Thursday, October 27, 2005

ESPN.com

Quick hits - the apocalypse is upon us...

First the Red Sox and then the White Sox in back to back years. The last time that happened Shoeless Joe was still on the ChiSox and Babe Ruth was still on the BoSox and the Yankees had yet to win a championship. The end, evidently, is near.

This past weekend the Redskins ran up over 50 points against the lowly 49ers. By my reckoning, late in the fourth quarter the 'Skins had activated players from a local Pop Warner club and little Billy Fitzimmons completed a pass to Timmy "The Booger" Jones for the final touchdown of the day. For those of you wondering - that ain't stick-um on "The Booger's" hands.
In light of the recent pasting, the remainder of San Fran's schedule will be played out against Division 2 College flag football teams. When asked, 49ers coach Mike Nolan said, "I think this will be a good move for [quarterback Alex] Smith. It will help him get his confidence back while we work on a few things."

It's sounding more and more likely that Tedy Bruschi will be activated, possibly in time for Sunday's game. The D alignments should be interesting to say the least. A lot of people are writing the Pats off and anointing the Colts the new kings of the AFC. That might very well be, but the Colts played a lot of pushovers so far and the Pats are on the verge of getting back Bruschi, Seymour, Poole, and have picked up Hank Poteat again. While that's not the D that won them the last two bowls, Bru will have his people better positioned to make plays than the replacements.
Don't be surprised to see a 4-3 up front in order to collapse the middle of other teams pockets with the 3-4 mixed in from time to time. My guess is that if the Pats stick with the 3 man front that Vrabel will be moved inside with Bruschi - he's bigger than Beisel and more apt to take on the blockers in the middle. Otherwise, I'm guessing that the starting line-up, maybe not this week, but definitely by the time the Colts visit the Razor, will look something like this -

Line - Warren Wilfork Seymour Green

LBs - McGinnest Bruschi Vrabel

DBs - Poole Samuel
Wilson Freeman

Bench -
Line - Wright, Klecko, Hill

LBs - Colvin, Banta-Cain, Izzo, Davis, Brown, Beisel, Chatham

CBs - Starks, Hobbs, Gay, Poteat

S - Sanders, Stone

Next week my preseason picks revisited