This must be the silly season in the NFL with all of the absurd things we are hearing coming out of NFL.com and the NFL Network these days. The latest was Breer saying “Ron Rivera…is 8-0, in fact has won 12 consecutive games…Is he coach of the year?” and Silver replying “By a landslide”. Now please correct us if we are wrong (in the comments section), but the Patriots went through the playoffs, won the Super Bowl and are now 8-0, and they have only won their last eleven (11) games after resting their starters in Week 17. How is it possible for any team to have won more? The answer is of course that there isn’t. And don’t talk about overcoming injuries. Last week, four (4) of the Patriots five (5) starters on the offensive line had an average of about six career starts while their right tackle played left tackle and their regular center Brian Stork, also with less than 16 starts to his credit, played guard when he was in.
On defence, their best player (Jamie Collins) is out indefinitely with an unknown virus and the list goes on and on. When great big huge men run at breakneck speed and crash into each other on purpose, guys get hurt. The fact of the matter is that despite all of these injuries, after beating three playoff teams from last year and a couple of tough division foes New England leads the league in scoring and run defence and had Washington not scored that garbage time touchdown when behind 24 points with 29 seconds left in the game they would lead in scoring defence as well. The reason the Patriots are where they are at, where they always are at, is due to their Head Coach, Bill Belichick. He is so much better than everyone else that naming anyone else is laughable.
Another thing that is pretty funny are the guys who almost always pick the favorite, straight up without concern for the spread, and then crow about being right 63% of the time (the favorite has won 63.64% of the games in 2015). It seems that once you start getting paid to do these things, you turn into an idiot. Take this week’s Baltimore Ravens game. The Ravens have been having a very tough year in 2015 having lost their top cornerback, wide receiver, tight end and the undisputed leader of their defence, linebacker Terrell Suggs. They won the battle in San Diego to get their record all the way up to 2-6 last out but lost Steve Smith, pretty much their only wide receiver threat, for the season.
The Jacksonville Jaguars visit the Ravens as 4.5 point underdogs despite matching up extremely well against the Ravens. This is not the team that came closest to beating the Patriots in the playoffs last season. We did a quick check on the internets where 12 of 15 “experts” selected the Ravens. How Baltimore is going to score points, no one was saying. The fact that Jacksonville gives up the fewest yards per rush attempt (3.2) doesn’t seem to faze any of them. We are not saying that the Ravens cannot win (although we do not see how they can): What we are saying is that they have a better than 20% chance and the “experts” should reflect this.
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