49ers Archives

Ups and Downs for NFL Week 9

Arianne SuggsUpdated on November 6, 2014November 4, 2014Leave a Comment

It’s official; Jerry Jones is the devil.

I am not a Dallas Cowboys fan, but the team owner made his starting quarterback, Tony Romo, board a nine hour flight to London England, in spite of his broken back. Yes, his back is broken since he has two fractures in his transverse process, which is a small bone that protrudes from each side of the vertebrae.

Even on a good day, a long trans-Atlantic flight is not the most comfortable thing to do; I can only imagine how much it must suck to fly that far with a bad back. Especially since the opponent they will be facing in London is the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Surely, the Cowboys should be able to trust backup quarterback Brandon Weeden to lead the team to victory; after all he was once a starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.

Even if they have zero confidence in Weeden to get the job done, do they really want to risk further injury to their starting quarterback just to play against a team with a 1-8 record? Well, if Jery doesn’t care about Romo, why should I?

I guess the conversations about Philip Rivers being a top MVP candidate can be tabled for now. His team got “blowed out” as Emmitt Smith would say, 37-0 losing three games in a row. I have no idea what they were doing right in the beginning of the season or what they are doing wrong now, but if they want to stay in the race for their division they better figure things out quickly.

The same can be said for the San Francisco 49ers. On paper they seem to be a talented team and at times they play like a playoff contender not a pretender. However, they are now 4-4 and 3 1/2 games behind the 7-1 Arizona Cardinals having lost to them in Week 3.

I’m not a believer in Carson Palmer being the guy to take the Cardinals to the big game and he’s just as likely to help them lose a game as to win one. But none of that will matter if the 49ers don’t get their act together and start winning some games.

Can anyone tell me if the Pittsburgh Steelers are for real?

The last two games, Roethlisberger has played lights out, but the first few weeks of the season the team looked like crap. I wish the real Steelers would stand up. But the really crazy thing is that all four teams in the AFC North division are above .500 so far. Who would have thought the race for first place in the division would be so tight? Definitely not me, but I’m still rooting for Brian Hoyer and the Browns.

Robert Griffin III came back from his injury only to end up losing to Teddy Bridgewater and the Minnesota Vikings. They should have let Colt McCoy play again; momentum had to be on his side after that thrilling win he orchestrated over the Cowboys last week.

Griffin seems to be injury prone and can’t stay on the field, but even if he could I’m not sure that would be a plus for the Redskins. I won’t call him a bust just yet but I’m getting closer to slapping that label on him.

Last but certainly not least, major props go to my New England Patriots for laying a beat down on the Denver Broncos.

They were three point underdogs in their own house despite going into the game having won 13 consecutive home games, the longest current streak of any NFL team. Hopefully, the critics will keep picking against them because it seems to help the Patriots continue winning.

I’m fine with that.

Lifestyle

NFL Week 7 Has Us Wondering About the Elite Defenses

Arianne Suggs October 21, 2014October 21, 2014Leave a Comment

About four weeks ago, the talking heads were criticizing the New England Patriots saying the dynasty was over, the quarterback was in rapid decline, the head coach was a senile old man, yada, yada, yada. The Patriots are now 5-2, the same record as the other so-called top AFC teams, like the Chargers and Colts. However, the critics are squawking again because the Patriots only beat the New Jersey Jets by two points. I’m sorry but when is a victory over a division rival something to complain about? So the Patriots run defense had more leaks than Edward Snowden, but there were plenty of other things that they did well enough to win the game. They really need to focus on some other teams that are having issues like…

The Seattle Seahawks, last season’s Super Bowl Champion. Their “legion of boom” defense looks like it is headed for doom. The defensive players don’t seem to have that swagger that was so prominent last year. They lost to their division rival, the lowly St. Louis Rams who are currently being quarterbacked by Austin Davis who I referenced in last week’s NFL post. The kid played well and led his team to victory over a Seattle team that seems to have lost its identity. Where are those critics now?

The 49ers also seem to be floundering on both sides of the ball. I think Colin Kaepernick may have gone Hollywood a bit prematurely what with all the endorsements and women and such. It appears that he needs to spend more time studying his playbook and figuring out how to be a better quarterback, because right now his play is less than stellar. I don’t know what to say about the defense but they couldn’t do a darn thing against the Denver Broncos. True the Broncos are on a roll right now, but I expected a much tougher challenge than what the 49ers defense presented.

And speaking of the Broncos; congrats to Peyton Manning for breaking Brett Favre’s record for most passing touchdowns in a career. According to some sports analysts, it looks like the only quarterback with a shot to break Manning’s record would be Andrew Luck, but he is still very early in his career so it would be impossible to say at this point if he might ever be in the ball park. Anyway, the Broncos blew out the 49ers to the tune of 42 to 17. Shouldn’t the all-knowing critics be screaming that the Broncos are running up the score? I’m pretty sure that’s what they were shouting in 2007 when the Patriots went on their historic run. Oh that’s right; they hate Tom Brady but love Peyton Manning so he can do no wrong. I keep forgetting that… hypocrites!

Well it had to happen, like Icarus; I flew too close to the sun and got burned. That’s right I picked the Cleveland Browns to beat the winless Jacksonville Jaguars and Cleveland decided to go back to being Cleveland and managed to lose the game 6 to 24. I am not giving up on Brian Hoyer, but it’s games like the one this past Sunday that the Browns have a tendency to mess up. They make the easy things hard and the hard things easy which means that usually you don’t know what you are going to get from the Browns from one week to the next. But, hey it’s the NFL and on any given Sunday just about anything can happen. I’m sure that’s what the Bengals are thinking after they got shut out by the Colts, and they were supposed to be one of the most complete teams in the NFL. Oh well, to borrow a phrase from Coach Bill Belichick, we’re on to week eight…

Lifestyle

Unexpected Finishes in Week 6 of the NFL

Arianne Suggs October 15, 2014October 15, 2014Leave a Comment

I was ready to turn off the TV on Thursday night as the Colts vs. Texans game looked to be turning into yet another blow out when the Colts went up 24-0 in the first quarter. Then apparently, the Texans got the memo that the game had begun and started to play. It turned out to be a competitive affair that the Colts were able to hold on and win. It’s too bad the Texans don’t have a more reliable quarterback, because with J.J. Watt and company on the defense they could be formidable. Still it was good to finally see a Thursday night game that wasn’t a complete debacle.

The Bengals and Panthers provided the first tie game of the season which was a bit surprising to me as I thought the Bengals defense would have been able to handle Cam Newton and the Panthers offense. However, Cam had other ideas and seemed to be back to his old play-making self. Of course, the Bengals kicker did the team no favors by missing a 36 yard field goal at the end of the overtime period. In so many words, a certain Bengal player blamed the kicker for losing the game. I think that’s unfair to the kicker; what was the rest of the team doing that lead to a tied game? Clearly they weren’t doing their jobs so well either, otherwise they would have beat the Panthers outright.

As the old expression goes, “you can’t keep a good man down.” Aaron Rodgers obviously thought it was referring to him with his theatrical come from behind touchdown pass to win the game against the Dolphins with three seconds remaining on the clock. The Dolphins were in control for most of the game and probably should have won it, but that just goes to show that when a team has an elite quarterback you can never count them out until the clock reads 00:00. Plus I just love it when a game goes down to the wire like that; it puts me on the edge of my seat because I have no idea what’s going to happen and I can barely stand waiting to find out!

The New York Jets were competitive and had a chance to beat the Denver Broncos but insisted on shooting themselves in the foot, the Cleveland Browns finally beat the Pittsburgh Steelers after several consecutive losses, the Oakland Raiders came within a whisper of beating the red hot San Diego Chargers and the Dallas Cowboys beat the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle. You just can’t make this stuff up and that’s why we love the NFL.

Finally, watching the Monday night game between the 49ers and Rams, I learned a little bit about the Rams backup quarterback,Austin Davis. He had been with the Rams and then got cut and was working as a volunteer football coach. The Rams brought him back to the team after Sam Bradford went down for this season. In the first half of the game he came out guns blazing and had the Rams up two touchdowns while making the 49ers defense look pretty generic. I thought wow this kid is pretty good why did he ever get cut? I found out why in the second half. He wasn’t able to do anything against the 49ers defense and as Mike Tirico, who called the game on ESPN, pointed out;the Rams have not been able to play well in the second half which is why they haven’t been able to win games. The pick six in the last minute of the game definitely didn’t help. Hopefully, the Rams will get things figured out and help their quarterback succeed. I have made no secret of the fact that I love rooting for the underdog and this Austin Davis kid could be my new Brian Hoyer.