Quick Inside Slant: 9/1/11

Quick Inside Slant:
Impressions of the 2011 NFL Season by a collegiate intramural flag football legend

9/1/11

Week three. This is commonly known as “the dress rehearsal” in rare football/theater crossover circles. The first team usually plays the entire first half and maybe another possession in the third quarter as an encore, to extend a metaphor. So this is as close to real football as we’re going to see until next Thursday. Though I doubt all these games are really indicative of what will happen in the regular season. I really doubt that the Saints would go for it on 4^th and 2 in the first half, and I doubt that Chicago would still be kicking off from the 30-yard line and I doubt that Jacksonville or Buffalo would score 30 points.

· Carolina/Cincinnati – The Bengals didn’t look half bad. Shame they can’t play the Panthers every week.

· Cleveland/Philly – Overheard from the Philly locker room: “Coach, coach, coach! Holy crap! We completely forgot about the offensive line!”

· Washington/Baltimore – Rex Grossman and John Beck alternated serieses (serium? serial?) throughout the game. That’s probably their best bet for the regular season.

· Green Bay/Indy – I’d like to see the Packers try the surprise onside kick while tied with 26 seconds left in the regular season. Yeah. No guts.

· St Louis/Kansas City – Kansas City now has 22 punts this pre-season. They only have 23 points. Sounds like a prop bet for the regular season.

· Jacksonville/Buffalo – Ryan Fitzpatrick’s nickname is “The Amish Rifle.” Turns out “The Mennonite Rocket” was taken.

· Atlanta/Pittsburgh – Byron Leftwich may be out for the season with a broken arm, meaning Charlie Batch will likely now be the backup QB. Honestly, I thought they were the same person anyway.

· Miami/Tampa Bay – Chad Henne may not be the next Dan Marino, but he is a decent backup fantasy QB in leagues that have 20 teams.

· New England/Detroit – OK, Detroit. We got it! You can play lights out when it doesn’t count. But didn’t you guys go 4-0 in the pre-season that one year that you finished 0-16 in the regular season?

· Dallas/Minnesota – So far this pre-season, the Viking’s first team isn’t exactly blowing the roof off the place.

· Houston/San Fran – The 49ers defense scored on the first play of the game. The offense decided to make up for it by not scoring at all.

· Chicago/Tennessee – The Bears seriously made it to the NFC championship game last year? Am I being punked?

· Seattle/Denver – Seattle waited until the third pre-season game to score their first offensive TD. After that, they decided not to score any more in hopes they can save them for the regular season.

· San Diego/Arizona – Kolb could be just the thing that Fitzgerald needed. Of course, 121 million bucks could also be what he needed.

· New Orleans/Oakland – The play the offensive tackle from Oakland just made to get the first down is better than any their wide receivers have made all last season.

· New York/New York – I’m not sure why I hate Mark Sanchez. He’s humble enough and doesn’t do or say dumb shit. I do, however, know exactly why I hate Eli Manning.

The very underwhelming Hurricane Irene postponed the New York/New York football game to Monday night. This means that both teams will have to play two games in 4 days, giving the Giant’s remaining corners their best chance to get injured before the start of the season.