hawkeyecub

Bitter Viking face. I suppose but last year their defense made a living off of fluky plays. Remember that Redskins game? Their defense has been like the '01 Bears that got 4,378 tipped ball interceptions. Obviously Brees is the truth and their offense is elite but damn. Last night they got 5 points directly off of a center snapping it 12 feet in the air and a punt returner trying to field a ball as he's running out of bounds, yet it somehow landed inches from the sideline but stayed in. Then you had two tipped balls fall right into their hands for INT's in or near the red zone, along with a fumble inside the 10. I'm just saying the 49ers outplayed them and looked like the better team last night. They weren't really impressive against the Vikings either.

The Saints are not that good this year, or at least they haven't shown it yet. At some point their luck on fumbles, tipped ball interceptions that fall in their lap and whatnot is going to run out. The center snapping it 15 feet over the QB's head was a new one though. Smith looked decent enough tonight that they should still win that division with their running game, defense and some of the weapons he has.

I was desperately hoping that either he or Pouncey would fall to the Vikings in the draft. He's just a nasty guy.

Nonsense and I'm talking in general, not just Iowa. A top 10 team that schedules a tough road, non-conference game against another ranked team shouldn't be banished from the top 20 automatically while others get to hang around because they scheduled cupcakes. What reason is there for anyone to schedule anything but guarantees if you're going to punish teams that much for challenging themselves?

If something happens with Vincent Jackson it will happen today or tomorrow most likely. I'm torn on that whole deal. Yeah a 2nd rounder is a lot to give up for a guy whom you might only have for one year, but the window is closing. This WR's are awful now with Percy dinged up and no Sidney. You're probably going to start 1-3 and that's if you can win at Detroit. You need him to survive that rough middle of the season and then you may have a chance to rattle off a nice streak at the end. What was up with Kubiak's call in OT? 4th and 4 at their 35 and you punt? In a game with almost 1,000 yards of offense where your QB has thrown for over 400? What a wuss.

Couldn't happen to two better teams. Well, I'll concede I'd rather see Green Bay suck. But with Favre on the Vikings it's almost as good. However, given that I was at Illinois when the Pearl thing happened, I loathe Iowa with a passion. Yeah but you're an Illinois fan. You really shouldn't even speak about college football in public.

I hate football. Last year, Iowa and the Vikings were both undefeated until October 25th. Entering December 6th they had combined for 3 total losses. They've now lost 3 out of their first 5 combined games.

I'm having a hard time remembering a game under Kirk Ferentz with such awful special teams. Michigan in '01 blocked two punts but overall this had to have been the worst. The o-line was everything I was afraid they'd be before the season. 2 of those final sacks were just from being slow and lazy though. Robinson looked like he was afraid to be on the field the entire night and of course Jewel had to get hurt when he was looking good. After the Binns TD I was convinced we were going to win that game. It seemed so much like PSU last year. I expected the defense to come out energized, get pressure, make some plays and then have Stanzi lead a game-winning drive. Instead somehow they get beat over the top for what 40-50 yards on the first play? Then you still have them 2nd and 16 but have a breakdown and a 3 yard crossing route turns into 15 yards because everyone has dropped too deep. We get the ball back and have 2nd and 3 from the 43 and don't even get a pass off. My God.

Well, it's still over 100 in Tucson at this hour. I think the players are happy to wait another 2 hours. Correct. I don't think the weather will be any factor. Should be low 90's around kickoff and drop to the mid-80's. Without humidity that's pretty comfortable.

I wish Mallett were a little more mobile but I'm pretty sure I would take him over Locker. It can be tough to tell what he really is because of his surrounding cast, but I rarely see the "wow" throws that I saw from Cutler on a bad college team. McShay has been the guy really pimping Locker.

Different QB for NIU. Harnish is much better than Grady, who was the starter against Iowa State. I figured that was going to be a pretty close game. Well then what the hell is wrong with your coach? The dude against ISU was atrocious.

Had a parlay with Arkansas and Illinois plus 7.5. The Illini had a 9 point lead with 7:30 left and again with 1:30 left but couldn't hold it against a team that looked awful against Iowa State.

You mean there may have been premature media climaxing over a fast start with a new qb? No way. Well at least the same thing hasn't happened recently.

I took Illinois -7.5. I think that was a poor choice.

Holy hell did anyone see Corso in the discussion of Boise? Just sad. Thee man can't talk anymore but they keep running him out there so they can do the headgear bit. Called Va tech West Virginia, then called them the Huskies, then said the top teams would have to lose twice before "BC beasor, Boise gets in the championship game. Boise blasss meomies. Blasie myomy".

I am terrified of this Arizona game.

Is there a list of the arrests? I think the college arrest numbers can be misleading. Some places are going to have a lot of underaged drinking related violations count while no one is wasting their time on that in Miami.

That's what he wears when he goes out hunting with Jared Allen. hopefully jared allen is more sober while hunting than he is while driving. Wait, you would rather have him sober than hammered while he's hunting with Favre?

Correct. There are a ton of running plays at the goaline where the whistle doesn't blow until the ball has already been knocked loose or they can get into the pile.

i really have no idea what dyar, but id' say both of them played relatively well. does dyar factor in the route that knox broke off on, which he does every single week at least once getting his qb picked off or almost picked off? Yes, it affects both the WR and the QB, every pass attempt does, since it's difficult to discern who is at fault on occasion for those kind of plays. okay, so if it is absolutely knox's fault, i mean blatantly, i mean he runs down the field and breaks the opposite direction because he forgot which one was his left again, cutler throws the ball to the spot that knox is supposed to be and the safety that knox is supposed to be standing in front of picks the ball off and all the fans groan because they hate cutler because it looked like he was throwing the ball right to the defender, it will mark the receiver and qb down equally? there are just way too many moving parts in football. Exactly. I like most of the theory and I like checking their to see certain team/unit stats in situations. The individual stuff just has way too many holes in football. Not to mention the sites like Pro Football Focus who over quantify the un-quantifiable to a crazy degree. You can't grade the way they do when you don't know what was called on every play.

There's a difference between understanding that the call was correct, but disagreeing with the rule...and thinking it should have been called a TD. The screenshot he linked didn't say anything about disagreeing with the rule. Just that it should have been a TD...which of course, by rule, it shouldn't have been. The more I've read about it the less I think the rule needs to be changed. Johnson lost control of the ball. Had he held on, it's a TD. You can't really make the rule specific enough to differentiate between plays that should be a TD, and plays that shouldn't. Just catch the ball and keep it, and it's a TD. Worry about the celebration later, and style points don't exist. You can't compare it to the runner who crosses the plane, because the difference between a run and a pass is huge. On a run, the ball is never going to be dead until the whistle blows. Except for all the times when they rule that the ball was dead before the whistle blew.

Thanks for pairing the Vikings with the Cubs. My fandom is awesome.

You forgot to mention Minneapolis and the Metrodome.

Question. Did he fumble this much while he played at Iowa? He only really played one year at Iowa full time (he was a back up the first couple of years an played mostly in garbage time) but I don't remember him fumbling often. ESPN said he didn't fumble but I don't know if they just don't keep that stats on that or if it's actually true but now he definitely has issues with it. what happened to albert young at iowa? he really looked like he was going to be a star there, and then tailed off his last two years. i'm just curious because he went to my high school. As Ryno mentioned the knee injuries zapped some of his explosiveness. He still had a pretty nice career but was also the victim of circumstance. In '05 he was a stud and led the Big Ten in rushing, then he was stuck playing on the two worst Iowa teams of the decade in his last two years. It's awesome that he's been able to stick in the NFL though. To the Shonn Greene fumbling question, I only remember one during his junior year at Iowa and that was on a hit where he was knocked out of the game (kind of helmet to helmet ish) against Northwestern. At least the Chiefs game was one of the few entertaining games so far. Losing my fantasy matchup by 1 point because Rivers couldn't get two more yards or the touchdown was a fitting end to the weekend.

He's such a damn clown.