Top Flops? Writers predicting Patriots & Cowboys losses

Lexy · Joined: 16 Nov 2007 Posts: 10

On Jan 9, 2:15 pm, "Fred Goodwin, CMA" wrote:
> Cowboys will lose, but don't blame Jessica
>
> > columnist=wickersham_seth&id=3186421>http://tinyurl.com/2bkohp
>
> By Seth Wickersham
> ESPN The Magazine
> Updated: January 9, 2008
>
> What's that? You want nine reasons the fifth-seeded Giants will beat
> the top-seeded Cowboys? Sure, in a New York -- er, New Jersey --
> minute.
>
> 1. Eli Manning
>
> Note that it's "Eli Manning" and not "The Eli Manning Factor." Now,
> that's not to say Manning is forever over his inconsistent ways. In
> fact, Cowboys fans are praying he regresses into one of his 13-of-38
> afternoons. But it won't happen, not this Sunday. Not when Manning has
> hit 42 of his past 59 passes with six touchdowns and one interception
> against teams with a combined 25-7 record. Not against a defense that,
> since November, has struggled to stop Aaron Rodgers, Jon Kitna, Jason
> Campbell, Todd Collins and, in stretches, even Matt Moore.
>
> Watching Manning the past few weeks: He's shaking secondaries around
> with his eyes, freezing them with pump fakes, hanging in the pocket
> and finding the open guy -- and the Giants' pass-catchers, after
> leading the NFL in drops with 42, are holding on to the ball. Manning
> won't be fazed by two losses to Dallas this year. His confidence,
> after all, is sky high because ...
>
> 2. The loss to New England was a good thing
>
> Tom Coughlin made the right call in playing his starters against the
> Patriots in Week 17, even if it cost him a few of them. He put it on
> his players to dig deep against the best regular-season team in
> history, and they responded, even though they lost. Now, the Giants
> think, "Hey, we almost -- maybe even should have -- beat the Patriots.
> Why should we fear anyone else?" Last Sunday, that meant the Bucs.
> This Sunday, the Cowboys.
>
> Hang around the Giants for a little while, and you hardly recognize
> them. Last year's famously divided locker room is now tight and
> confident. Guys pass each other and say hi. Players rumored to be
> prima donnas (Plaxico Burress) are leaders. Leaders who specialized in
> self-promotion (Tiki Barber) are gone. Nowhere in this group will you
> find a player who, oh, declares the star quarterback's girlfriend
> unwelcome around the team and its fans. Which leads us to ...
>
> 3. Jessica Simpson
>
> No, she's not a problem. Nor was Tony Romo vacationing with her last
> week in Mexico. But the media's talking about their relationship can
> be a problem, not to mention an infuriating irritation for those
> involved. On Tuesday, there were three Dallas-area newspaper headlines
> referring to Romo's bye-week vacation, compared to one about Terrell
> Owens' injured ankle. In Dallas, they're talking about Mexico. In New
> York, they're talking about how ...
>
> 4. The Giants are hot
>
> By any objective measure, the Cowboys are a better team than the
> Giants, with a better coach, better quarterback, better weapons, not
> to mention 12 Pro Bowlers. But the Giants have been the better team
> during the past month, and being hot matters more than being a No. 1
> seed. Just ask the '06 Chargers, '05 Colts, and the '04 and '01
> Steelers. And the Giants are on a roll in part because ...
>
> 5. They can run
>
> Among backs with 1,000 or more yards, only Adrian Peterson and Fred
> Taylor averaged more yards per carry than Brandon Jacobs' 5.0. He's
> the next Larry Johnson, minus the enigma factor. Mix in Ahmad Bradshaw
> (17 carries for 151 yards against the Bills in Week 16), and New York
> has enough to keep Dallas off balance and control the clock. And time
> of possession will be a headache for the Cowboys because ...
>
> 6. They can't run
>
> Not consistently, anyway. Rushing yards the past five games: 105, 87,
> 53, 148, 1. (1!) Which wouldn't be such a big deal, but ...
>
> 7. Dallas has serious questions at receiver
>
> We know about T.O.'s ankle. He'll gut it out, like he did in Super
> Bowl XXXIX. But how effective will he be? Suddenly, the guy who
> elevates Dallas' passing game to another level might not even merit a
> double team. The Cowboys are happy to have Terry Glenn back, but who
> knows what kind of threat he will be after missing virtually the
> entire season. Their timing will be off, unlike that of the Giants'
> offense, which is reaping the benefits of the fact that ...
>
> 8. The rest of the '04 QB class has arrived
>
> Three playoff teams -- Pittsburgh, New York and San Diego -- put the
> game into the hands of their respective first-round quarterback from
> 2004. Opposing defenses wanted the game in the hands of those
> quarterbacks. Well, the one with the most playoff success in the past,
> Ben Roethlisberger, turned the ball over four times. The ones who
> hadn't won a playoff game, Manning and Philip Rivers, carried their
> teams to wins. Now, amazingly, Manning has had more playoff success
> than Romo, not to mention ...
>
> 9. Two good thumbs
>
> --
> Seth Wickersham is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a
> columnist for ESPN.com.

Only a true Giants fan can argue with a serious face that the Giants
will beat the Cowboys.Everything is based on how they perceive the
Cowboys from their last 3 reg. season game,not on their overall record
during the season.TO WILL be in the game and he will play very well
like he did in the SuperBowlHes got alot of guts.Romo's thumb is not
injured any longer.The sore thumb came 4 weeks ago.Everyone will be
healthy for the Cowboys,and since when does losing to the Pats,and
beating a 9-7 team count as a ticket to the SuperBowl>Hey Sam,be
prepared to kiss Romo's ass when the game is over

Archived from group: alt>sports>football>pro>dallas-cowboys

MZ · Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 130

wrote in message @k2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>As I said before, (try to retain what has already been laid out) you
>played NINE freaking games against .500 or less teams. Even the '77
>Broncos earned a trip to the Superbowl playing only FOUR games w/
>losing records. You keep refering to "total points" but most all those
>lopsided games were against teams that are in the dung heap of
>defensive rankings. It was the pats fortune to get that schedule. They
>may as well been playing the Girl Scouts of America.

And as I said to you before, it's no different than any other era.

You cite the '70s dolphins. I think we all know about the '72 Dolphins
strength of schedule.
You cite the '80s niners. The '84 team (often regarded as their best)
played only 4 games (3 teams) against teams with >.500 records.
You cite the '90s cowboys. The '92 team played 5 games (4 teams) against
teams with >.500 records.

I just randomly chose three from the list you provided. You'll undoubtedly
find others that you cited with stronger strengths of schedule, and yet
others with weaker strengths of schedule. Football history is full of great
teams having played a few other good teams but mostly bad teams. Remember,
that's what free agency and the salary cap were supposed to change (but they
haven't).

You're right, of course, that the Pats beat up on some pretty bad teams over
the course of the season. But, against playoff teams, they scored 38, 48,
24, 34, 38, and 52 points (average=39ppg). That LOW 24 point performance,
by the way, was against the league's best defense who allowed more points
(25) in only one other game this season.

Try to massage it all you want, but the Pats offense broke records this
season and it wasn't against abnormally poor competition. Sure, blame it on
steroids if you want. Or weights. Or salaries. It must have been the
videocameras, huh?

MZ · Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 130

wrote in message @comcast.com...
> In alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots MZ wrote:
>> They had better offenses? Then how come they couldn't score more points?
>
> One thing to take note of though is how these offenses did in respect to
> the other teams in the league the year in question. Obviously rules
> have been changed over the years, particularly in recent history (thanks,
> Mr Polian) to enable more prolific passing attacks.
>
> What I mean is this:
>
> The Pats scored X points (too lazy to look up the real number), and the
> average team scored Y points.
>
> The 89 Niners scored A points and the average team in 1989 scored B
> points.
>
> It is possible that comparing A & B shows that A is actually more
> impressive than X vs Y.
>
> I don't know that this is the case for any of the teams he brought up,
> frankly it'd not really surprise me one way or the other, but I don't
> think
> you can just look at total points scored in a vaccuum.

That's a great point. But also don't look at offenses in a vacuum. He
cites salaries, weights, and steroids (apparently those weren't around in
the 70's) as a reason why offenses are better these days. But how come
defenses also aren't better because of those things?

Anyway...
In '07 the Pats scored 589 points compared to a league average of 339
points.
In '89 the 49ers scored 442 points compared to a league average of 313.9
points.

*league averages don't include the 07 Pats and 89 49ers point totals, since
we're doing a comparison to other teams in the league.

The Pats feat is more impressive, wouldn't you say?

MZ · Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 130

wrote in message @s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> NOT. AND FUCKING NOT. The Pats technically won their game against the
> Ravens. But the shot heard around the World was the expression on Ray
> Lewis's face after they stopped the pattys on 4th down, for keeps,
> only to find out the sideline had called timeout.

Good teams don't call stupid timeouts. HTH

> Any objective, sober
> mind new right then that in the trenches, at that moment, the team on
> the field, the Ravens, beat the other team on the field, the Pats.
> The Pats could hardly wipe the floor with a team with the DEFENSIVE
> prowess of the Steelers, "Steel Curtain" and an offense of Swann and
> Harris and Bradshaw.

"The offensive numbers are a function of the evolution of the athlete and
the game ( a function of salaries, steroids,equipment,etc..)"

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 12:16 pm, je.s.t...@hehxduhmp.org wrote:
> In alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots observer wrote:
>
> > I use narrow widths to prevent word wrap from occurring during replies.
>
> Why not just go with around 70 characters? Anyhoo, I don't really care -
> although when people line wrap it is really annoying. It just looked
> pretty old school Smile

There may be a method to his madness. He may want to avoid glue
elements: where a GE represents some kind of space between boxes: for
example, a space character between two words. A glue element xi,
besides its optimal width wi has a stretchability yi and a
shrinkability zi; this means that the breaking algorithm can set the
element's actual width to any value in the range [wi - zi, wi + yi],
although it will try to choose a value as close as possible to wi. In
the context of page breaking, a glue element can represent the space
between two paragraphs.
The other elements to avoid would be penalty elements which
represents information about a breaking point; it does not represent
any piece of content. The width wi of a penalty element xi is
considered only if the breaking algorithm chooses that penalty element
as a break. For example, in the context of line breaking the width of
the hyphen character "-" must be considered only if a word is actually
hyphenated. A penalty element xi has a penalty value pi representing
the "aesthetic cost" of the break: a positive cost suggests the
breaking algorithm not to use that break point, while a negative cost
signals an appealing position for a break. In particular, if pi is
+infinity it forbids a break, while if it is -infinity it forces a
break (in other words, there cannot be a better place for a break).
Moreover, a penalty element has a flagged boolean value: this value
marks penalties that should not be chosen to end consecutive lines.
For example, in the context of line breaking the hyphenation points
inside a word are represented using flagged penalties, so the
algorithm tries to avoid the creation of consecutive lines ending with
a hyphen.

MZ · Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 130

wrote in message @c23g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
>Total points against an AMALGAM OF DEFENSIVE WEENIES. Yeah, something
>to feel all gushy about. Like stealing candy from a baby.

There were 31 other teams that apparently didn't feel that stealing candy
from a baby was very easy.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 11:37 am, je.s.t...@hehxduhmp.org woke from a drunken
stupor and wildly exclaimed,
> "Is there some reason you're ignoring my retort to your idiotic rant
> about how the Steel Curtain would beat the 2007 Pats?"

That is the fact. It would be relative to the points I made initially,
that it is a function of better training regimens , heightened
motivations (read salaries) , etc....

What would have to happen is that you would have to Transmogrify the
pats 2007 team to the 70's where they would have prepared and operated
at that standard. Or, you need to Super Transmogrify the very
personalities and physical attributes of the 70's Steelers Team to
todays standard of (or evolution of) preparation and execution. With
that I think the tougher minds of the Steeler personalities would
prevail over the more pampered, cuturally compromised personas of the
pusses that are the Pats.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 12:56 pm, "MZ" wrote:
> wrote in message
>
> @k39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> >What would have to happen is that you would have to Transmogrify the
> >pats 2007 team to the 70's where they would have prepared and operated
> >at that standard. Or, you need to Super Transmogrify the very
> >personalities and physical attributes of the 70's Steelers Team to
> >todays standard of (or evolution of) preparation and execution. With
> >that I think the tougher minds of the Steeler personalities would
> >prevail over the more pampered, cuturally compromised personas of the
> >pusses that are the Pats.
>
> So, basically, with magic the Steelers would be the better team. Got it..

No damit, not magic, just the tougher men amongst men.

MZ · Joined: 28 Sep 2007 Posts: 130

wrote in message @21g2000hsj.googlegroups.com...
>Not sure I'm getting yer point. My point is the freakin easy,
>fortuidous 2007 schedule of the pats which without doubt attributed to
>those "total points". I'm pretty sure ( and I may be wrong ) that the
>Colts had a tougher schedule.

I think I showed that your assumption is not true.

And I'm not sure what the Colts have to do with any of it. But, no, the
Colts did not have a better strength of schedule in the games they won.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 12:56 pm, "MZ" wrote:
> wrote in message
>
> @k39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>
> >What would have to happen is that you would have to Transmogrify the
> >pats 2007 team to the 70's where they would have prepared and operated
> >at that standard. Or, you need to Super Transmogrify the very
> >personalities and physical attributes of the 70's Steelers Team to
> >todays standard of (or evolution of) preparation and execution. With
> >that I think the tougher minds of the Steeler personalities would
> >prevail over the more pampered, cuturally compromised personas of the
> >pusses that are the Pats.
>
> So, basically, with magic the Steelers would be the better team. Got it..

Actually, it is apparent that you just don't get it. You prolly don't
even understand what a Transmogrifier is. Think time machine. With
such a device you can afford the 70's Steelers all the advantages that
have come as a consequence of the advancement of athletic conditioning
that has resulted in a greater understanding of the body , especially
via medical science. Then and only then we can compare apples with
apples. But then, even after that the pats would end up stinking it up
like a curdled mango.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 1:08 pm, Sri Krsna wrote:
> je.s.t...@hehxduhmp.org wrote:
> >In alt.sports.football.pro.ne-patriots scoote...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >>It's just a writing style originating in the '70's by Chicago Bear
> >>Dick Butkus.
>
> >Is there some reason you're ignoring my retort to your idiotic rant
> >about how the Steel Curtain would beat the 2007 Pats?
>
> I don't mean to take anything away from these guys becasue they were
> awsome players of their generation, but....
>
> - At 6'5", 275, Mean Joe would be an OLB in our system and not a DT.
> - Both Lambert and Ham would be big safeties

Which is why we need the Transmogrifier.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 1:15 pm, "Chris" wrote:
> > >Is there some reason you're ignoring my retort to your idiotic rant
> > >about how the Steel Curtain would beat the 2007 Pats?
>
> > I don't mean to take anything away from these guys becasue they were
> > awsome players of their generation, but....
>
> > - At 6'5", 275, Mean Joe would be an OLB in our system and not a DT.
> > - Both Lambert and Ham would be big safeties
>
> You forgot to transmogrify.

Dude, that's it exactly.

Tarkus · Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 75

who'sthat wrote:
> Agreed. All that will be said is 16-0 and out. And cheated.

In the first game, against one of the worst teams in the NFL. I've yet
to hear any legitimate accusations that they cheated in the other 15 games.

And I'm not a Patriots fan, so don't even go there.

Tarkus · Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 75

MZ wrote:
> wrote in message
> @z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>> Yeah, but c'mon, prolific offense when 9 out of the 16 games were
>> against .500 or less (2 games against .16 record) teams. Meh.
>
> No different than any other era.

The '72 Dolphins had a weak schedule, and even then won several close
games, but that hasn't exactly hurt their legacy.

scooterp7 · Joined: 10 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

On Jan 10, 1:23 pm, "MZ" wrote:
> wrote in message
>
> @d70g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Actually, it is apparent that you just don't get it. You prolly don't
> > even understand what a Transmogrifier is. Think time machine. With
> >such a device you can afford the 70's Steelers all the advantages that
> > have come as a consequence of the advancement of athletic conditioning
> >that has resulted in a greater understanding of the body , especially
> >via medical science. Then and only then we can compare apples with
> >apples. But then, even after that the pats would end up stinking it up
> >like a curdled mango.
>
> But why are you spending so much time and energy trying to transform an
> orange into an apple? You acknowledge that training, medical science,
> salaries, the evolution of knowledge in the game, etc has led to better
> football teams, and that you would need to give society of yesteryear all
> those same advantages to come up with an equivalent team (somehow including
> all the innovations in football that occurred in the 80s, 90s, and 00s,
> which would be a hard thing to give to the 70s Steelers). Perhaps without
> meaning to, you've conceded the point. But for some reason nostalgia is
> preventing you from saying, "yeah, as great as football was 30 years ago,
> and as much as I enjoyed the spirit of the game back then, teams today are
> better." ...even though you're essentially saying the same thing in code
> with your time machines and transmogrifiers.

I'm talking about the mental and intestinal fortitude of the
personalities of the Steel Curtain being given the same advantage of
development at todays standard.

I'm talking the frozen tundra that is Lambeau Field. (Yes I know
that's Packers) Were talking toughness here and the IMHO the patsies
would lose out.