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Monday Morning Quarterback

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer

What an ugly game. Six turnovers, a missed extra point and short field goal all in the first half. Where are you Chargers and Saints?

Rex Grossman has been piled on enough, but come on guy, even I couldn’t have predicted such a poor showing. Not one, but two fumbled snaps? Also, how do you throw a wobbly, late-arriving pass to the sideline on first down?

For a dome team, Indy really doesn’t get enough credit for its physical style of play. And what about Bob Sanders? It’s easy to place too much credit for their D’s turnaround on him, but this guy truly is one of the very best DBs in the league already.

With each Joseph Addai catch (10!) or run, I cringed, thinking the world was seeing first hand what he’s capable of next season, and thus, it’s going to take an even earlier pick in fantasy leagues to get him. At least Dominic Rhodes played well also, but Addai is easily going to be a top-10 pick next year.

K-Fed’s was amusing enough, but overall, I thought the commercials weren’t great this year.

What a Super Bowl Ced Benson!

I didn’t do so great with my prop bets, but I nearly nailed the final score (31-17) and did pick the Colts in the preseason to win it all. Then again, I’m pretty sure I picked them to win each of the last three years, so I was bound to be right eventually. While we’re patting myself on the back, I’d like to also point out my nifty 8-3 record against the spread during the playoffs.

Rare that something so predictable (Devin Hester’s TD return) actually ends up happening. And on the first play of the game to boot. And like Ted Ginn before him, his team pretty much got dominated from that point on.

The Colts won, but I hope the media doesn’t even begin to credit it with a turnaround in their run defense; after all, the unit allowed 5.8 yards per carry Sunday. Some day, people will stop equating the ability to run and stop the run with wins and losses. Maybe the team with the worst rush defense in the history of the game going on to win the Super Bowl will have something to do with that.

No one really else to give the MVP to, so the Peyton Manning choice by default was OK by me. Rex Grossman was my second choice, but that probably would have come across as rude.

Tony Dungy’s decision to not kick the field goal at the end of the game literally decided the over/under and made many people love or hate him in the process.

Congratulations Indy.

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8 responses to “Monday Morning Quarterback”

  1. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    The consensus at my place was that Rex was the MVP. I don’t know if the picks or the fumbled snaps were worse, but he easily could have had another 2 INT’s…like the one he made a couple moves in the pocket to get away from the rush, escapes to his left, has more than enough room to at least get very, very close to the first down marker (it was 3rd down), and instead floats the ball into TRIPLE coverage…just horrible. I feel good knowing I never bought into the Rex hype when he was tearing it up, even after watching what the Bears did to the 49ers when they just annihilated them. I’m more than happy to pile on, and really, he’s just a victim of his own early success and the hype that it called…the expectations heaped upon him never should have been so high to begin with.

    I really did think the commercials were sub-par this year…it just seems like there aren’t as many big companies trying hard anymore. You used to be able to count from a lot of good beer commercials (some were decent this year), a big Nike spot or two, Coke and Pepsi, and then a couple really whacky startups trying to make a name for themselves.

  2. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Grossman really was the MVP. I mean, he factored into the game’s outcome probably more than any other player. It should be interesting to see if Griese gets a shot next year – I think it’s still probably doubtful.

    As for the commercials – When in doubt (or short on time/thought), use animals!

  3. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    Personally, I think monkeys are allways a safe way to go when the creative juices aren’t flowing, but I’m apparently not in the majority.

    I’d forgotten to mention that the non-FG at the end was hillarious. I just love it when millions of dollars hinge on such an insignificant play. It would have been better had it been for the cover, but I’m sure a lot of people had the over…and it must have had the unders sweating bullets!

  4. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Mathis should have recieved the mvp!!!

  5. tv Avatar
    tv

    As a Bears fan that was just about the worst game we could have asked for. Grossman was worse than even I thought he could possibly be and the rain definately gave Indy’s offense the edge but come on where was the defense? I understood the choice to bend and not break and the D held the mighty Colts offense on several series but when they needed a big play they couldnt get one. Just goes to show you how valuable the brittle Brown is and how dominating and important Harris is to that team. Even at full strength Im not sure the Bears would have won but with the way the Colts played it would have been a much better game.

    I am very happy that I have Addai in my keeper league…

    Grossman deserves a lot of the blame but not all of it but really can we stop talking about him being the next Favre? Grossman’s “rifle arm” is pathetic and from someone that watched every play this year I can honestly say that if his arm is one of the stronger ones in the NFL than I must be blind b/c he consistently throws ducks instead of bombs when going deep and his receivers make more good plays than he makes good throws. I think the 4th quarter is all you need to know about Grossman.

    I certainly hope that he becomes a better qb next year and develops into a good if not great offensive leader but for a guy that started every game you would have thought he would have gotten at least a better and I didnt see anything to indicate that he learned to read a defense. In fact, I think he got worse as the season got longer which is not a good sign for him becoming a really good player.

    I guess there is always next year and in the NFC the Bears certainly have to be one of the favorites so who knows.

    Grossman should have been the mvp…who cares about being rude. He and the rest of the offense looked terrible other than Jones. Guess we dont have to worry about C. Bensen being the man next year with the injury and all.

    Good season guys…thanks for the insight and information!!!

  6. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Definitely a tough one to take TV. Grossman needs to learn defenses will start taking away the deep ball (which he loves) so he’ll need to adjust and develop some sort of dink and dunk accuracy, but like you mentioned, the fact he seemed to regress is def. cause for concern. Also like you said, however, I agree about the NFC being so bad you’ve got to figure Chi is one of a handful of favorites to represent the conference again next season. I think Thomas Jones is better than Benson anyway. It seems to be a 2-back league nowadays either way.

  7. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    Like I said, I think Grossman was a victim of his own early success. The combo of great D (at least early in the season) and a strong running game made opposing D’s stack the box, and he could air out the ball downfield and let his receivers make plays for him, which they had remarkable success with for a while. Unfortunately, he kept throwing up these jump balls which are easy plays for a free safety if they’re not cheating up on the run. I think both his picks would have been decent passes if he hadn’t put so much air under them and tried to throw them on a line with his laser-rocket arm.

    I do think the Bear’s D is kind of getting off easy because of Rex’s INT’s. To let Indy control the ball like that is just brutal…the offense gets cold, the entire D gets worn out, and it’s just demoralizing. That stretch off the end of the 2nd quarter and start of the 3rd quarter was amazing…Indy had the ball for just an astounding amount of time, and it just seemed like Chicago had nothing left afterwards.

    Grossman will get better, he just has to learn to pick his spots to take shots downfield, not be scared to dump off to TJ, and learn that when you have a great D, turnovers are the absolute worst thing you can do.

  8. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Agree on all accounts Keith. Grossman deserves all of the blame coming his way, but the D really let them down as well. They simply couldn’t get off the field. They gave up the big play, and yet also were gashed by the run. It would have been interesting to see this unit enter the game fully healthy. As is, it was basically a mismatch.

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