How will your team do? Check the Schedule

One thing that has become obvious to me following the NFL is that it is fairly easy to determine what teams are going to be in the playoff hunt based on their schedule. There are a few elite teams like the Patriots, Steelers, Colts (with Manning), and we have to add the Packers, that can win enough games to get into the playoffs no matter their schedule. But the rest of the NFL teams success are based on their schedule. There are a lot of teams in the middle.

Scheduling explains why teams like the Chiefs and Falcons can win their division one season and barely be in contention for the playoffs the following season. On the flip side why a teams like the 49ers and Bengals can contend for the division title after being at the bottom of the league last season.

I actually wrote my Playoff Predictions a few weeks ago and even with some major injuries I post them today and not much has changed:

NFC:

Packers, 49ers, and Saints will win there divisions will be in.

The NFC East will be decided by 2 remaining games between Giants and Cowboys, if they split those games the Cowboys will get in with a better division and conference record. The Giants are a better team, but they had a much rougher schedule and will need to sweep the Cowboys to get in. Neither team has much chance for a Wild Card.

The 2 Wild Cards are between Lions, Falcons, and Bears. This is where my prediction has changed as the Bears had a soft schedule, so soft even without Cutler I would have gave them a shot to make the playoffs, but after losing Forte its pretty bleak. I am going to have to pick Falcons and Lions.

AFC

Patriots and Texans (even w/ 3rd string QB) are running away with their divisions.

Ravens have already beat the Steelers twice and have a soft schedule so they will likely win the AFC North.

Here is the other change in my original prediction. I had the Raiders winning AFC West at 9-7, which they may be, but I think the Broncos will win the AFC West at 10-6. Yes I have joined Team Tebow I will blog on that another day.

Steelers are easily a Wild Card Team, the last spot is between the Jets and Bengals who I believe will have the same record at 10-6. The Tie Breaking Procedures are way too long to analyze here, but the Bengals have a great shot at going 11-5 if they can beat the Texans (w/ a 3rd string QB) on the road and save us from that discussion. The AFC North is the best division in the AFC so lets go with the Bengals.

Playoff Predicitions

Pretty simple, in the NFC no one is going up to Green Bay to beat the Packers, so they will be in the Super Bowl, but I am looking forward to the re-match from Week 1 against the Saints. This game will be to offense what the Bama-LSU rematch will be to defense.

In the AFC, by far the best division is the AFC North, so they will produce the Super Bowl contender. Getting 3 teams from 1 division in the playoffs is exceptional!

So it will be the Ravens or Steelers going to face a Packers team that is even better than the team that won the Super Bowl last season. Read more!

It's Hard out Here for a Coupon

This past weekend I went to the dry cleaners and wanted to stop in at Wal-mart right next to it. It just so happens I have 3 Wal-mart stores in about a 3.5 mile radius of my home and with this location being off a major freeway I felt it was a little "hood". So I drove 4 miles up the street to the one in a "more affluent" area (yes I know saying affluent and Wal-mart is an oxymoron).

So as I am shopping I have a bunch of coupons I am using to buy groceries. I have them in my cart, and as I get the item I put the coupon in my pocket. Nearing the end of my shopping list, I stepped away from my shopping cart and back-tracked to get an item that I forgot. When I returned to my shopping cart my coupons were gone. Natural assumption is that they fell out of the cart somewhere. So I begin to re-trace my steps and look for the missing coupons. After a few minutes I realize the coupons somehow fell out of the cart, but my shopping list had not moved? Then I looked at the cart and realized there really wasn't anyway that a coupon could have fell out.

SOMEBODY STOLE MY DAMN COUPONS!!! I came out of my way to come to the NICE Wal-mart and somebody stole my coupons. It is real out here in these streets folks, you have to treat these coupons like REAL $$$. Fortunately, I had most of my coupons in my pocket, one was actually for $5 off. I am not sure what would have happened if they had got that one... Read more!

Can you be Over-Prepared for an Interview?

I had a 2 hour interview last week. Prior to the interview I wanted to jot down some thoughts to prepare for the most common interview questions. So I went to google.com and 5 pages later I had typed out responses to 25 questions.

The crazy part is evidently he did the same thing because 16 of the 20 questions he asked were almost identical to the list I found on Google. The interview went longer than planned due to my well thought out answers and that I tended to lump some of my responses together assuming he wasn't going to ask me all 25 questions I found on Google. I thought he would ask 5-7, worst case 10!

In some ways you couldn't ask for a better scenario, there wasn't one thing I walked out of the interview thinking I wish I would have said, but the ironic thing is in my preparation I think I tended to over-explain how I met the qualifications of the job without having "all the necessary" experience. I think that really only served to highlight the fact that I didn't have experience!

So we shall see.... Read more!

5 Thoughts on Dallas Cowboys Preseason Game 1

It didn't take long to recall that I was watching a game between 6-10 and 4-12 teams. Particularly considering that neither team made any significant personnel upgrades in the off-season.

1) The first thing I noticed is that there are not 53 guys on the current roster that should make this team. Even if you accept this is a bad team they are going to have to pick up some guys off the waiver wire to fill out a 53-man roster.

2) Rob Ryan's defense has a lot of work to do. There was a lot of talk about guys not knowing the system and still learning how to communicate, but this defense only has 2 new guys and for the most part the Broncos were running right up the middle so not sure how that relates to poor communication. Looked like guys were just getting pushed back to me!

3) Time to go young. At WR there is no one that has claimed the 3-5 spots. The way I see it Dwayne Harris becomes the slot guy, Ogletree is not a slot guy so he cant be the #3, make him the #4 so he can play on the outside. For the last spot they should pick the best special teams players or bring in a veteran that could potentially be the #3 guy. At LB there are a lot of young guys. Its time to give significant playing time to the players like Sean Lee and Victor Butler. Plus take a shot on a guy like Orie Lemon and Kerwin Cummings and hope Bruce Carter is ready to play after he joins the team from injury. If Garrett is going to hold true his mantra of putting the best players on the field it's time to lessen the role of Bradie James and Keith Brooking.

4) The Cowboys are going to be playing in a lot of close games. This just seems to be the nature of Jason Garrett as a coach. He can develop competitive game plans, but seems to be unable to make key adjustments for his team to close out games. Not making any predictions yet, but I just feel games this season against good and bad teams will be close.

5) Finally, lack of depth is going to be a big issue this season almost across every position except LB, TE, and QB. None will be a bigger concern than at RB. I actually feel good about the talent at RB with Felix Jones, Tashard Choice, and Demarco Murray, but I just wonder if they will be healthy. They all have history of injuries and even if they are on the field if they are battling injuries they will be ineffective. It would be great if they could package all 3 and go get a guy like Chris Johnson who the Titans refuse to pay!

I know you have to be thinking how can I not make any comments on the OL? I didn't see enough in this game to weigh in on that yet. I will look forward to the next few preseason games to get a better idea of how this team will shape up for 2011.

Read more!

President Obama has a Midwest Problem

After the 2010 Midterm elections the pundits had just about predicted all Democrats would be out of office by 2012. Some acknowledged that these trends followed typical midterm election results and not any specific referendum, but I think the most telling referendum in today's electorate is that they will vote out the incumbent no matter who it is.

After careful analysis of the election results it became very apparent to me that in spite of the 2010 election results, President Obama's 2012 electability is still quite strong and that is without even taking into consideration the weak field of GOP Presidential candidates.

The biggest shake-up was in the House with the Democrats losing a whopping 63 seats, but electoral votes are allocated statewide not in House Districts so one would be hard-pressed to extrapolate those results to statewide election results in 2012. The better barometer would be the statewide races for the Senate and for Governor. Which on the surface considering the Democrats lost 6 seats in each race you would think would reflect a similar result as the outcome of the House races, but there are a few things to consider.

When you examine the states that flipped from Democrats to GOP you will see a trend. In the Senate race it was ND, AR, WI, IL, IN, PA, and AR. In the Gubernatorial race it was WY, NM, KS, OK, TN, OH, PA, ME, IA, WI, and MI.

So the first thing you notice is...that is a lot of losses!!! Then you look state by state and you will quickly realize many of these are states that President Obama didn't win in the landslide victory in 2008. So if you consider what is really at risk in 2012 are the states that he won that flipped from the Democrats to GOP which leaves NM, IA, WI, MI, OH, PA, and ME.

If you look at this collection of states and you stayed awake in Geography class you will now understand the title of my blog post. Democrats had big losses in the traditionally Democratic Midwest. This will be the key battleground for President Obama in the 2012 election campaign. Democrats need to get laser focused on the issues that are concerning the Midwest and make sure it is clear that the GOP candidates are not campaigning to fix these issues, but rather to usher in a political ideology of failed policies. We have seen the results of this in states like WI, so voters are already seeing the error of their ways... I notice the Presidential Bus Tour is focused on the Midwest so this concern has not been lost by the Campaign. Read more!