Normal (bad) service resumes for San Fran, Cardinals still at arms length

Article by Rob Newell

After Week 7 of the season, we have seen the second International Series game of the year and witnessed EJ Manuel`s best attempt to engineer a move to San Francisco, who surely would love another struggling QB to go with Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert.  Manuel`s second quarter in London was very reminiscent of Kaepernick in earlier weeks in its ineptness.  Something the travelling Bills fans did not deserve, special mention to those fans who arrived en mass in London and contributed greatly to the NFL week.

In terms of the NFC West, you have to say what a difference a week makes.  Last week I was sitting here saying how San Francisco were the only team to win, and now normal service this season has been resumed and the 49ers this week were the only team to lose.  True the fact that the Niners were up against a divisional opponent in the Seahawks, ensured that there would be at least one loser in the division and to be honest it was never going to be Seattle, the return to some form of Marshawn Lynch, who racked up 122 yards on the ground. On the defensive side of the ball, we always hear about the Legion of Boom of course and free safety Earl Thomas racked up 7 tackles but the standout was on the DL, Michael Bennett has struggled at times this year, being caught in the neutral zone multiple times, but Kaepernick was terrorised by Bennett to the tune of 3.5 sacks for the lineman, with Cliff Avril able assisting with 1.5 of his own. 

From the Niners viewpoint they will be pleased in their defensive effort holding Seattle to 20 points and 5 sacks of their own as the frailties of the Seahawks OL were exposed again, but the Offence struggled mightily as they failed to move the ball and were once again forced to move away from Carlos Hyde in the running game and unlike New England who can decide to not run the ball against the Jets, the Niners cannot do that and win.  In part because New England have a Tom Brady and mostly because San Francisco do have a Colin Kaepernick.

So the Seahawks win, would they move closer therefore to division leader Arizona Cardinals, who played on Monday night against the struggling Baltimore Ravens.  The answer to that was negative as Arizona rolled onwards following a 26-18 win mainly on the back of the continued re-emergence of Chris Johnson and his matching Marshawn Lynch with 122 yards. With a long run of 62 yards, CJ2K showed he still has that ability to rip off the big run.  Although his big run in this one did look like a happened next Question of Sport question, following an attempted tackle Johnson was left sitting on top of the tackler so never actually hit the ground.  The referee never signalled the play dead, so Johnson popped back up and rushed off as some defence players thought otherwise and John Harbaugh was livid, but ultimately the Cardinals moved to 5-2 to retain the lead in the division.

For years the St Louis Rams have been like the little brother to the rest of this division, well if that is the case, the Rams may just be growing up.  In a division which has had or still has running backs like Lynch, Johnson, Frank Gore and now Carlos Hyde, the Rams now have their own beast in the backfield in rookie Todd Gurley.  In his two starts to date Gurley has gone over 100 yards and the Browns with their low ranked run defence were always going to struggle to contain him.  Gurley went for 128 yards and his first two touchdowns of his NFL career.  With that threat behind him Nick Foles does not have to be the man, but with the big play potential of Tavon Austin, Foles is able to play conservative and hit the big play as required.  Jeff Fisher is finally seeing the sort of team that he dreams of.  Meanwhile off the field in St Louis, town hall meetings are being held in a bid to keep the Rams in St Louis, a winning team may be more difficult to move to Los Angeles in terms of meeting the relocation criteria, wonder what Stan Kroenke thinks about that.

49ers back in the hunt? Strange goings on in the NFC West

Article by Rob Newell

If I had said to you in preseason that there would be a week in this regular season that the only winners in the NFC West would have been the San Francisco 49ers you would have most probably have laughed in my face, well who be laughing now?

This was a weird and wonderful week and in reality the team that come out of the week the best could just be the St Louis Rams, who off the back off the Seahawks and Cardinals defeats managed to beat the heck out of the bye week.  But back to San Francisco…

 

The first play from scrimmage in this one, saw Kaepernick throw a run of the mill WR screen to Boldin in the flat, only for Boldin to reverse field and work his way right away across the field to end up with Kaepernick out in front as a lead blocker.  As that play went for a first down, we should have been thinking that this was going to be the Niners day.

As the game went on, you could see all the breaks going in the Niners favour, even down to Justin Tucker missing a field goal for the Ravens because his foot just seemed to disappear in the field.  Remember this is the stadium that will be hosting the Super Bowl in February and one of the best Kickers in the game couldn’t even stand upright at a kick, the NFL must be worried.  There have been signs that the San Francisco offence is beginning to click, the Niners fanbase has been waiting on that long pass to Torrey Smith all season and based on this game that connection may just be starting to come together.

You have to feel a little sorry for this Ravens team, this defeat takes them to 1-5 for the season, and the 5 defeats have been by a combined 22 points, you have to think that had Terrell Suggs been fit therefore the Ravens would have a few more wins by now.  Strange to think that just 3 seasons ago this matchup was a Super Bowl, stop and think how many of those players are no longer playing the game.

In Pittsburgh, Bruce Arians took his Arizona Cardinals team back to the team where he spent much of his career and who tried to retire him just a few years ago.  Since then Arians has won two coach of the year award and maintained a thriving friendship with Ben Roethlesburger, something that Todd Hayley is not going to be accused of anytime soon.  Big Ben was desperately trying to get fit for this one, but couldn’t do it, and the Steelers struggled as backup Mike Vick went down injured to bring in third string Landry Jones, who looked awful in preseason.  Jones however ignited the Steelers and this game may have seen Vicks last snap in in the league.

The Cardinals though will probably still not know how they lost this one, Carson Palmer threw for 421yards, John Brown got 196 yards receiving with Larry Fitzgerald just under 100 yards as well, but this much maligned Steelers defence held firm and despite all those yards the Cardinals only scored 13 points and lost the chance to distance themselves in the race for the division.

The reason the Cardinals had a chance to distance themselves at all was thanks to the team that knocked them out of the Playoffs last year, Carolina Panthers who went into Seattle and overcame the famed 12^th Man Home Field advantage to beat the Seahawks 27-23.  A result which prompts the question, what is going on in Seattle?

They gave up a big 4^th quarter lead against the Cincinnati Bengals last week, but losing on the back of that at home, that will worry the Seahawks and should they lose again on Thursday night football to San Francisco, Seattle would drop to the bottom of the division.  The Panthers remain unbeaten and now that they have beaten a team that is recognised as a good team, the rest of the league will now take notice.  The Legion of Boom struggled to stop Greg Olsen who went off for 131 yards.

The Rams meanwhile got to sit and watch this safe in the knowledge that their rookie sensation Todd Gurley seems almost unstoppable and as teams adapt to him, Nick Foles should now have more available targets with the space that opens up.  Meanwhile the league have been looking to set up Town Hall meetings in the cities of St Louis, Oakland and San Diego, so we may know a little more soon about what the geographical makeup of the West will be next year, is LA calling? 

Cardinals still flying high, leaving streaky teams behind

Article by Rob Newell

Last week St Louis Rams rookie sensation Todd Gurley announced his presence to the rest of the NFL, this week he damn near shouted it to all and sundry.  Gaining just shy of 160 yards on 30 carries at Lambeau Field against the seemingly unstoppable Green Bay Packers, including a second straight week with a 50 yard run, Gurley is making a similar rookie impact at Running Back to what Odell Beckham managed at Wide Receiver last year.

I know the Rams still lost the game at Green Bay, but they showed enough to suggest the future could be very interesting on the field, assuming they can sort of off the field quickly enough.  The Rams defence is much talked about, almost as much talked about as Aaron Rodgers interception free streak at Lambeau Field, which the Rams ended and managed to recover a Rodgers fumble too. 

The Offensive Coordinator finally seems willing to find out what he has in Tavon Austin who seems to be actually getting the ball, in what seems a totally new concept in St Louis, and we know Gurley will be a monster in the backfield.  The Rams now need Nick Foles and the rest of the Receivers to step up and utilise the space that opposing defences will now have to leave in order to focus on Gurley, if the Rams can do this they may finally break out of the 8-8 mediocrity that has engulfed them in recent seasons.

 

Meanwhile at the New Meadowlands, New Jersey the long lost San Francisco 49ers offence, which had been missing in action since Week One, finally reappeared.  Carlos Hyde got the chance to run the ball and closed on a 100 yard game, Colin Kaepernick found some form again and threw for over 250 yards, just over 100 of which were to Anquain Boldin, thus providing the blueprint for how the 49ers need to play in their remaining games.  The problem for the Niners was the defence, they fell foul of the Eli Manning to Odell Beckham connection that was so unstoppable last year.

Beckham scared the wits out of the Niners secondary and even when he returned to the game with a Hamstring injury was able to draw a key Pass Interference call to enable the New York Giants to continue the final drive that led to the game winning touchdown pass with 21 seconds to go.  Scant consolation for the Niners, but at least they were in this one, they were not blown out for the first time since week one, and a loss is a loss is a loss in the NFL, but there were signs of encouragement for them, they need to feature Carlos Hyde more and play error free ball and they will be in with a chance.  Realistically it will be a long year and how well Kaepernick does in the next 12 weeks probably dictates if he is starting or backing up a new man next season, and maybe Jim Tomsula’s career prospects sit on his shoulders too.

Niners fans who need something to smile about can always watch the highlights from Cincinnati, the Seahawks got themselves into a big lead in the 4^th quarter, with the Legion of Boom that should be it, game over right?  Not this time it turned out, the Bengals on the back of the Red Rifle Andy Dalton and the running of Giovanni Bernard powered back to nick this one in overtime.  Yes you did read that right, in a high pressured game, Andy Dalton came out on the winning side, and the Bengals continued their unbeaten start to keep pace in the AFC with New England and Denver and are looking every inch a contender at the moment.  For Seattle it is a big bump in the road as the division leading Arizona Cardinals stole a march on the entire division.

The Cardinals were on the road also, in Detroit to renew a rivalry that has become a regular occurrence recently.  However since last season the Lions look to be a shadow of their former selves and the Cardinals look every inch the team they were last year when Carson Palmer was at QB, if not even better.  In truth though, Palmer was not required to do much in this one, he didn’t even need to break 200 yards passing, which for a Bruce Arians team seems impossible, as the Cardinals racked up 42 points in a one sided win.

The defence is looking great in Arizona, and the new defensive coordinator James Bettcher has not missed a step really since taking over for Todd Bowles, Calaius Campbell has been revitalised alongside Frosty Rucker on the DL, and Honey Badger is flying around the field making plays too.  The weakness apart from an injured Palmer last year for the Cardinals was the RB spot which led to many links to a possible move for Adrian Peterson which did not materialise, but despite that the RB position is suddenly a strength.  Andre Ellington confirmed his return from injury with a 63 yard TD run this week, meanwhile Chris Johnson on CJ2K fame went over a 100 yards again and is firmly in the top 5 in rushing this year, just a few months after being shot in a drive by incident.  Rookie David Johnson has shone too and is threat to score every time he touches the ball, be it running, receiving or special teams.

The Seahawks will be favoured to win this division but this Cardinals team as long as Palmer can move still, in a year when QB’s are dropping like no other, will be in the mix and with a 2 game lead already over a Seahawks team that is looking weakened from last year at this point, I have a feeling the NFC Championship might just be heading through Arizona not Seattle this year.

Referee under the spotlight in Seahawks win, Niners stuggles continue

Article by Rob Newell

Outside the fanatical support of the twelves, in recent years the Seattle Seahawks have become one of the more unpopular franchises in the NFL, in part admittedly as a result of the success enjoyed by the team, but mainly because of decisions like the one that went in the Seahawks favour at the end of their game with the Detroit Lions this past weekend, the latest in a series of decisions that started with the so called Fail Mary a few years ago.  Now, I know Seahawks fans will still point back to their Super Bowl defeat to the Pittsburgh Steelers and some of the calls that went against them in that game, but the big decisions have gone their way in recent years, and that combined with some of the antics of Richard Sherman and co. have caused frustration in other fanbases.

The Seahawks, like the Patriots, won’t care of course, and nor should they! And following the 0-2 start they have got themselves back to .500 on the back of the non flag!  The winless Detroit Lions will not really be satisfied with the apology offered by NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino, for the mistakes made by the officials on the field, and if the Seahawks should go on to clinch the NFC West or even Home Field advantage by one game, you can rest assured the rest of the NFC will be reminding the league of this game and looking for changes in this central referral system.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers fell to 1-3, but at least were not embarrassed as they had been the previous two weeks, something that with Aaron Rodgers coming to town with his undefeated Green Bay Packers, must have been a concern.  Remember those 49ers teams of lore, the Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott led teams, this team is nothing like those, and those players busts must be spinning in the Hall of Fame as a result.  Instead the 2015 Niners are more like an early 90’s Bill Parcells team, to succeed they need to be able to run the ball and spell the defense, and pretty much have to play error free football.  With Colin Kaepernick at QB that feels like a bit of an ask! This team needs more of a game manager than anything else at QB but in Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert I am not convinced they have that on the roster, instead they are going to have to hope that Carlos Hyde can find holes to exploit and the rest of the defence step up to the standard of the returning Navarro Bowman.

In the divisional game of the week, the previously undefeated Arizona Cardinals went down to the St Louis Rams who welcomed Todd Gurley to the NFL prime time, he had a few snaps last week but this was the big introduction / coming out party, and Gurley went over 100 yard for the first of what should be many times, however the damage was done on the scoreboard at least by Tavon Austin, maybe the Rams have finally figured out how to use their offensive weapon.  The Cardinals mounted a furious rally to come back in the 4^th quarter but ultimately came up 2 points short. 

The Cardinals shouldn’t be too upset as a result of this, whereas the Rams are perhaps the schizophrenic team of the league, one week they can beat the Seahawks and the Cardinals, thus gaining for themselves a great divisional record, but they can just as easily lose to the Redskins! Which is the real Rams? Can they learn to play on the road? Maybe this weekend in Green Bay will reveal the answers to those questions.