Pop Quiz for The Juice
1. Let’s look back in time a little bit to Week 1. Which result was the best predictor of how the season would play out?
a. Bears over Lions- getting the surprising Bears off to a good start.
b. Redskins over Cowboys- foreshadowing the Cowboys struggles
c. Chiefs over Chargers- did this foretell the Chiefs rise or the Chargers fall?
d. Texans over Colts- Should we have known then that the Colts would struggle.
e. Packers over Eagles- Michael Vick emerges as a star QB.
Well, not many of these results were as good a predictor as I would have thought. Let’s look at them:
a. The Lions are scrappier than expected, but they did wind up with a poor record, and the Bears are vulnerable to good teams (like the Pats), but they are the division champs and are in contention for a first-round bye. So this game did predict the season results well, but I’m not sure anyone was really surprised by the Bears beating the Lions even then.
b. This was a bigger surprise, and certainly a portent for the Cowboys’ atrocious first half. However, the ‘Skins didn’t live up to this result at all, and have turned out to be quite a circus and a clusterfuck.
c. Looking at things as they stand right now, I’m not sure that the Chiefs will beat out the Chargers for the division, so I can’t call this a great predictor just yet. I certainly wasn’t expecting the Chargers to be quite so bad ober the first half of the season, though, and I think Sean Merriman getting off the Juice hurt this team more than anything.
d. This was definitely an important game as far as showing us the Colts were in trouble, but the Texans were (as they have been in the past) big-time pretenders.
e. Now, the emergence of Michael Vick has to be the story of the season, and his play in this game was definitely a predictor thereof. This was a great performance, and Vick has done nothing but improve since. This game gets my vote as the best (or at least most important) predictor of the season from Week 1.
2. Most people could probably guess the top 4 QBs in the league statistically (Brady, Rivers, Vick, and Rodgers). But let’s play a quiz. Match the following 5 stats lines with the following 5 QBs: Jay Cutler, Matt Cassel, Ryan Fitzpatrick, David Garrard, and Mark Sanchez (answers at bottom). Would you say that statistics reflect the play of the QBs?
Comp% TD/INT Rating Rank by QB rating
a. 59.3 24/5 96.2 5
b. 65.2 22/13 93.2 9
c. 61.7 20/13 89.6 15
d. 58.7 23/12 85.9 19
e. 54.0 16/12 74.6 28
So, I got a couple of these wrong, mostly because I overestimated Sanchez and underestimated Cassel. I think that says a couple of things. First, that media coverage influences our perceptions of the players to a huge extent, such that all the hype Sanchez has gotten by playing in NYC overshadows his mediocre stats while Cassel’s excellent season gets little credit because he plays in a small market. Cutler was about as mediocre as I thought and Fitzpatrick has had a really nice season considering the talent he’s got to work with on the Bills. The real surprise is Garrard, whose stats suggest he languishing on a Jacksonville team that nobody gives a crap about. I’d love to see him traded to a more prominent team and see how much success he might have.
3. Which game should get moved into the primetime slot for the final week of Sunday night football?
a. Bears-Packers
b. Bucs-Saints
c. Raiders-Chiefs
d. Rams-Seaskanks
If the Packers still have a shot at the Wild Card, I’d absolutely go with Bears-Packers, but I can see an argument for Rams-Skanks if there’s a possibility of a 7-9 NFC West Champ, just for the awful novelty of the game. If the Bucs hadn’t stumbled lately, their game with the Saints would merit strong consideration, but I can’t see any reason to care about Raiders-Chiefs, even if the division were on the line, since I feel like either team would be first-round fodder, while their record lacks the novelty of the NFC West crapfest. So, my verdict is Bears-Pack.
4. Which team would give the Pats the most trouble in the AFC playoffs?
a. Steelers
b. Ravens
c. Jets
d. Colts
e. Chargers
I think the Patriots will wind up in the Superbowl unless they beat themselves. That having been said, the Ravens and Steelers both have defensive personnel and coaching creativity to disrupt the Pats’ short passing game. As the Pack showed us, pressuring Brady with only four rushers and dropping various players into short zones that aren’t easily predicted by formation or down-and-distance is the only way to control the Pats. I don’t think the Jets can do it with their over-Blitzing. And I don’t think the Colts and Chargers can put up the 60 points they would need to beat the Pats with their weak defenses. If I have to pick one team, it’s the Steelers, since I trust their offense more, and Polamalu, when healthy, can keep any game within reach with his crazy athleticism and instinct for the ball.
5. Which team would give the Falcons the most trouble in the NFC playoffs?
a. Bears
b. Eagles
c. Saints
d. Giants
e. Packers
The obvious pick is the Eagles, and I think they’re most likely to make it, but I’m going to say the Pack. If they can get healthy and get that far, I think their offense can just keep up, and their defense is terrific, with some amazing playmaking and ballhawking skills. As I said with the Steelers above, playing unpredictable and creative defenses, generating turnovers, and pressuring the QB with four rushers (all things that Pack can do) are the keys to beating a better team in the playoffs. All that having been said, if Atlanta locks up homefield, which they look likely to do, they’re going to be really tough for anyone in the NFC to beat, and I won’t be betting against them.
Bonus question: The NBA is likely headed for a year long lockout. If the 2011-2012
season is lost, how should the 2012 draft be conducted?
a. Repeat order as 2011, use the same lottery results
b. Have another lottery using the standings from the 2010-2011 season
c. No lottery, just inverse ordering based on record from 2010-2011 season
I think option “a” is the only logical choice. You can’t redo the lottery and take picks away from teams that already won them, and having no lottery at all gives an incredible incentive to tank games (even though the season would be over before this happens, I just think it would be a bad precedent). Maybe the right thing to do, though, is to contract 4-8 teams, like we proposed earlier in the season, and have a redone draft stocked with the players from those teams, as well as the incoming college kids. Certainly makes the most economic sense, and I think it would be best for the sport in the long run.
Answers: a-Cassel, b-Garrad, c-Cutler, d-Fitzpatrick, e-Sanchez
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