Peter King unveils the prophecy action, not just telling us who will be in the Super Bowl, but who will be Defensive Rookie of the Year. Zounds, man! Your remarkable crystal ball is supreme!
...anyway, I seriously resent him choosing the Cowboys for many reasons. Look I've been a Cowboys fan since I was five and saw that gorgeous blue star on the silver helmet. But seriously, we commit too many penalties under Wade Phillips, and tend to come up big in the small games, and small in the big games. Love the players. The team, not so much. Second, picking the Cowboys just about guarantees that I'm right. The NFL is notoriously unstable, these days--in a good way. No one would have picked the Giants. But I guess "I Have No Fucking Idea" wouldn't amount to much of a column.
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No one would have picked the Giants.
I think that's more because the Giants (or at least certain key personnel) are notoriously unstable, rather than the NFL.
Hit the nail on the head. If he were to actually write that he has no clue whatsoever what's going to happen his bosses might realize he's not worth the large salary he's getting paid. Same as everyone on CNN. Funny what blogs do to people's perceptions.
Seriously, TNC, give the 'Boys a little credit. They have as good as shot as anybody. And an easier time coming out of the weaker conference. I think its a pretty decent pick, and they gotta be the favorites to come out of the NFC.
I actually think that Peter King is pretty good at what he does, and think even more highly of Dr. Z, though I wouldn't put any stock in his pre-season picks (he actually went on chicago sports talk radio in 2005 after the Bears clinched the NFC North and good-naturedly took his lumps for his pre-season prediction that the Bears would be the absolute worst bar none team in football).
Pre-season predictions are something that editors make writers do, not something that writers like doing.
And here we have hit upon the central similarity between sports writing and political punditry.
'The NFL is notoriously unstable, these days--in a good way.'
MLB could take some lessons in competitive balance from the NFL.
Zounds, man!
Hey, I know that word!
"MLB could take some lessons in competitive balance from the NFL."
While I agree with your point in principle, I think its worth noting that MLB has seven different champions over the past eight years. The Pirates, Reds, Nationals, Blue Jays, Orioles and Royals are the only teams I can think of that haven't competed in the past decade. I don't want to stick up for baseball's lack of salary cap, but I think the insane coverage of the Yankees and Red Sox make it appear to be worse than it is.
What amazed me about pre-season picks are how spineless they are. If you look, you'll find that most of them predict the same teams to go the post-season who went last year. I actually analyzed this one year and found that they were typically picking 8-10 teams to repeat post-season appearances and 6-8 teams to repeat as division champs. Consider that only half of NFL teams do so...
As for NFL vs. MLB in terms of competitiveness, that's garbage. If baseball has twelve post-season teams, it would look a lot more competitive. The teams expected to dominate this season are Dallas, New England, maybe Philly? The same teams that did well last year.
Lay off Wade. They had just as many dumb penalties under big bad disciplinarian Parcells. Wade has a rep for being soft, but in reality he just treats his players like grownups.
How many seasons have been doomed simply because of injuries to critical players? That's something that happens every year, can't be predicted, and exposes the folly of pre-season picks.
Matt,
The fact that they were just as sloppy under Parcells, doesn't really prove anything. It simply says that neither coach fielded a disciplined team. The NFL, as it exists now, is mostly about who makes the least mistakes--who jumps on 3rd and 4, who drops a pass that's right in their mitts, who completely blows a coverage. The 8 yard run is usually not the killer--it's the 15 yard facemask that's tacked on.
I hope I'm wrong about my Cowboys. But we were way way too loose in the Giants game.
Philly didn't dominate last season. They didn't even make the playoffs.
Well... They've never won a playoff game with Romo and the NFC's only won 3 of the last 10, so I can see where TNC's coming from. Pre-season picks are meaningless fluff, but I'll still give King a bit of credit for going out on a limb with the Cowboys. Ballsier than the Pats, Colts, and Chargers picks I've heard from most folks.
TNC,
I hear you, but I put that on the players. The fact that tough guy Parcells and nice guy Phillips both ended up with the same results with basically the same players proves to me that Coaches can only do so much.
And as much as it pains me, let's give the G Men their due. Every team they played in their run ended up looking way way to loose. Even the poster children for NFL discipline, the Pats, got burned by penalties in the end. At some point you have to say maybe those teams didn't fuck up as much as they got fucked up.
The line in Vegas says Big 3 vs Field. The big 3 are the Cowboys, Pats, and Colts. Who you got?
Good God, comeback player of the year, Shaun Rogers?
Cowboys fan for life. Born there (although I moved to Cali soon after) and my mama loves 'em. Gotta follow ya mama man. Gotta follow ya mama.
My heart says the Cowboys and the Chargers. But my mind says the Pats aren't done, the Colts will have something to say about that and the Giants have the swagger to defend.
We'll see though.
i want to weigh in as well on the MLB/NFL question of balance: as someone who hates the salary cap, baseball is my example of why the salary cap does zippo for competitive balance. it's hard to see how anyone could possibly argue otherwise.
as for preseason picking in football, the problem at hand, as someone noted, is that we don't have a crystal ball as to injuries. if we did, then it wouldn't be that hard to pick favorites....
In theory I like Wade's style as a coach, so I can't point to anything in particular for believing this, but until he wins a playoff game my optimism is definitely tempered. Plus, Jerry's affection for attention is the kind of thing no team needs.
Stacy wrote:
"The Pirates, Reds, Nationals, Blue Jays, Orioles and Royals are the only teams I can think of that haven't competed in the past decade."
Texas Rangers. You forgot the Rangers. I work in Arlington, and the foul reek that emanates from the Ballpark this time of year is very hard to ignore.