Weekend Wrap
January 14th, 2008 by Lucas DwyerThe Sportstruth’s senior editor, Lucas Dwyer, provides his observations and thoughts from the weekend that was.
Apparently my assertion that the Colts were not going away was wrong.
If I were a Colts fan, this would be sour grapes, but the Chargers got amazingly lucky (edittor’s note: Luke is a Patriots fan). The Colts easily could have and should have put up 35 or 42 points and yet San Diego won without Ladanian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers (you could argue they get better with Billy Volek, but we won’t do that here). Nevertheless, as the aforementioned Patriots fan, I’d much rather play San Diego than Indianapolis.
Can San Diego beat New England in the AFC Championship game if they play without Rivers and LT?
However, while we’re here, how is the early line for the Patriots and Chargers game -14.5? Sports Truth founder, Levi Matthews, believes that the spread technically should be lower than the Jax game, but believes that the Jaguars are a better team than San Diego. Maybe the spread is so high because we don’t know LT or Rivers status yet, and that makes sense, but you’d have to think that if they both play, the spread should be lower than the -13 the Jaguars were getting from the Patriots.
The Jaguars surprised me with how well they play against the Patriots this weekend. I figured the Pats were a sure cover because I knew the Jags defense couldn’t stop the Pats and I figured the Jaguars offense couldn’t keep pace. I was very wrong, David Garrard was impressive in that he took what was there. It’s a cliche, I know, but it seemed that every pass he threw was to a wide open receiver, usually underneath. The Jaguars also rushed the ball up the middle with alarming ease. Fortunately, Norv Turner is a moron and probably won’t notice and/or use LT appropriately.
Had to love the Green Bay game on Saturday. Snow games are so much fun, regardless of who’s playing. Is there anything better than Ryan Grant getting tackled and sliding 3-4 yards before coming to a stop? Remember the 8-0 Browns/Bills game in an absolute blizzard? Most people do not have DirecTV and didn’t get to see it, but what a wild game. The more of those games the NFL can get, the better.
What a collapse by the Cowboys. I never bought into the theory that the Cowboys didn’t look good at the end of the year and are thus vulnerable to a loss because those games didn’t mean much and Terrell Owens didn’t play in two of them. Apparently I was wrong. I still don’t think the Giants are very good (and the current -7 line for the Packers over the Giants seems quite low), but I’ll be rooting for them to beat Green Bay, because I don’t want any part of the Packers in the Super Bowl (if the Patriots make it).
Speaking of Terrell Owens, why is he crying during a post-game interview when people questioned Tony Romo’s performance? This is the same quarterback who has openly criticized Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, and Drew Bledsoe, getting himself shipped out of town after the first two quarterbacks.
The loss went largely unnoticed by our football obsessed culture, but the Celtics lost their first second game of back-to-back’s this year after going 7-0 in the first seven (and until Saturday, they were 15-0 in all games of back-to-back sets). Even more amazing, the Cs had a 7 point lead mid-way through the fourth quarter and lost by 8.
In other NBA news, the Pistons lost by 24, 89-65 to the New York Knicks Sunday night. The result is shocking, but it’s just more evidence that back-to-back’s are brutal. The Pistons were ending a stretch of four game
