Whose Injury is Going to Hurt the Most

Little love for Koppen

There have been some big injuries that might not make news with the Fantasy public, although they definitely should, but whose injury will affect their team the most.  Outside of the Percy Harvin injury, which I will not count for this blog post, will Jeremy Maclin, Dan Koppen or Dennis Pitta's injury hurt their team the most.  In my opinion, it will go in this order as far as most damaging  Koppen, Pitta and then Maclin.  Might sound crazy, but not if you really think about it.  Dan Koppen is a veteran center for the Denver Broncos, who are looking to go no huddle for the majority of the game.  Peyton Manning is the king of audibles at the line and you now just lost the centerpiece for making all of the calls on the line for you and are left with Manny Ramirez, I can 't make that up.  Manny will be the starting center at this time, but he will not have dreads or get into fights in the dugout.  Dennis Pitta, who in my opinion was right behind Anquan Boldin as most important for Flacco during last year's playoff run, was the security blanket.  Now that he and Boldin are not out there, Flacco will have to adjust as he knew that he could throw it up there to these 2 and they would come down with it more often than not.  The reason I don't have him above Koppen is the fact that they have Ed Dickson and they just signed Visante Shiancoe.  Both are serviceable and will be able to help out and this could be a break out year for Dickson, especially around the goal line.  Finally, Jeremy Maclin is at the bottom of this list.  I like Maclin a lot and he is a big loss, but this is similar to my thoughts on Brady.  No matter who is out there, they tend to find guys to throw to because of the system.  Well the same applies here with Chip Kelly, put a new guy out there as he is going to catch a few balls as this system is fast and has no time for injuries.  Maclin is a great talent, but anybody who has watched Oregon knows, that offense just reloads every year, but one thing you could count on, was a lot of points out of that offense.

Wait Half a Season to Cast Judgement on Manziel

I expect big things out of this guy

This blog is being written out of necessity as it has become nauseating to hear about Johnny Manziel's off the field transgressions.  Is he being intelligent about the way he is going about his off field antics?  Not in the least, but in the end he is not really breaking any laws or doing anything that any other college student or athlete is not.  The only thing I care about is he doing the right things on the field.  From the football people who have seen him on the field or have trained with him, that seems to be the case.  I propose we let him be for the time being and wait until he is 5 or 6 games through the season.  He has a couple of easy games before Alabama in week 3, then a couple of other SEC games with SMU thrown in there.  By this point, if he is anything less than 5-1, you have permission to report on anything you would like about this 20 year old kid.  I give him one loss as there is no way that Nick Saban is going to lose these guys 2 years in a row, even if it is at College Station. 
Manziel, is simply a kid that is having a little bit too much fun, but if he is working hard, then who cares as long as he is not hurting anybody.  We have to remember these are just kids in the end.  We can't take away their life because they are great athletes, let him be.  As I said before, if he does not perform on the field, then have at it.  In my opinion, these guys will be 5-1 if not 6-0, if he can pull off another game like last year's against Alabama.  I don't see him winning the Heisman, but he will have a very good year.  Remember, this kid broke the SEC total offense record as a red shirt freshman.  Betting against this kid is probably not a great idea. 

Vick vs Foles

Get ready for Vick as day 1 starter

It is that time of year again, when camps open and teams have the unenviable task of dealing with constant questions on who is going to be the day 1 starter.  This year is not going to disappoint as there are quite a few going on.  For today, I am going to focus on one and that is the Philadelphia Eagles.  This is a team that many around the country are excited to watch and strangely enough, it has nothing to do with the players.  Everybody has the same thought and that is can Chip Kelly bring his style of speed of light offense to the NFL.  As excited as I am to see him bring his style, I highly doubt that he will be able to line up his team for 80-90 plays a game as they will be down for the count half way through.  That is too much for an NFL player to handle week in week out.  There are several principles of it that he can bring and it will be exciting to watch.
For the main point of this blog post, I am going to make it fairly simple.  Michael Vick will be the day 1 starter and will remain that way until he gets hurt, which he more than likely will.  At that point, you may have an actual quarterback battle as Nick Foles, Matt Barkley and maybe even Dennis Dixon, who may make the practice squad would be a more exciting battle.  Vick is made for this type of offense and Kelly knows that. There is nothing wrong with Foles and he may get a shot, but Kelly has already come out and said that Foles will not go out there and run the Oregon offense, as it is not his style.  This is more for Kelly to set the tone and the media to speculate.  Barring injury, this has already been won and the victory goes to Vick, who in my opinion will have a very good year and maybe a huge year running and passing. In fantasy, I would take him as my second quarterback knowing that many people will be not take a chance on him as their starter and I will be getting a lot of value as he may be my starter by week 2.

If Percy Harvin is Hurt, all bets are off for Seattle!

Might be as much as we see of Percy
with Seattle for a while!

It does not seem to be getting a lot of publicity yet, but if this is true about Percy Harvin and he has a real injury, that is going to really hurt Seattle this year.  Don't get me wrong, they are still a very good team and will be in the playoffs, but Percy makes them a true Super Bowl contender if not the favorite in my opinion. Having this guy on the outside with Marshawn Lynch in the backfield and a mobile quarterback like Russell Wilson running around will be too much for defenses, including a defense as good as the 49ers.
If this offense was not enough, this defense could be the best in the league by far.  Even with Bruce Irvin, who is moving to outside linebacker this year, out for the first few, defense will be tough to move on.  With Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett joining the team in the offseason, makes a very good defensive line.  The only soft spot in my opinion are the linebackers.  This can change if Bruce Irvin shows that he can do everything from the outside spot, which will give Bobby Wagner some much needed help.  The secondary is the best in the league, and I don't even think it is close.  You have arguable the best cornerback in Richard Sherman, Brandon Browner on the other side with Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor manning the safety spots.  Pretty tough to beat this group and did I mention that they signed Antoine Winfield, who will a great nickel back and will be able to come in and man the island if there is an injury or one of the main 2 need a break.
So, in my opinion, they are a Super Bowl favorite and a lock to go over 10.5 wins if Harvin is ready to go or can get back by week 4, or they are a playoff team and a tough call to get to 11 wins automatically.  I think they get 10 one way or the other but I do think Percy is worth a win or 2 as I respect his ability that much.  If I had to choose, I would pick the over either way.

Money Making Time! Super Bowl Champ Style!

It is time that I begin with my money making pics for the 2013 NFL Season.  After taking last year off, I am ready to begin making my readers some money.  I will not drop all my over/unders at once, but I will start off with a couple that I do like.  The numbers will change, but if you have the chance, jump on them when you can.
My first big pick of the year is...........the Baltimore Ravens.  Amazingly enough this team is listed at 8.5 wins, which seems pretty crazy for a Super Bowl winner, but that was the line, which can always change.  I think Vegas is overestimating the departures from last year from the defense.  Leadership wise, they do lose Ray and Ed Reed, which is a heavy burden.  They also lost Paul Kruger, who in my opinion is good, but they were smart to let him go for the money. The biggest loss they had was Dannell Ellerbe, who is now playing for Miami.
Now, we ask why would they let all these guys go, probably because they had faith in Arthur Brown, who athletically, will do a much better job than Ray Lewis has in the past few years.  They drafted Matt Elam, who could become a very good safety as a rookie and become a great one as he moves along. Ladarious Webb, an ATP favorite, is back at corner and Terrell Suggs, will be healthy from the get.  Oh yeah, they went and stole Elvis Dumervil from the Broncos.  For all intents and purposes, this defense will be better than last year's.
I am not big on the offense, but with this defense alone and most of the guys coming back on offense minus Matt Birk and Anquan Boldin, this in my opinion is enough to get to 9 wins.

Matt Ryan is not a Franchise Quarterback. Excuse me?

       To start off, I am back off a long hiatus and just in time to remark about some asinine comments made by 2 very good football players that have retired.  Watching the NFL Network's Total Access and Willie McGinest and Hall of Famer Warren Sapp were asked if Matt Ryan is a franchise quarterback. Warren Sapp said straight out no and Willie McGinest basically said he is with an asterisk.  As I was listening to this garbage, my first thought was are they doing this for ratings, say some crazy stuff so people will want to listen to you more or did they really mean this.  Of course, they both went to playoff wins, where he only had one, but he also helped them get byes into the second round, which should technically count for 2 more.  I always wonder why this point isn't brought up more by people.  If your team gets a bye, only 4 of the 28 teams in the league get a bye, you are essentially winning a playoff game as you don't have to play in the first week.  In the end, if you win one playoff game and lose in the second round, you are still in the same spot as the team that received a bye and lost in their first game.  We give more credence to the team that one a Wild Card game over the team that had one of the 2 best records in their conference over a grueling regular season.  I think that we as fans tend to not appreciate the regular season and discount its value greatly.
         Sorry, I got off a tangent and maybe should keep that as its own post down the road, but I feel I could write a full book on the subject.  Back to Matty Ice, who has had one of the best careers over his first 5 seasons over almost everybody as he was first in several big categories, except for the one people care about, playoff wins. Matt Ryan, has lost to the better team in the playoffs many times.  The fact that he was at home has little bearing in my opinion in a few of those, because he essentially lost to the NFC representative all 4 times that he made.  They lost to Arizona 30-24 in his rookie season, who would lose to the Steelers.  In 2010, they lost to the Packers, who went on to win the Super Bowl, but who barely made it to the playoffs.  This would happen again as they lost to the Giants, who much like the Packers, barely made it to the playoffs but got hot and again won the Super Bowl.  Finally, last season, where in my opinion, he made some bad mistakes along with throwing for 396 yards against a better 49er team.  Matty Ice and the Falcons are climbing the mountain, where each year they find another piece.  This could be the year, where this team puts it altogether and gets to the pinnacle.  We can only wait and see, but not putting Matty Ice in the franchise quarterback list is ludicrous.  These 2 clowns are trying to tell me, that the Falcons should maybe be thinking of another guy and letting go of Matt Ryan, which is all a franchise quarterback really is.  I don't think there is anybody else in the industry that would propose something of that ilk.  That is my rant for the day, I will keep them more concise in the future, but I am a little bit rusty at the moment.