Overreactions, Exaggerations & Just The Plain Out Truth – Week 12
Dec 1, 2021, 11:49 AM | Updated: 11:49 am
(Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
(Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)
Once again the NFL proved that anything can happen on a Sunday(and for this week a Thursday) and that we what think we know, we really don’t.
The Steelers are just about out of time, the Bengals are looking like the Bengals of the 1980’s all of a sudden and don’t look now but the San Francisco 49ers are surging at the right moment.
Let’s take a look at the week that was Week 12.
Overreactions
This season may be the weirdest football season ever: A few weeks back I wrote about how underdogs have not only been covering the betting spreads but outright winning games. I also spoke about how the NFL, the league of parity, has seen a ton of balance in all 32 teams across the board and how a record number of teams set with .500 records.
Well, I just wasn’t blowing smoke, it actually turns out that I was right. The points can be proven by taking a look at what has just now become one the worst months ever in Nevada Sports wagering history for the betting public on record.
The Sports books throughout the country have reportedly grossed over a billion dollars in losses from the public in November alone. As of right now, the underdogs in the month of December have covered about 60% of the time, with twenty-three of them winning outright.
“From week to week, things appear to change dramatically,” said Chuck Esposito, a veteran Las Vegas bookmaker with Station Casinos. “Dominant teams earlier in the year have come down to earth, and dogs have been covering at a much higher clip.
There are 24 teams that are still fighting for playoff spots.” According to sports books, there are twenty-four teams they feel are still in the hunt for a post season bid and we have 5 weeks remaining in the season. That’s 3/4 of the league still in the playoff hunt.
The 2021-2022 season just may become the weirdest season yet.
Wide Receivers playing RB, we need more of it: There have been a few players in the modern era of football who have been multi-position players and who have been good at it.
Currently the Swiss army knife of the NFL is Cordarrelle Patterson of the Atlanta Falcons who lines up just about anywhere on offense for the Falcons besides on the offensive line.
He has found a place that can utilize his talents to the extreme and it has proven beneficial for the team. Lately the San Francisco 49ers have utilized receiver Deebo Samuel as a running back, arming him with jet sweeps and inside handoffs that has loudly announced to the rest of the NFL that Samuel may be in the mold of Patterson or even better.
I’m all for it, I would love to see more of the great receivers in the game get an opportunity to touch the ball a few times more from a different advantage.
Could you imagine Hollywood Brown or DK Metcalf get the ball with a full steam ahead towards the defense?
Exaggerations
The sons of former NFL DB’s have a chance to be better than their fathers: When you grow up under the tutelage of fathers that were pro bowlers in the NFL you really don’t have no choice but to be a baller. It began last year with Antoine Winfield Jr, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their magical ride to the Super Bowl where we got to see the second edition Winfield ball out.
Now we’ve seen the second coming of Asante Samuel as his son “ASJ” has began to really shine for the Los Angeles Chargers and their defensive backfield. Both of the Juniors, highly ranked prospects, have already paid dividends to their teams and have shown that they may be on the track to really match or maybe even equal their fathers careers.
They are both young, super talented and well on their way to good and maybe even great careers.
The injury report looks familiar: One of the best quotes I’ve ever heard in sports was from Herm Edwards during one of the many times I’ve had the pleasure to interview him.
He said, “The best ability in sports, is availability”. Facts are facts and as much as it pains me to speak about injuries, the facts are there are certain players in the National Football League who will always be apart of a group of guys who just can’t stay healthy for a complete season. Stalwarts, pillars of the injury report, players who have a chronic reputation of missing games and meaningful action.
Earlier this season I brought up the fact of Christian McCaffrey’s importance and how much he meant to the Carolina Panthers.
At the moment of my comments, the Panthers were in the thick of the playoff race(they still are) and had a winning record. McCaffrey who hurt his hamstring in week 3 of the season returned to action only to hurt his ankle this past week in the first half of Carolina’s loss to the Miami Dolphins and will now miss the rest of the season, as his ankle requires surgery.
That means McCaffrey will miss a total of 10 complete games and would have missed two half’s of football in the other two games he injured himself in.
On top of that, since signing his 64 million dollar deal, he has only played in 10 of the 33 games and missed 13 games last year with multiple injuries. The fact is McCaffrey is a running back and backs tend to get injured way more than a lot of other positions on the field, what’s terrible about the situation is, it’s almost become the norm.
Speaking of running backs and injuries, there’s another running back who has become a staple on the injury report and that’s Dalvin Cook of the Minnesota Vikings.
Cook who left this past week’s game versus the San Francisco 49ers with a reported dislocated shoulder has had some question to what exactly the diagnosis is on the shoulder. Initially reported as a dislocated shoulder, there has been some thought that Cook torn his labrum, which coach Mike Zimmer denied in his press conference Monday. Either way, Cook is expected to miss at least two weeks with the injury.
This will be the second time this season he will miss time, as earlier in the season, Cook battled ankle injuries and missed some time. In 2019 Cook missed time with shoulder issues, in 2017 he tore an ACL and missed 12 games, in 2018 he suffered a hamstring injury that caused him to miss four complete games and limited him in a few others. Last season he missed a game due to a groin injury.
You get the picture, a superstar when healthy but a regular on the injury report.
It’s so tough to see stars like McCaffrey and Cook who are all pro players face injuries so regularly but the fact are the facts and we have to deal with that
The Truth
Keenan Allen: Simply put, Keenan Allen is and has always been the truth. He is good at what he does and there is no denying that. Allen who had seven receptions this past week in a loss to the Denver Broncos registered his 700th career reception in his 111th career game.
According to NFL.Com that is a record tying feat for Allen who tied Antonio Brown for being the fastest to 700 receptions in the shortest amount of games.
Draft positioning means something: Unlike the NBA, I don’t believe in the notion that NFL teams purposely take a nose dive and tank seasons away to try and land higher draft spots, just look at the winless Detroit Lions and how hard they are playing still week in and week out.
I do however believe management orchestrates the necessary moves to insure teams are stripped of enough talent to make sure they don’t really have a chance to compete to secure a higher draft pick, just look at the Detroit Lions. However, when a season gets down to the end and the final few weeks are upon us, you definitely see a difference in organizations approach of how they will play out a season to secure the highest possible pick.
It’s Week 13 and you better believe teams like the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans have their eye on the prize. Begin to pay close attention to some of the “young” players get a chance to play or a few players mysteriously sit a game due to illness or spasms. We are entering a time where draft stock matters, watch, look and listen.
Teams Missing the playoffs: Another week in the books and another name to add to the list of teams who will be exiting the season early.
After a strong start to the season, the Carolina Panthers have floundered over the last few weeks and have now found themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs.
With no real decisions made at the quarterback position and a schedule that see’s the Tampa bay Buccaneers on the docket twice in five weeks, plus a run in with the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, you can go ahead and kiss the postseason goodbye.
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