FMQB- There Is No Right and Wrong

Posted by fmquarterback on November 22, 2013
Posted in: Uncategorized. 4 Comments

Brady

Last of the Unbeatens Fall

Well the game of the season ended up living up to everybody’s expectations. FMQB was right and wrong all at once. I was perhaps a little overconfident in Manning’s abilities. Even hobbled, I said all week that a Manning at 50% would destroy the Chieves. Well he took care of business, but it wasn’t flashy. Instead it was slow, consistent, precision plays that took care of the Chieves. Manning picked apart the defense, often finding the 1 gap in the D and exploiting that when every other receiver was covered. The real winner of this game was the Denver Offensive Line. Manning not only didn’t get sacked, he didn’t get hit, which is a blessing for an injured QB. Give the Chieves defense credit though, they held the Broncos to the fewest points scored all year (27), and the fewest TD’s thrown by Manning (1). But the Broncos

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FMQB: Take Notes RGIII

Posted by fmquarterback on November 15, 2013
Posted in: Uncategorized. 6 Comments

Tayvon Austin St. Louis Rams

Issues with the Colts:

Last Sunday, the Colts were not only upset by the Rams at home, but absolutely demolished! It was 28-0 at halftime, and at one point 35-0, surprisingly mostly by Rams rookies. I of course was thrilled, and wanted to use this game as my one shot to do a picture shout out to them (see above). The Colts were stunned by this loss, remember, they have defeated the 49ers, Seahawks, and Broncos this year. Last night’s game has shown the exact same issue that has plagued them the last 3 games. Against Houston, St. Louis, and then Tennessee, they found themselves in early holes, down multiple TDs without a score. They may be able to squeak out some comeback’s this way, but will be a quick out in the Postseason if they continue this trend.

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FMQB- Year of the Backup QB

Posted by fmquarterback on November 8, 2013
Posted in: NFL. 2 Comments

KansasCityChiefsDefense

Absolutely crazy week in football, and it seems like none of it happened on the field. The Texans had a rollercoaster of a game having their head coach collapse at halftime, the Broncos coach also had major heart surgery, and the Miami locker room is in a heated battle. But more of that later, let’s start with football.

 

Let’s not Crown him quite yet…

Eagles QB Nick Foles had a day that most hall of fame QBs dream about. Granted he was playing the Raiders, but Foles tied an NFL record for 7 TD passes in one game. Very surprising that Chip Kelly still won’t name a starter once Vick is healthy, which leads me to believe that Vick is outperforming Foles in practice. The only other theory is that Kelly’s offense is so set on having a mobile QB, that Kelly can’t get over the fact that he has Vick. Will be interesting if Foles continues to succeed.

 

Seattle is the best team in the NFC that’s in Trouble:

I don’t think I can name a team in the NFC that can easily beat the Seahawks, other than themselves. For the second week in a row, Seattle found themselves down and in need of a comeback. This time to 0-8 Tampa Bay. Not sure if coaches took part of the week off, or what, but to go down 21-0 to the Bucs is pathetic. They managed to comeback, and are still an impressive 8-1, but they won’t be able to make that comeback against a playoff team in January.

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FMQB- Half Full or Half Empty

Posted by fmquarterback on November 1, 2013
Posted in: NFL. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

CalvinJohnson

We’re officially halfway through the season, wow time flies when you’re having fun! There is a much better idea of where teams stand than there was 2 months ago, and most fans know whether the outlook on their season is half full, or half empty. Still some major surprises, but it will be fun to see how the next 2 months play out.

 

Hail to the Chiefs (not in a racist way):

Last week FMQB swooned over the Kansas City Chiefs surprise rise to greatness. Well they made it to 8-0 this week, in a squeaker of a win over Cleveland and their 3rd string QB. Looking at their schedule, here is who the Chiefs have beaten: Jaguars, Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, Titans, Raiders, Texans, and Browns…none of which have a winning record. With 5 of their last 8 games against winning teams, it will be interesting to see whether their top defense and best record is because of they are legit, or because of their schedule.

 

Stat of the Week:

It took 2 weeks from Calvin Johnson to go from #42 in reception yards, to #1

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FMQB: Injury Conspiracy

Posted by fmquarterback on October 25, 2013
Posted in: NFL. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Andrew Luck

A Tale of Two Primetimes:

The first primetime game was easily one of the better ones of the season between Denver and Indianapolis. Not only was Peyton Manning returning to Indy for the first time, but it was 2 strong teams and 1 undefeated record. First off, loved seeing the tribute to Manning before the game. It looked like Peyton truly stopped to enjoy the moment, the fans were great to him, and it almost made you want to cry. And then the most hyped regular season game that you can remember started. Overall great game. Surprised that Indy was able to play very strong defense against Manning for the 2 middle quarters, which led them to a 19 point lead going into the 4th. Even with Manning struggling, you felt that the crowd was nervous, because only Manning could pull off this comeback. And he almost did! Denver pulled within 6 points with 7 minutes left. Even with an interception, and then a long drive with no points because of a fumble, Denver still had a chance. If that’s what it seriously takes to beat Denver, then the rest of the league is in trouble.

The second primetime game had to average out the excitement created from the night before, because this was by far the worst game I have ever seen (except maybe that hurricane game in Miami where I think the Steelers won 3-0?). The Giants looked completely inept, dropping 3 sure TD’s in the endzone. The revived Peyton Hillis was by far the best player on the field, and that’s truly saying something since he averaged 2.0 yards per carry! I’ll discuss Freeman soon, but that was the worst performance I’ve ever seen from a QB, hands down. The Vikings failed to score on offense, in fact only getting past the 50 yard line twice. All the Giants had to do was put 10 guys in the box to stop Peterson, because there was no way that Freeman was going to beat them with his arm.

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FMQB: Go Home Peyton

Posted by fmquarterback on October 18, 2013
Posted in: NFL. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

MattSchaubFMQB

Valiant Attempt Sir Thad:

The Bills have had a rough season so far with injuries, especially at the quarterback position. With EJ Manuel’s injury, and Kolb out for the season with a concussion, the Bills had to sign Thad Lewis from their practice squad. This is usually a recipe for disaster, especially against a playoff team, but Lewis rose to the occasion, throwing two 4th quarter touchdowns to take the game into overtime. The Bills may have lost, but Lewis had a surprisingly good game, completing 60% of his throws and zero INTs.

The Patriots didn’t win, the Saints lost it:

Game of the day was definitely the squeeker between the Patriots and undefeated Saints. The Pats were up by 6 late in the 4th quarter, until Brees threw a bomb to whoever Kenny Stills is for a TD. I’m still baffled with what happened next, and let me paint the picture why. The Patriots would get the ball back with 3:29 in the game, down by 1 with 2 timeouts. Should be plenty of time for a game winning drive. But the Pats got more than 1 chance, they even got more than 2 chances, somehow with 3:29 left in the game, the Saints had the ball twice and the Patriots 3 times! It is inexplicable that the Saints can’t run that time off the clock with 5 possessions! Back to 3:29, the Patriots went 4 and out. Saints run twice, throw (incomplete, stops the clock) and kick a field goal to go up by 4. The Patriots then throw an INT right away (all Saints coaches start celebrating, keep this in mind). Saints then go 3 and out, but at least they’re running it! Pats get the ball with 1:13 with no timeouts and 70 yards to go. This also shouldn’t be possible, yet Brady drives the field with a shot at the endzone. With 5 seconds left, somehow Kenbrell Thompkins gets behind the defender in the endzone (the only place he can go) for the touch down. For a different angle of it, click here. Keep in mind, if Saints had run it on that play 2 series ago instead of pass, the Pats wouldn’t have that 5 seconds. The reason for the huge Saints turnaround is coaching, but coaching lost them this game and their chance to stay undefeated. Continue Reading

FMQB: Ponder to become a “Free Man” soon?

Posted by fmquarterback on October 11, 2013
Posted in: NFL. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

JoshFreeman

Bit of a longer post today, but with the season in full swing, I have a lot to say. I would like to apologize ahead of time for the dissertation, as well as all the Broncos talk…

What’s Going on in Cleveland?

I’m truly confused with what’s going on in Cleveland. They started 0-2, and decided to trade away Trent Richardson (they traded up for him last year, easily their best player). They have since gone 3-0, which is great. Well they just lost Brian Hoyer for the season, which is a huge disappointment. But 2 days after this happens, they start shopping around Josh Gordon their #1 Receiver. The Browns are tied for 1st in their division, but it’s like they’re stockpiling draft picks for next year already. Why are they trying to throw the season?

Brady Hits a Wall:

Have we found the new DiMaggio record for the NFL? As readers remember, there is a slew of QB’s who didn’t even come close to Johnny Unitas’ record of 48 straight games with a TD pass. Brees passed this record last year, but only by a few games to reach 54 straight games. Tom Brady was the only other QB close enough to pass it, and his streak ended at 52 games on Sunday. To put this into perspective, this means that Brady threw a TD pass in every game since late 2009. As I mentioned last year, all it takes is one fluke game where your RB gets 3 TD’s instead, or a crappy weather game like last week. But I find it hard to believe we will see any QB’s get close to this record anytime soon. Continue Reading

FMQB’s Big News!!!

Posted by fmquarterback on October 4, 2013
Posted in: NFL. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . 7 Comments

Manning2

FMQB Has some Big News! In case nobody has noticed yet, I’ll see if you can figure it out and let you know later in the blog. It was kind of a weird week of games last Sunday with unheard of rules and lackluster games. The lineup didn’t look great, but there always seems to be some good games that surprise people. But not this week. Only 2 (maybe 3) games ended up being truly worth watching. Ironically each game involved 4th quarter comebacks by more than 10 (of which only 1 team completed the comeback).

Don’t Call it a Comeback:

The first comeback of the day was the Steelers vs. Vikings game. The Vikings dominated all day, and for an 0-4 team, was looking pretty sharp. But the Steelers held the Vikings scoreless for the last 20 minutes of the game while their offense scored 10. Making it to a 1st and Goal situation, the Vikings defense held, forced a fumble and won.

The Second comeback could also be considered a major meltdown. The Texans were beating the undefeated Seahawks 20-3 at halftime, and would go on to not score in the 2nd half and lose the game. The Texans were up 20-6 with 7 minutes remaining before the Seahawks finally scored their first TD. Then with 2:40 left in the game, Schaub was heaving up a prayer that got picked off by Richard Sherman (now to be referred to as “Shoeless Sherman” since he outran the Texans with only one shoe). First off, why are the Texans throwing in that situation? Even if the Seahawks have timeouts, your D has stopped them all day! Instead the game was quickly tied up and Houston would go on to lose in OT.

The Third comeback happened in the Sunday Night game, where it was 30-13 with 6 minutes left. Normally the game is over, but I stayed up to watch the end just to get some extra football in for the week. Boy was I glad I did! Atlanta scored 10 quick points, got an onside kick, and held the Patriots to give the Falcons one last shot. They made it within 10 yards AGAIN, but lost 30-23 in another thriller. Continue Reading

FMQB: No fine for giving him the finger

Posted by fmquarterback on September 27, 2013
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Friday Morning Quarterback is back in action! After a weeklong whirlwind of a wedding, followed by a honeymoon in Ireland, I got to watch very little football. While disappointing, it was a pretty big rush to look up football scores and wonder “what the heck happened?!?!” Without getting into a ton of detail, here is what shocked me after coming back to see what the league looks like since week 1.

Shocker #1:

The Chiefs…Granted, I actually picked the Chiefs to go to the playoffs, but I had them sneaking in. They are now sitting amongst a small amount of 3-0 teams, and sounding pretty sharp.

Shocker #2:

The 49ers…This Super Bowl team is struggling mightily. Their Week 1 performance was grand, but they have fallen flat the last couple weeks, scoring 3 and then 7 points. They’ve had a tough schedule so far, but should be putting up more points on offense. In fact, only 3 other teams have scored fewer points than the 49ers. I feel like they’ll turn it around, but they better figure it out fast.

Shocker #3:

The Dolphins…this is the surprise team of the year, how are they 3-0?!?! And it’s not like they’ve beaten crappy teams, two of the wins are against the Falcons and Colts. When you look at the last half of their schedule, they should be able to cruise into the playoffs, which is hard to say this early in the season. Continue Reading

FMQB: Why Football is like Marriage

Posted by fmquarterback on September 11, 2013
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I decided to do a special edition of Friday Morning Quarterback this week, so forgive it coming a couple days early, because for once in my life, my mind isn’t 100% focused on football. Also, I realized that about 90% of my readers will be helping out or attending the wedding, so that’s no fun! We’ll get to the funnies later, but first, how about that Week 1! Awesome week of games, teams with concerns already, but this is shaping up to be a season of exciting games.

Cowboys that good? Giants that bad?

 

Sunday night’s turnover-fest was sloppy, but one of the more loopy games I’ve ever seen. The New York Toaster Strudels (because they’re good Turnovers) turned the ball over on their first play, and the next 2 possessions after that! Unbelievably, they were only down 3-0 after this point. But the Cowboys would start capitalizing on these turnovers. But I have 2 points I would like to throw out there. First, when the Toaster Strudels were clicking, they were clicking! Manning had 450 yards passing, 4 TD’s, and every interception was tipped into a Cowboy’s hands, not necessarily his fault. The Giants looked very strong other than 6 plays. But 6 plays decided this game. My Second point, is that the Cowboys barely won. With 6 turnovers, they should have won by 28. So sure the Cowboys took this game, but watch them fall off and the Toaster Strudels to pick it up the rest of the year.

For the record, apparently the NFL cleared the Giants of faking injuries (ring a bell FMQB fans?). I chose Toaster Strudels because of this, otherwise I would have brought back Los Tramposos. Continue Reading