Week 2 Blog
(This Weeks Super Bowl Power Picks are Packers and Patriots)

Romo vs Jets D, watching the tape the Jets D fooled Romo on the INT to Revis at the end of the game. The Jets let Revis play man to man when the X wr is to the boundary, in fact the cowboys completed a pass to Bryant against Revis early in the first quarter when Revis was playing man to man against Bryant because he was the X WR to the boundary. Well when Romo thru that INT to Revis Bryant was the X to the boundary but the jest played cover 2 giving Revis help so Revis could play underneath and i think Romo never realized they were playing with a safety over the top so he thought Revis would be running with Bryant not playing underneath.

Patrick Peterson the CB for the Cardinals did not have a very good game as corner, he looked lost and was sloppy with his technique. Teams will attack him a lot this year. The Cardinal secondary does not look good at all they struggle with man and their zone coverages leave gapping holes, the LB are part of this problem.

Last week i tweeted the Ryan Fitzpatrick is the most under rated QB and he still is. He was awesome against the Chiefs and and the Bills have a lot of variety to their offense. They will be hard to defend.

Cam Newton, i saw a lot of improvement from Newton, the area i saw most improvement was when he had pressure right in his face, he stood in there and made throw. After watching the tape the thing that is still a concern is his accuracy. on the last drive when he hit Brandon LaFell for a big completion the Cards busted the coverage again and had he hit him in stride it would have been a TD. He will need to get better at allowing his WR to run after the catch. His performance was much improved from pre season. The card D is a very average Defense and their Rookie Peterson had a very bad day, but for cam it was a B performance.

Steeler D, i know people think they are old but what i saw on tape was a team that had no energy and the just laid on people. I have no recent memory of a time i saw the Steelers D play this bad, thats a good thing it could have been just a bad day. and to answer the question did the Raven illegally cut the D line of the Steelers the answer is yes, in fact very first play of the game they did it and several time during the game.

Bears O, Offensive coordinator Mike Martz in his second year with Jay Cutler have really improved. The route combinations Martz draws up are so different from other offenses in the NFL. I will be showing this on our Match up show Sunday at 7:30 am on Espn or 8:30 on Espn2.

________________________________

Week 1 Blog
Preseason can be so misleading, i have been on teams where we went 4 and 0 in the preseason and then went 7 and 9 in the regular season. And i have been on teams that we went 0 and 4 in preseason and then went 11 and 5 in the regular season so it preseason is an experimenting time for teams to say the least.

Here are some observations as we move into the regular season and things to watch for.

Jets vs Dallas , Watched the Jets O against Cleveland last year and Rob Ryan who is in Dallas as the D coordinator now was in Cleveland and the Browns D did a very good job confusing the O line, backs of the jets and a lot of success getting after Sanchez on 3rd down. The Brown stood people up over the center and that really game the Jets problems. Cowboys have 3 new guys on the Offensive line and i expect Rex on the other side to make those 5 guys play together with how he blitzes. This Cowboy O line will the key to this game for the Cowboys.

Broncos, Von Miller looks and moves like Lawrence Taylor, he does not look like a Rookie at all. He has great pass rushing skills amazing instincts and can rush the passer or play in space and knows how to take on the run. He will be the Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Steelers, the most versatile defensive player for the Steelers this year will be Lawerane Timmons. Just watching him on tape you can see a guy that moves with complete confidence. It takes a while to learn this system because with the all the zone pressures the Steelers use a LB like Timmons can be a middle LB one play in a blitz then an outside backer then a DB, so its learning how to play in all those different areas that is so hard to learn. He will be the guy the design a lot of stuff for this year and he will be on SportCenter highlights a lot this year.

Seattle, watch Tarvaris Jackson throw the ball this preseason i was not impressed. He had very little confidence is Minnesota and you can tell his still does not play with a lot of confidence, he is hesitant on a lot of quick throws and that is something you cannot do, you have to throw with great anticipation, not with hesitation. He misses a lot of throws because he is not sure.

Washington, After watch tape of the preseason i can see why Rex was named the starter, he just allows the Redskins to do more in the passing game with his ability to throw the ball down the field and to the perimeter! and I love Tim Hightower he was a great pick up, but you can tell he is still learning how to trust his instincts along with learning the discipline it takes to run in this running system. He will get better and better as the season moves on.