull the plow evenly this time of year.  Neither one lost a weekly draft pick until getting down to Austen's three-point pick.  His stubborness to accept the holiness of Tim Tebow seems to have him surrendering the Denver win to Stally on a weekly basis.

The two combined to go 23-9 in Pick 'Em, with Austen picking up the win in that category (a usual occurrence).  Meanwhile, Stally won in both the weekly and seasonal draft categories (also a usual occurrence).

Week 12