A classic post over at Hoosier Beer Geeks on the rules for Colts/Pats week.

And during what will most likely be the most hyped regular season game in the history of the NFL, Hoosier Beer Geek has come up with a list of rules that all loyal Hoosier beer geeks must follow to maintain their unique “Hoosier” beer geek status. Any deviation from these rules will automatically result in you being required to drink Coors Lite for the rest of your life and branded a traitor and labeled a Tom Brady babymomma (especially if you’re a dude).

Read the rules. Follow the rules. Help Good vanquish Evil.

It’s been a long week or three in the world of sports.

With the World Series out of the way, the Boston Red Sox can now begin their off-season charity work, like Hug An Old Person Week.  (image courtesy of boston.com) 

Meanwhile, I root for a team with no manager (more on this when the dust finally settles), and an MVP third baseman who apparently doesn’t want to have the biggest contract in the sport’s history offered to him.  Good riddance.

So, yeah, it’s been more than the sinuses keeping me away.  I, a “professional” sports blogger, have pretty much refusing to watch sports.  But hey, there’s always next year.

(You see that?  I’m like a damn Cubs fan now!  Urgh…)

Inspired by the brilliant Oliver Willis I decided to have some fun with Photoshop (actually GIMP but not as many people know what that is). Prepare for Armageddon At The Dome. There will be no mercy. Evil will be vanquished.

These are all based on actual WWII (and in once case WWI I think) propaganda posters.

(original)

6 more after the fold.

(more…)

Note: This was originally posted as a diary at Stampede Blue that got front-paged, so I figured I’d crosspost it here as well

To quote one of my favorite SNL skits, “who are the ad wizards that came up with this one?”

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071024/SPORTS03/7 10240466/1100

The week becomes even more truncated when a Monday night road game is followed by a road game the next Sunday. Over the past decade, the NFL schedule makers have set up that scenario — away Monday, away Sunday — 24 times. Draw your own conclusion as to the impact: Road teams are 12-12 in their ensuing Sunday games, and have lost seven of the past 10.

But the odds are further stacked against the Colts. The Panthers were off last weekend. Carolina last played, and won, Oct. 14 at Arizona. Sunday marks only the third time since 1997, and the first since 2004, that a team has played away from home on Monday and again the next Sunday against a team coming out of its bye.

(Emphasis added)

This is a dangerous game, IMO. A very rare away-monday night/away next Sunday vs. team off Bye combined with the potential to look ahead at the Patriots. Really, what the hell were the schedule makers thinking when they drew this up?

Greg Aiello, the NFL’s vice president of public relations, said the league is sensitive to every team’s scheduling concerns and attempts to minimize what might be considered inequities.

“But sometimes it is unavoidable when you are constructing a 256-game schedule,” Aiello wrote in an e-mail. “It’s just the way it worked out this year.”

So he’s saying that this schedule quirk was just plain unavoidable?  I’m not saying they did it on purpose, but to have it turn out this way - did they even try to fix it to make it a bit more fair?

Ahhh the internet. Found the video of said SNL skit.

At least this fan was able to keep himself entertained during while the Colts blew out the home team Jaguars…

I’m also working on a project for the week leading up to the Colts/Patriots game inspired by this Oliver Willis post. Going to do a series of propaganda posters inspired by actual WWII propaganda posters. But when I came across this one I just had to make one for the JAX fans.

It really seems like Dallas Clark is trying to make parody a reality.

In Search Of Dallas

Depending upon the game situation and the players available to offensive coordinator Tom Moore, Clark can be found at any one of seven spots on the field — split out wide left or right; in either slot, where he seems to excel; at either end of the offensive line like a traditional tight end; or in a split backfield, playing the H-back position alongside a tailback.
…
Defenses first must locate Clark, then determine who should chase him. A third cornerback? A linebacker? A safety?

Consider how he was used during a 13-play sequence in the first half against Denver this season: wide right, wide left, wide right, wide left, slot right, slot right, slot left, wide right, slot left, slot right, tight left, slot left, tight right. On the 13th play, he slipped a block, ran down the seam, then cut to the right corner of the end zone, where he made a sliding catch for a 9-yard touchdown.

Moving around in the formation, Clark said, “is a lot of fun to see how a defense adjusts. Like when I was playing for Marv (wide receiver Marvin Harrison, who was injured against the Broncos), seeing if they bring a linebacker out there or a safety, or (cornerback) Champ Bailey.

I’m still waiting on a Dallas Clark clone to play linebacker though. Because Dallas Clark owns.

Note: This was originally meant to just be a comment at Stampede Blue, which turned into a diary there, which is getting crossposted here because I’m pretty happy with it.

This comment by Bucsfan (on an entry @ SB) got me thinking about this myth of The Colts Pay Too Much Money to Peyton

How is the Colts depth with Peytons large cap number?

Which lead to me doing some internet searching and finding this gem from a Pats blogger who doesn’t seem to have updated since July

To all the Colts-haters out there, take solace in knowing one thing. This was a “one and done” situation for the Colts. They won’t come close to the Superbowl next year.
…
[insert John Clayton article talking about all of the Colts free agents after last season and how they are “losing so much”]
…
What does this all mean? Well, in short….there are going to be some changes in Indy. Guys will have to restructure, which may happen, but will all of them? Doubtful. So all in all, we’re not looking at the next dynasty here folks…we’re looking at a one and done.

So really, are the Colts that bad off in the salary cap? Has Polian really been managing this team horribly?

This man is smiling because he just won the Super Bowl, eliminated the national debt and solved world hunger all with 7th round draft picks and undrafted free agents.

First, Bucsfan’s comment about depth. I think this weekend’s game against Tampa Bay with 6 starters missing disproved that little meme once and for all. When you have a GM like Bill Polian who consistently makes the best use of low draft picks and undrafted free agents, you can afford to pay your top players more by consistently unearthing gems from the low rounds and the undrafted players. Has any other team made more use of the low rounds and undrafted players than the Colts and had the success with them that Indy has had?

Onto the cap….

In 2001, the Colts had only $1.256 million in cap room (19th in the league). Yet their best years were ahead of them. In 2007 (yes, this is from a different source so the numbers may not be completely comparable but they should give a good idea) this Colts had projected cap room of $5.9 mil, 29th in the league*.

So the Colts have dropped 10 spots in the league in cap room since 2001 but have managed a record of 71-30 (70.3%), 4 division championships, 5 playoff visits and a Super Bowl up through week 5 of 2007. They have been able to hold onto or fill key components that are in low supply of top flight producers (QB, WR, DE, FS, K, OL) while making good decisions on important positions that are in higher supply and used good scouting to find unheralded pieces that fit the Colts scheme at low cost (RB, CB, LB, TE).

So in the end I guess that yes, Polian and Irsay are going to have to walk a much finer line and rely on their top notch scouting even more in the future as the cap slowly tightens. But to say that the money paid to Manning, Freeney, Harrison, Wayne etc has been done foolishly and at the expense of depth and the future is exaggerated at best and plain wrong at worst.

*The reason that a cap space number 4x bigger than 2001 is ranked 10 lower is due to the new CBA for 2006 that raised the cap by a significant margin. The cap was $85.5 mil in 2005 an is around $109 mil this year.

… CAP’N JIMMY FOOTBALL!!

I imagine there were many people surprised by Stanford’s thrilling 24-23 win over #2 USC Saturday night. I was not among them.

Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh (right center) celebrates his team’s big win over USC with players Ben Ladner, Tavita Pritchard, and Evan Moore. (image courtesy of espn.com)

Honestly, tales of Jim Harbaugh leading a group of castoffs and retreads to victory despite tremendous odds are old news. I wasn’t shocked in the least.

Jim Harbaugh runs from the Dolphins’ ageless JasonTaylor, ca. 1998. (image courtesy of usatoday.com)

Wake my sarcastic self up when you’ve got news.

Week Five in the NFL brings the next stop on the Indianapolis Colts Magical Mystery Tour of former players, as Cato June and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came to town, looking to take advantage of a banged up Colts team. Here’s the game as I saw it, seated in Section 308 of the RCA Dome.

• It’s tempting to just write this game off as “business as usual” once again, but I think it would unfair to the Colts to underplay just how impressive they looked today despite the loss of some very important personnel on both sides of the ball
• I wonder how many teams could lose their number one receiver and starting running back, and look like they didn’t even skip a beat on offense? Rookie Anthony Gonzalez was tasked with filling Marvin’s shoes this week, and showed why the Colts drafted him, leading all receivers with 71 yards on seven catches. He would have had a touchdown too, but Manning just flat overthrew him on a pattern where Gonzalez had left his defender in the dust.
• I said in pre-season that if Joseph Addai ever got hurt, the Colts would be okay at running back because of the addition of Kenton Keith… and boy, did he ever prove me right this week. Keith ran all over the Bucs, amassing 121 yards on 28 carries and two touchdowns. Make no mistake, I’m hopeful that Addai will be healthy coming out of the bye week, but it was nice to see that Keith was more than up to the task of starting, as I expected him to be.
• I’m sure Jason was happy to see that Craphonso Thorpe was back on the active roster, replacing the injured TJ Rushing on the return duties. His first return was pretty nice, and he didn’t make any major mistakes out there. Plus, you can yell “OH CRAP!” while he’s running, regardless of what he does!
• The offense wasn’t the only unit ravaged by injuries this week… the defense was missing Bob Sanders, Freddy Keiaho, and Rob Morris (who is gone for the year, sadly), and yet they turned in one of their best efforts of the season in my opinion. The Bucs had SEVENTY-THREE yards of total offense going into the fourth quarter, and ended up with just 177 total yards for the game. Their running attack was clearly missing Cadillac Williams, as Michael Pittman and Earnest Graham combined for a measly TEN yards rushing on eleven attempts, and Garcia tacked on a further 7 on one run. Garcia did manage two touchdown passes, but by the time he got his second, the game was already well in hand. It was a dominating performance by the Colts D, and it was nice to see guys like Antoine Bethea, Kelvin Hayden, and Tyjuan “Don’t call me Marvin” Hagler flying around making plays like they have been week in and week out. Last year, one could be excused for thinking that as Bob Sanders went, so went the Colts defense. This year, that is clearly no longer the case.   

So, that’s the game, as I saw it. The Buc were leading the NFC South going into this game, and they got absolutely manhandled by a Colts team that seems to just be laughing in the face of adversity anymore. I was kind of nervous going into this game looking at all the players that were gone, but clearly I had nothing to worry about. Regardless, it’s a good thing that the Colts have the bye next week, as they have what promises to be a very tough game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in two weeks, and it would be nice to be as close to full strength as possible for that one. The View will return for week 9, Patriots at Colts. Word has it that could be a pretty important game!  

A site I’ve read for a couple years now that has really interested me is Beatpaths. The author uses an algorithm that looks at the NFL and who has beaten who and opponent strength to create a ‘beatpath chart’  and power rankings.

Beatpaths is an automatic graphical power-ranking system based off of only wins, losses, and who beat who.

The “How does it work” page gives a good summary of how charts and created and how that leads to rankings.  NFL fans who happen to be stat nerds as well (i.e. anyone who reads Football Outsiders) and also those who dismiss stats as the work of Nerdy McNerdersons and say only “wins and losses should count” should both find this method interesting.

This week’s rankings really fascinate me for one reason: New England is at #13. Does that mean I think new England is the 13th best team in the league? Hell no. But when you look at who they have beat and the strength of those opponents, this system  highlights the weakness of the opponents the Patriots have faced this year. Beatpaths do change radically in the first half of the season due to a lack of information but it is an interesting result to talk about. The author’s brief comment on NE’s ranking:

All of their opponents are looking worse and worse, the victories less impressive. There is still a lot of room for this team to be tested.

Something the talking heads at  ESPN should think about before all this (premature) talk of 16-0 for a team that hasn’t really been tested by a tough opponent to this point. Their first real test will be week 6 against Dallas. If they stomp on the Cowboys like they have been doing to their up-to-now weak opponents, then we can start talking about “Patriots!!!OMG!!11eleven!”