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San Diego Chargers: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#28)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Chargers, Uncategorized

I had the Chargers playing the overrated Texans close, as the Texans were playing in a very late game for them (from Central time) and they were missing both Antonio Smith and Ed Reed, so I’m not surprised by the final score. However, the Chargers have to be kicking themselves for letting a win slip away like that in a season where wins will still be hard to come by. After blowing a 24-0 halftime lead against the Broncos last year, blowing a 28-7 lead against the Texans has to be bringing back Vietnam flashbacks for this team. And this time around, they can’t blame Norv Turner. I don’t buy the notion that quarterbacks suddenly become worse just by the quarter changing to the 4th, but Philip Rivers’ 12 touchdown to 16 interception ratio in the 4th quarter since 2011 is concerning.

Week 1 Studs

ROLB Dwight Freeney

LOLB Jarret Johnson

FS Eric Weddle

Week 1 Duds

RT DJ Fluker

RG Jeromey Clary

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New York Jets: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#29)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Jets, Uncategorized

The Jets won week 1, but no team that won was closer to losing. Lavonte David’s penalty was the difference between a near impossible 62 yard field goal and a makeable 47 yard field goal. I’m not trying to take anything away from the Jets, whose defense did a great job of shutting down Doug Martin and confusing Josh Freeman, but they’re still going to have a tough time winning games going forward.

Week 1 Studs

RT Austin Howard

DT Damon Harrison

Week 1 Duds

LT D’Brickashaw Ferguson

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Cleveland Browns: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#30)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Browns, Uncategorized

I thought the Browns would be competitive with the Dolphins on the strength of their front 7 and their offensive line, but Brandon Weeden’s poor performance made that impossible, as he completed 26 of 53 for 289 yards, 1 touchdown, and 3 interceptions. Their secondary also did not look good. Joe Haden was great as always, shutting down Mike Wallace, but Haden’s value is minimized because opponents can just throw away from him and pick on other defensive backs with ease. Brian Hartline torched them for 114 yards and a touchdown on 9 catches.

Week 1 Studs

LT Joe Thomas

RE Desmond Bryant

MLB D’Qwell Jackson

Week 1 Duds

QB Brandon Weeden

RB Chris Ogbonnaya

RT Mitchell Schwartz

LG John Greco

RG Oneil Cousins

WR Greg Little

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Jacksonville Jaguars: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#31)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Jaguars, Uncategorized

The Jaguars were essentially shut out in their opener, only scoring on a safety. Kansas City is a tough defense, but the fact is that Blaine Gabbert remains one of, if not the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL. He completed just 16 of 35 for 121 yards and 2 interceptions without a score, but even worse is that just 22 of his yards came through the air. The rest were after the catch. Gabbert is out with an injury and will be replaced with the slightly superior Chad Henne this week as the Jaguars head to Oakland for what will be one of their best chances to win a game and one of the least interesting games of the season. The Jaguars started Gabbert because they wanted to evaluate him further, but his injury isn’t allowing them to do that, though they might have seen enough after week 1.

Week 1 Studs

None

Week 1 Duds

QB Blaine Gabbert

DT Roy Miller

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Oakland Raiders: 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings (#32)

stevenlourie 2013 NFL Power Rankings, 2013 Week 2 NFL Power Rankings, Raiders, Uncategorized

The Raiders kept it close with the Colts and could have won. However, the Colts had 7 wins by 7 or less against 7 win or worse teams last season, so that’s not as impressive as it seems. The Colts just aren’t as good as they seem. Even the 2-14 Chiefs played them within a touchdown last season. The Raiders’ week 1 performance doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be the worst team in the NFL, as so many predicted. Terrelle Pryor was a weapon on the ground, with 112 rushing yards against a Colts defense that seemed unprepared for a running quarterback, but he didn’t move the ball through the air well, even against a weak Indianapolis secondary.

Week 1 Studs

RT Tony Pashos

DE LaMarr Houston

DT Vance Walker

Week 1 Duds

LT Khalif Barnes

LG Lucas Nix

DT Pat Sims

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2013 Week 2 Fantasy Football Pickups

stevenlourie 2013 Fantasy Football, 2013 Fantasy Football Pickups, Uncategorized

WR Julian Edelman (New England)

Percent owned (ESPN): 4.2%

Julian Edelman caught 7 passes for 79 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Patriots’ opener. Someone needs to catch passes for Tom Brady and he seems more comfortable throwing to Edelman than any of the rookies. Edelman is worth picking up going forward solely because he’s a starting wide receiver in New England, but he has a lot of upside if Brady continues to look his way.

TE Julius Thomas (Denver)

Percent owned (ESPN): 19.4%

Thomas caught 5 passes for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns in the Broncos’ opener. He’ll probably see inconsistent week to week production behind Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker, and maybe Eric Decker for targets and Peyton Manning won’t usually play as well as he did against Baltimore, so I’m not as high on Thomas as most, but he’s worth a pickup.

WR Leonard Hankerson (Washington)

Percent owned (ESPN): 0.4%

Leonard Hankerson was Robert Griffin’s favorite target in the opener, especially around the end zone, as he scored twice to go with just 6 catches for 80 yards. He’s a talented 2011 3rd round pick who has flashed at times and he could be putting it all together in his 3rd year in the league, a frequent breakout year for receivers.

QB Terrelle Pryor (Oakland)

Percent owned (ESPN): 7.2%

Pryor isn’t a very good real quarterback, but he’s an intriguing fantasy quarterback because of his rushing ability. Pryor 112 yards rushing are still 2nd in the NFL through 1 week and he also added 217 yards through the air, though with just 1 score and 2 picks. Few QB2s have more upside so he’s worth a bench stash.

TE Kellen Winslow (NY Jets)

Percent owned (ESPN): 1.6%

Someone has to catch passes for the Jets and Geno Smith seemed very comfortable throwing to his tight end Kellen Winslow, who caught 7 passes for 79 yards and a touchdown. Winslow is a proven veteran. He looked done last year, but he’s only 30. He’s worth a look in deeper leagues.

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Miami Dolphins at Cleveland Browns: 2013 Week 1 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 Week 1 NFL Picks, Browns, Dolphins, Uncategorized

Miami Dolphins (0-0) at Cleveland Browns (0-0)

The Dolphins were hailed by the media as the winners of the off-season, after all of the millions they spent, but like previous “winners” of the off-season, they should disappoint. The Buccaneers were the “winner” of last off-season, after shelling out big money for Carl Nicks, Vincent Jackson, and Eric Wright, but managed just 7 wins. The “Dream Team” Eagles came before them and they won just 8 games. Dan Snyder and the free spending Redskins came many a time before them, but largely produced no results.

The well run teams who sustain consistent success, the Packers, Patriots, Giants, 49ers, Ravens, Steelers, Falcons, Saints, etc. of the world, almost never make a big move on the first day of free agency. They instead focus on strong drafting, developing and re-signing their own guys, and letting the market come to them and filling holes with solid starters on cheaper deals on later days in free agency. They never make panic signings early in free agency.You can say it’s because they are already good or because they don’t have a lot of cap space, but none of those teams was built through big free agency signings. No consistently good team ever was.

I don’t know how much better of a team the Dolphins are as a result of this off-season. Mike Wallace was the big signing, signing this off-season’s biggest contract, getting 60 million over 5 years from the Dolphins. He’ll undoubtedly be an upgrade on the outside opposite Brian Hartline, but he’s overrated and not worth what he was paid. In 2010 and 2011, Wallace was one of the best receivers in the league, catching a combined 132 passes for 2450 yards and 18 touchdowns. However, Wallace held out long into Training Camp last off-season, putting himself above the team and was not the same all season. He caught just 55.2% of the passes thrown his way and averaged just 13.1 yards per catch. They also added Dustin Keller and Brandon Gibson in the receiving corps, but the former is out for the year with a knee injury, while the latter is a pure depth caliber receiver with very limited slot experience.

On the defensive side of the ball, the two big signings they made were linebackers Dannell Ellerbe and Philip Wheeler. Ellerbe displaced Karlos Dansby at middle linebacker, while Wheeler displaced Kevin Burnett on the outside. They may be upgrades over what the veterans would have been this season, but both veterans actually had great seasons last year so it’s hard to see them being better than that. On top of that, they are both much less proven and the Dolphins are essentially paying for one year wonders. Prior to last season, Ellerbe had played 917 career snaps in 3 seasons and graded out below average in all 3 seasons. Wheeler, meanwhile, had topped out at 537 snaps in a season in 3 years as a part-time base package linebacker in Indianapolis, prior to last year’s breakout year.

On top of that, they had serious losses this off-season, losing running back Reggie Bush, cornerback Sean Smith, and most importantly left tackle Jake Long. They’ll attempt to replace those 3 with in house Lamar Miller, free agent Brent Grimes, and free agent Tyson Clabo respectively. I like Miller’s chances and Grimes could be good if they stay healthy, but, as good of a player as Clabo is, his presence moves Jonathan Martin to the blindside, where he was awful last season in 5 starts there. He wasn’t good at right tackle, but he was awful on the left side. That could make it tough for the Dolphins to set up the deep strikes to Wallace they would like.

I don’t think the Dolphins and Browns have serious talent disparities or anything. The Browns have a great offensive line, a strong and deep front 7, and the potential to be a very good running team depending on how Trent Richardson plays and how healthy he stays. Brandon Weeden is awful under center and the presence of shutdown cornerback Joe Haden could be wasted by the fact that they really lack cornerback depth and have plenty of other guys who can be picked on in the secondary. That being said, I do think the Browns will win here at home, against a pick ‘em line. I can’t bring myself to put anything on it though.

Also, one note, I’m changing how I do picks this year. I’ll be grouping my picks into high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, and no confidence picks. I’ll also have one pick of the week.

Cleveland Browns 16 Miami Dolphins 13

Pick against spread: Cleveland PK

Confidence: None

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Philadelphia Eagles at Washington Redskins: 2013 Week 1 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 Week 1 NFL Picks, Commanders, Eagles, Uncategorized

Philadelphia Eagles (0-0) at Washington Redskins (0-0)

When this line opened at -5, it was one of the few lines I really had no idea on. I was just going to take the points because I felt the Redskins were being overrated. They won’t recover a league best 67% of their fumbles again. Robert Griffin won’t have an interception rate of 1.0% again. And while their overall injury situation should be better, especially with the return of Brian Orakpo and Pierre Garcon, Robert Griffin’s injury and how it could change his game can’t be overlooked at all. They also were without a first round pick to add much needed help to their defense.

However, this line shifted to -3.5, through the key number of 4, because the Eagles’ strong pre-season and I don’t think that’s right. The Eagles will have fewer injuries this year, especially on the offensive line, where they return Jason Peterson, Todd Herremans, and Jason Kelce, to go with rookie Lane Johnson to give them essentially 4 new starters on that unit. They’ll also have a better turnover rate than their league worst -24 from a year ago, largely due to a poor fumble recovery rate.

However, their defense figures to still be a mess, even if they do get more takeaways. The foursome of new starters in their secondary isn’t nearly as big of an upgrade as they needed and one of them, safety Kenny Phillips, has already been cut with injury problems. In the front 7, they are changing to a 3-4 scheme that doesn’t fit their personnel, especially top players Brandon Graham, Trent Cole, and DeMeco Ryans. The mediocre Connor Barwin comes in and will see significant snaps at rush linebacker over the superior Cole and Graham.

I like Chip Kelly, but I don’t think he has the personnel to fit his fast paced system. Their offense doesn’t have the personnel to consistently convert 1st downs, which will lead to a lot of quick drives and a lot of field time for a gassed and already overmatched defense. Michael Vick looked great in the pre-season, but I don’t put much stock into that. He’s still 33, injury prone, and predictably declining. He’s more reliant on athleticism than any quarterback of the last decade, so it makes sense that he’d aged like a running back or wide receiver. Once the games really matter and defenses are less vanilla, he’ll struggle and probably turn the ball over a lot. They’ll put up nice fantasy numbers offensively in this scheme, but they won’t win a ton of games. I hate overreacting to the pre-season so I’m switching over to the Redskins on this one, but I’m not confident either way.

Also, one note, I’m changing how I do picks this year. I’ll be grouping my picks into high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, and no confidence picks. I’ll also have one pick of the week.

Washington Redskins 31 Philadelphia Eagles 27

Pick against spread: Washington -3.5

Confidence: None

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Arizona Cardinals at St. Louis Rams: 2013 Week 1 NFL Pick

stevenlourie 2013 Week 1 NFL Picks, Cardinals, Rams, Uncategorized

Arizona Cardinals (0-0) at St. Louis Cardinals (0-0)

The line used to be -6 in favor of St. Louis, but, unfortunately, it’s dropped down to -4.5. I would have taken Arizona +6, but I’m not as confident in Arizona +4.5. That being said, I think these two teams are much more evenly matched than they’re given credit for. Everyone assumes the Rams will improve their win total this season because they have more talent, but I’m not so sure about that.

Football is a game of parity. A team sees an average change of 3 wins per season in either direction and teams that have big improvements on average regress about half of that the following season and vice versa. The Rams have been doing quite a bit of bouncing around in the past few years, going from 1 win to 7 wins to 2 wins to 7 wins and a tie. Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to bounce into the playoffs at any point and if history is any indication, they are due to bounce back down, at least a little bit.

There were a couple unsustainable things that led to the Rams’ win improvement last season. They were 6th in the league in adjusted games lost, meaning they had significantly fewer injuries than the league average. This was a season after they ranked dead last in that category in 2011. They also exceeded their Pythagorean Expectations by a whole win (assuming a half win for the tie) as they were outscored by 49 points on the season and had a Pythagorean Expectation of 6.5 wins, 23rd in the NFL. They did have a really tough schedule last season, but things don’t look much easier this season.

The Rams will have to hope that all of the talent they’ve added through free agency in the past few off-seasons have paid off and that they will continue climbing the wins ladder because they are legitimately a more talented team. They’ve signed Harvey Dahl, Cortland Finnegan, Scott Wells, Kendall Langford, Jake Long, and Jared Cook to significant contracts in the last 3 off-seasons, to go with Robert Quinn, Michael Brockers, Alec Ogletree, and Tavon Austin added in the first round of the last 3 drafts. Austin, Long, and Cook are the big additions of this off-season as the Rams made surrounding Sam Bradford with more talent the single primary concern of their off-season.

The Rams are undoubtedly a more talented team this season, but they would have probably seen another bounce down (at least a few games) this season if they hadn’t added the extra talent. I just have a hard time seeing them improve on last year’s record in the loaded NFC. They have talent, but they’re not a great team or anything and you look at the rest of the NFC, I don’t know if there’s a single NFC team that you can say, they’re definitely worse than the Rams.

That includes the Cardinals. Remember, they were 4-0 to start last year and Kevin Kolb, their only competent quarterback, was 4-2 with this team. Carson Palmer isn’t great or anything, but he’ll look like Joe Montana compared to the Ryan Lindley/John Skelton/Brian Hoyer combination that combined to throw 3 touchdowns to 18 interceptions. They only game they won involved numerous big special teams plays and return touchdowns. If you had played another 16 games after the end of last season, the Cardinals would have been lucky to win 2 of them.

New Head Coach Bruce Arians put Carson Palmer in a position to throw downfield to an underrated trio of receivers in Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd, and Andre Roberts. Their failure to drastically improve the offensive line, especially with 1st round pick Jonathan Cooper out for the season, as well as some losses defensively, including Daryl Washington for the first 4 games of the season with suspension, will hold them back from being as good as they looked at the start of last season, but they’ll be an improved team this year. I see a field goal game here, but I’m not confident enough to put anything on the Cardinals.

Also, one note, I’m changing how I do picks this year. I’ll be grouping my picks into high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, and no confidence picks. I’ll also have one pick of the week.

St. Louis Rams 16 Arizona Cardinals 13

Pick against spread: Arizona +4.5

Confidence: None

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