Chad Boyd

Hello football fans.  I must apologize for the lateness of this post, I intended on filing on yesterday night but unfortunately or rather very fortunately for me I got a chance to go out with an incredible young woman who I had recently met and wasn’t going to pass that up to write a blog.  I know, priorities, priorities, so lets get to it.

Carolina vs. Arizona

This should be a fairly even game and an interesting one to watch. Carolina has lost QB Delhomme for the season and Arizona has lost Leinart as well (see my previous blog). Arizona has Warner starting in place of Leinart (and he has played important minutes this year), Carolina on the other hand has the choice between David Carr or newly signed Vinny Testaverde. Of course Carr is questionable though, so it may be Vinny going on short notice. Having Vinny go is probably not a bad thing for the Panthers even if he probably doesn’t even know the playbook simply because Carr really is that bad.

So who do I think is going to win this one? Easy, Cardinals by a least a touchdown. The reasons, there are many but here are my top three (1) Warner vs. Carr/Testaverde - I have my doubts about Warner but you either have Carr who I have never really liked or Testaverde who hasn’t played this season. (2) Dan Morgan is out with an injury - he is the heart and soul of Carolina’s defence and they will have problems with out him again Arizona. (3) They are playing in Arizona, always a tough place for teams to play now that the Cardinals have their own fans.

New Orleans vs. Seattle

I just don’t know what to think of Seattle right now. I am starting to think that time has simply passed this team by. They were in that sweet spot the last few years and I think time has simply caught up to them. They are still a fine ball team, but they just won’t be who they were anymore without some changes. Alexander has clearly lost a step, and the rest of the team has just gotten a year older but in this case, I think it wasn’t just one or two players that it happened to it was a collective en masse aging.

That said, they are playing the Saints this week another team I just can’t figure out. They are just so bad this year for no apparent reason.

This week might however be their week because they can’t be this bad for so long and Seattle isn’t exactly on a hot streak, I think that shutout last week is going to have an effect this week and Seattle is going to question what it is doing all the more.

New Orleans by 2 field goals.

St. Louis vs. Baltimore

This one could get very ugly very fast. Yes, Baltimore has some key players out with injuries, but their defence is still fierce as anything and the biggest problems with St. Louis’ are on offence, that means the Rams won’t be scoring anything this week. This could very well be a shutout, I just don’t see the Rams being able to do anything against Baltimore. Their only hope would be to score some touchdowns on defence or special teams.

The only thing that will prevent this from being a total blowout will be the Ravens offence, it just isn’t very good and they have some injuries there.

Baltimore by 10.

Have yourselves a great Sunday.

Chad Boyd

Oh my, one bullet taken and another dodged.  How do the Arizona Cardinals feel about this?  As reported yesterday, Matt Leinart is now gone for the rest of the season with a broken left collarbone.  Because of this development, Kurt Warner has come out of the bullpen and will be the starting QB in Arizona.

There is quite a bit to consider here.  First, Leinart’s injury was fortuitous as it now resolves the QB controversy that was brewing and almost coming to a boil in the desert.  However, this also means that Leinart’s development is likely to be delayed.  I continue to insist that the more a QB is injured at the beginning of his career, the chances of him becoming a true star or even simply progressing and achieving his full potential is greatly lessened.  Just think back to any number of QBs who showed lots of potential, but kept on getting injured at the start of their careers and consider those who really haven’t been injured at all like Favre, Manning and Brady or those who were healthy young and started getting injured late in their careers (which is the normal progression) like Bradshaw, Namath etc.  Yes, all of those guys may have had that extra little something that put them above the rest, but then again, how many of those young guys who were injured may have had that little something extra that could have developed into something very special, but didn’t because they suffered injuries early in their careers?

The other thing to consider too is; can Warner handle a full game?  Yes, his numbers look incredible right now, but that is in relief.  Like in baseball, how many closers can be successful starters?  Is it possible to say that if a relievers ERA is 1.30 would that also mean that his ERA as a starter, going 6 innings instead of 1 or 2 would also be 1.30?  No, not necessarily.  In sports, stats cannot be reliably projected out like that.  Warner did lose the starting job after four games last year, what has changed since last year that will make things any different now?  And don’t forget, he is getting up there in age too, his numbers look really good right now, but what happens when he starts taking all the snaps and starts getting hit on a regular and prolonged basis? 

I say he will be okay for a game, maybe two and we will see the Warner of last year once again.  And, let us not forget why Warner was thriving this year.  When would he generally play?  At the end of the half or the fourth quarter in no huddle situations; the defences were tired by that point, so was the offence of course, but the defences in their tired states were less able to successfully react and adapt to a new QB running a different style of offence.    

As you can probably tell, I am not at all convinced that Warner has what it takes to be the full time starter let alone to lead the Cardinals into the playoffs.  There is a chance he will as he has a great track record and I don’t doubt his toughness and his belief in himself, but let’s hold on to the MVP thoughts here (as some people are thinking). 

God help the Cards if Warner does stumble or gets injured, because that leaves Tim Rattay in the ‘pen, and if I were Whisenhunt, I wouldn’t want to be handing him the ball in the bottom of the 9th let alone the 1st.

Chad Boyd

When I was asked to blog on this site, Kevin Lee asked me what division would I be interested in writing about if the AFC East was taken?  I said the NFC West, no question.  There are 4 stellar teams out there who all have a chance at the post-season.  Plus, I think Arizona has finally turned the corner and while they won’t make the Super Bowl, it should be the start of something great.  It is going to be a tight, exciting race to the finish. 

Like my ProLine ticket yesterday, I could not have been more wrong.  That said, there is still hope and promise for the future.  The reason why I say that is when you consider the teams and try to pinpoint what exactly the problem is for their lack of success, you can’t, not really.  Seattle has its core group of players with some exciting add ons, St. Louis, Arizona and San Fran, are developing a core group of players and this year should have been the year at least one of those groups should have crystallized.  But this is apparently not to be, although I have to say, I am getting excited, and cautiously so about Arizona.

Something just isn’t right in Seattle.  I watched the game yesterday, I have researched the team online, reading just about everything I can and there is nothing there.  Yes, there are some injuries, but that doesn’t quite explain the team’s lack of success.  So for lack of a better explanation, and with absolutely no proof of it, I simply have to think there is something going on behind the scenes there that explains their lack of success.  21-0 to the Pittsburgh Steelers?  While I now think the Steelers are not pretenders and they are for real, I just cannot believe how they shut the Seahawks down with their two starting receivers sidelined and a bunch of guys injured on defence.  I really wonder where Seattle is going to go from here on in, and this is part of the reason why I think at this point, Arizona has to be the favorite to win the division.

Arizona, as you all know beat St. Louis yesterday, but not as soundly as I would have liked.  Sure, they were on the road, in a dome, but they could have done better against a very unhealthy St. Louis team missing both their starting quarterback and running back as well as pretty much their entire offensive line.  But then again, Arizona was also missing some key components too.  The big non-story I guess is that Leinart is now down with a broken collarbone and is out indefinitely.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  Tough to say really, short term, I think it might be a good thing for all concerned with potential controversy swirling like a dust devil in the desert.  This resolves the whole Warner in relief situation that could have really degenerated into something bad (sure Warner is Leinart’s roommate, and has said all the right things, but did anyone else detect some insincerity in some of Warner’s comments about the situation?) and Warner is playing pretty solid and one has to assume because of that the offensive line has gotten better.   Long term not so good if one forgets the potential controversy brewing, putting Leinart into good game situations would have helped the team down the road and that unique way of developing a young QB may have paid huge dividends for years to come.

Anyway, I think Arizona is on a bit of a roll and looking ahead at their schedule, it doesn’t look too bad especially if St. Louis, San Fran and New Orleans don’t start making strides towards getting better. 

I guess this just leaves the 49ers to talk about but after watching yesterday’s game against the Ravens, I am still a little sleepy, in fact I fell dead asleep sometime during the 2nd quarter thinking that it looks like Steve McNair has developed a beer gut.