MLB Shocker & An NFL Week 2 Recap

Mired in yet another September tail-spin, the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday fired manager Ned Yost. Give all credit to the Brewers organization. They saw last year how the team collapsed under pressure. They gave Yost another chance, then went the proverbial “all in” by trading away some prime minor league talent for a half-season of CC Sabathia. They want this. They want it bad. And if that means pushing Yost off the train 150 games into the organization’s best season since 1992, that’s what it means.

After a 20-7 August, the Brewers are 3-11 so far in September, including a crushing four-game sweep at Philly over the weekend that proved to be the final straw. They have 12 games left, beginning Tuesday with a three-game set at Chicago (followed by three at Cincinnati, then three at home with Pittsburgh and a final three with Chicago at Wrigley North). Interim manager Dale Sveum, formerly the third-base coach, has two weeks to get this turned around. If he can’t, this might go down as the worst best season in Milwaukee history.

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I can’t wait to see Missouri play a really good team again. They are just blowing the doors off the cupcakes, beating SEMO and Nevada by a combined 121 to 20. This week’s opponent is Buffalo, who just gave up 28 points to Temple at home. I’m willing to bet the Chase Daniel (72% completion, 10 TD, 1 INT) Heisman campaign will be safe for at least one more week. And if he can put up 50+ on the Black Shirts in Lincoln on October 4 (Mizzou is off the week in between), then Daniel should be considered the unquestioned front-runner.

It’s too bad we’ll have to wait until the Big 12 Championship Game to see Mizzou-Oklahoma, which could very well be a battle between the top two ranked teams in the BCS by then. OU QB Sam Bradford and the Sooners have put up a hell of a start of their own: Bradford has completed 79% of his passes with 12 touchdowns to just two interceptions as Oklahoma has out-scored Chattanooga, Cincinnati and Washington 164-42.

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Three notes per game of Week 2 in the NFL:

Packers 48, Lions 25

Typical Lions: Score 16 points in the first half of the fourth quarter, give up 24 in the other half, including two pick-sixes courtesy Jon Kitna (276 yards, 2 TD, 3 INT).

Ryan Grant rushed for only 20 yards on 15 carries (1.3 average) while back-up Brandon Jackson rushed for 61, including a touchdown, on only 7 carries (8.7 average). It’s certainly not out-of-character for a Packers leading rusher one season to fall by the wayside the next. If you take out a 57-yarder against the Vikings in Week 1, Grant has rushed 26 times for just 55 yards, a 2.1 average. It’s too early to make too big a deal out of it, but it bears monitoring.

If you needed any proof that Calvin Johnson is breaking through as one of the best receivers in the game, this was it: Six catches for 129 yards and two touchdowns (of 38 and 47 yards). For as long as the Lions defense is handing the offense huge deficits, you can count on Johnson ending up as one of the top five to ten receivers in the league. (You can also count on rookie Kevin Smith hitting a lot of fantasy waiver wires.)

Oakland 23, Kansas City 8

If your quarterback is Tyler Thigpen (14 of 31 for 151 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT), you are going to lose.

At least the Chiefs didn’t spend $61 million on Thigpen. That’s how much the Raiders spent to sign JaMarcus Russell, the first overall pick in the 2007 draft who completed six of 17 pass attempts for just 55 yards on Sunday.

The Raiders rushed for 300 yards against the Chiefs. Watch to see how serious the injury is to Justin Fargas. Finally seeing some decent action, Michael Bush rushed for 90 yards and a TD backing up Darren McFadden (21 for 164 and a TD).

NY Giants 41, St. Louis 13

One again, Brandon Jacobs does the work for the Giants (15 carries for 93 yards). Once again, he doesn’t get in the end zone. Something no Jacobs fantasy owner wants to hear: Jacobs has the most rushing yards (209) of any player yet to score a touchdown this season.

The Giants wracked up six sacks on poor Marc Bulger. Keep this in mind in picking next week’s games, with the Rams heading up to Seattle, whose defense has a league-high 9 sacks. The Giants host the Bengals, whose offense against the Titans looked like a tribe of bushmen attacking a division of tanks. They showed some heart early, but, in the end, they got slaughtered.

Lone bright spot for the Rams: Donnie Jones is looking like a shoo-in for the punting job at the Pro Bowl. He had six punts with an average of 55.7 yards per in this one.

Indianapolis 18, Minnesota 15

I’m not sure if Tarvaris Jackson really stinks, or if the coaching staff just really thinks he stinks and doesn’t want to let him show it on the field. Right now, it looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They don’t trust him because they think he might screw it up, so they keep him completely shackled and don’t let him just play the game, so he can’t make any plays, so he starts to screw things up because he’s not playing his game. Head coach Brad Childress said over and over again that Jackson was his guy. If that really is the case, he and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell need to embrace the unknown. Playing scared in the NFL just doesn’t work.

The Vikings held a 180 to 25 rushing advantage and lost. How ridiculous is that?

Marvin Harrison (1 catch for 16 yards) might not be officially done, but Anthony Gonzalez (9 for 137) is most definitely the #2 to Reggie Wayne (5 for 93 and a TD). It’s just another example of the incredible job done by Colts GM Bill Polian and his staff. Some organizations wait for things to break, then try to fix them. Polian fixes them a year before anybody knows they’re broken.

Tennessee 24, Cincinnati 7

Chad Eight Five and TJ Houshmandzadeh combined for 7 receptions for 63 yards and no touchdowns. The wind was certainly a factor, but that’s just pathetic.

To sum up the Bengals’ passing woes another way, Carson Palmer’s yeards-per-pass-attempt in his five-year career, including this season: 6.7, 7.5, 7.8, 7.2, 4.5. That 4.5 average would have had him dead last in the league last year, nearly a full yard behind the guy who did finish last, Kansas City’s Brodie Croyle.

Tennessee rookie running back Chris Johnson sure is explosive, but he better score on those long runs, because the red zone is all about LenDale White. Johnson has more than double the rushing yards as White (202 to 99), but it’s White with the club’s only two rushing TD of the season.

Washington 29, New Orleans 24

What a difference a week makes (10 days actually). The Redksins offense that looked horrible and out-of-synch against the Giants in Week 1 busted loose for 455 yards of total offense against the Saints. Jason Campbell threw for 321 yards and a TD, the primary beneficiaries being Santana Moss (7 catches for 164 yards including a 64-yard TD) and Chris Cooley (5 receptions for 72 yards). And Clinton Portis rushed for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Now the Saints defense is by no means a match to the Giants’, but you’ve got to figure the Redskins offense will look much more like they did in Week 2 than they did in Week 1 when they host the Cardinals in Week 3.

I’m not sure this is the impact Jeremy Shockey thought he’d have: 2 catches for 22 yards and a lost fumble in Redskins territory on the Saints’ first offensive drive of the game.

Reggie Bush ran for just 28 yards on 10 carries. He caught seven passes for 63 yards and is in a tie for second for the most receptions in the league with 15. So why don’t the Saints just move him to wide receiver and let that be that?

Carolina 20, Chicago 17

Anybody hoping DeAngelo Williams would somehow hold on to a prominent role in the Panthers rushing attack should give up those hopes and dreams now. Williams rushed for only 31 yards on 11 carries while rookie Jonathan Stewart rushed for 77 yards and two touchdowns on his 14 carries. It’s not going to take long before Carolina head coach John Fox wants to see what Stewart could do with 20-25 carries.

If anybody wants to go ahead and give up on Jake Delhomme, go ahead and let them. Then snap him up yourself. This offense is going to have a whole new dimension with the return of Steve Smith. And with Stewart leading a power run game, opposing defenses are going to have to start loading up the box. That’s going to leave a lot more empty space out there for Smith to tear up opposing DBs.

When your quarterback completes 19 passes and only gets 149 yards (as did Chicago’s Kyle Orton), your offense is what we in the business like to call “chicken shit.” Expect the Bears to lead the league in three-point losses this year.

(Ok. “Chicken shit” might be a bit too harsh. Let’s go with “Excessively conservative.”)

Buffalo 20, Jacksonville 16

That’s a solid freaking team up there in Buffalo. If you’re making a Power Rankings list of just the AFC, Buffalo has to be top five. (I’d probably put it at Pittsburgh, Denver, New England, Indianapolis, Buffalo, with Tennessee and San Diego right behind.)

The word you hear most often associated with Trent Edwards is “efficient.” Hitting 80% of your passes (20 of 25) with a touchdown and no interceptions will do that for you (even though he did lose a fumble). But Edwards isn’t just a Trent Dilfer out there trying not to screw things up. The Bills’ game-winning touchdown drive featured a 33-yard pass to Lee Evans and the Edwards-to-James Hardy TD pass was a thing of beauty. And this was at Jacksonville.

The Bills’ next three games before their Week 6 bye: Oakland, @St. Louis, @Arizona. It’s not at all inconceivable we could be looking at a 5-0 team. And with home games against San Diego and the Jets, plus a road game to Miami, the Bills could be anywhere between 6-2 and 8-0 when they travel down to Foxboro on November 9.

Bonus: Back-up running back Fred Jackson led all Bills with 7 catches. This would bother me if I had Marshawn Lynch.

San Francisco 33, Seattle 30

There’s a lot not to like about having Mike Martz as part of your organization. But all those things are pretty easy to overlook when he takes J.T. O’Sullivan on the road to one of the toughest road venues in the league and comes back with not only a win, but a 321 –yard passing day. I’m not sure I’d run out and grab O’Sullivan for your fantasy team, but with a Week 3 home tilt against the Lions and their 24th ranked pass defense on tap, you could probably do a lot worse.

With 153 yards on just four receptions, Isaac Bruce now has more receiving yards than, among others, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Dwayne Bowe, Hines Ward and Roddy White.

While 49ers fans rejoice in their newfound offensive competence, they might want to take notice that they gave up 30 points and 350 yards to an offense featuring nobody you’ve ever heard of playing wide receiver. Julius Jones finished with 127 yards rushing and a TD. Rookie tight end John Carlson caught six passes for 78 yards. So enjoy that offense, Niners fans, because you’re going to need it with Calvin Johnson and Roy Williams coming to town.

Tampa Bay 24, Atlanta 9

You don’t typically think of Earnest Graham as the explosive type, but that’s what he was against the Falcons, rushing for 116 yards on just 15 carries, including a 68-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. Graham owners should still be concerned, though, that Warrick Dunn is getting so much action (12 carries for 49 yards and a TD).

Welcome to Earth, Matt Ryan (13 of 33 for 158 yards and 2 TD). But even with those numbers, I like what the Falcons are trying to do. Ten of Ryan’s 13 completions were to his receivers (four each to White and Laurent Robinson, two to rookie Harry Douglas). That’s an offense that’s at least trying to be explosive. They couldn’t get it done on the road against a Bucs team that really didn’t want to go 0-2, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a positive learning experience for a very young team. I like them a lot this weekend hosting the Chiefs.

Brian Griese is never going to be more than he was on Sunday (18 of 31 for 160 and a TD). At home against the Falcons, that’s enough. On the road against the Bears, where they play Week 3, it’s not going to be nearly enough. With the Packers in town in Week 4 and a trip to Denver in Week 5, the Bucs could very well be 1-4 when the Panthers come calling in Week 6.

New England 19, NY Jets 10

It might be time to put Bill Belichick in the Mike Shanahan category as it relates to fantasy running backs. Laurence Maroney is the name people know and draft (much too highly), but between Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, Maroney and now LaMont Jordan (team-high 11 carries for 62 yards), there’s just no way of knowing who is going to get you the points.

One of the more unusual lines of the weekend: Sammy Morris rushed 8 times for zero yards and a touchdown.

Brett Favre, meet Brian Schottenheimer, one of the worst offensive coordinators in the league. First and goal from the three: Thomas Jones stuffed, Thomas Jones stuffed, Thomas Jones stuffed, kick the field goal. (Dude, it’s BRETT FAVRE! How do you not roll him out and let him create in space? Are you kidding me?)

Arizona 31, Miami 10

The re-birth of K-Gun: 19 of 24 for 361 yards and three touchdowns. I’m so glad I had him as my back-up to Tom Brady in my $100 league. Saved my season, at least in the short term.

Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin combined for 293 yards receiving and three touchdowns (all by Boldin) on just 12 receptions (six each). Each had a reception of 75+ yards. I know it’s just against Miami, but holy cow. That’s an explosive offense.

Prediction: Chad Henne replaces Chad Pennington after the Dolphins get worked in New England this weekend.

Denver 39, San Diego 38

I know San Diego wants to bitch and moan about the two blown calls, especially the one at the end that cost them the game. It was a bad call, no doubt. But somebody please find these dudes a mirror. It wasn’t Ed Hochuli that gave up 486 yards. It wasn’t Ed Hochuli who let Brandon Marshall catch 18 passes, more in one game than any other receiver has in two. And it wasn’t Ed Hochuli that couldn’t cover Tony Scheffler in the red zone (touchdowns of 3 and 14 yards). That was all the Chargers’ defense, and it had nothing to do with Hochuli (who also wasn’t in coverage when Jay Cutler threw the last-minute touchdown and game-winning two-point conversion).

Antonio Gates had four catches for 61 yards. He’s still not back in form from that toe injury.

In this week’s installment of “who the hell is running the ball in Denver,” it was Selvin Young with eight rushes for 78 yards, and seven each for Andre Hall (31 yards) and Michael Pittman (30). Once again, it was Pittman with the TD run. He now has three on the season, with Young at one.

Pittsburgh 10, Cleveland 6

Can’t say I didn’t tell you. The Browns were screwed the second the schedule had them opening with the Cowboys and Steelers back-to-back. And the fact they lost two home games to start off means they have to try and recover the season on the road, first against a Baltimore team coming off a free weekend, then at Cincinnati in what could be a battle between 0-3 Ohio losers.

Romeo Crennel is seriously approaching on Art Shell territory, and I’m not just saying that because he’s a fat black man. I’m saying that because his clock management is bordering on tragic.

Going back to the last four games of 2007, Derek Anderson has thrown for less than 200 yards in five of his past six games. It might be time to start wondering if the first half of last season was the real deal or a perfect time, perfect place aberration.

Dallas 41, Philadelphia 37

Holy shit. Now that was a great football game. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this was the first of three meetings between the two.

For a game with 78 total points, Donovan McNabb owners have to be disappointed. Thanks in part to that asshat DeSean Jackson dropping the ball a yard before entering the end zone on what should have been a 61-yard touchdown, McNabb ended up with just 281 yards and a single score.

Fantasy owners who weren’t disappointed? Guys who had Tony Romo (312 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT), Marion Barber (63 yards rushing, 4 catches for 51 yards, 2 total TD), Terrell Owens (3 catches for 89 yards and 2 TD), Jason Witten (7 catches for 110 yards), Brian Westbrook (58 yards rushing, 6 catches for 44 yards, 3 total TD), David Akers (3/3 field goals, 4/4 extra points) and Nick Folk (2/2 field goad, 5/5 extra points).

I would have included Jackson for his 6-catch, 111-yard night, but he laid down a touchdown in one of the dumbest moves of all time. And if you started Jackson and lost by five or fewer, you are more than disappointed. You hate the fucking guy.