Bang

Buy. Nowhere to go but up for the Saints,, eyeing the bottom third of the rankings seems about right, even for an overrated Ryan. Buy or Sell: Cristian Ponder steps up and becomes the passer the Vikings are going to need to advance to the next level of the playoffs. ~Bang

Sorry folks, it took a long time for this to get rolling and of course i miss a day or three and boom, it picks up. Sorry to have been 'that guy" ~Bang

I voted for Lynch.. he's not the prettiest, he's not the fastest,, but damn if he isn't a BEAST of a running back. ~Bang

Frankly, i'd rather the be forced to wear a cup. Some of those guys leave nothing to the imagination in HD. ~Bang

This is what happens to society when everyone must bend over backwards to avoid lawsuits. We are an overly litigious society conditioned by an overstuffed legal profession to consider every unfortunate occurrence as if we are victims of someone else's negligence. This is why elementary schools ban games of 'tag' all the way up to why the NFL must cover every one of it's possible bases before some lawyer convinces an ex-player that he can't walk because his football coach employer did not require him to wear knee pads. the best way to avoid a lawsuit is to not allow anything that can be used against you by the bottom-feeders who treat our legal system like an ATM machine. Practically every dumbass WTF decision like this can be traced back to fear of litigation. ~Bang

Tier 1 RGIII - Made it once, why not again? If he maintains what he's done he has a real shot. Trent Williams - Our beast of a left tackle. Routinely holds his own against the best pass rushers in the league. Tier 2 London Fletcher - Ageless wonder. go ahead and tell him he's old and can't have another 140+ tackle season. Alfred Morris - if the run game stays strong Ryan Kerrigan- With orakpo back he may get a lot more shots at the quarterback Tier 3 Brian Orakpo - Needs to show up Pierre garcon - dark horses can run, right? Kai Forbath.. Kobra Kai Kan Kick! ~Bang

Hard to argue those numbers for that criteria. Poor Matt Flynn. Nice guys and Raiders always finish last. ~Bang

Alright, i don't get it. Patiently waiting. ~Bang

sounds like fun. ~Bang

As a Redskins fan, the thing i particularly like about RG3 is that he does have the arm and accuracy to transition into the pocket passer they all must inevitably become. So long as his knee doesn't shorten his career, i like the future, and so long as the coaches evolve the offense to match his abilities at each stage of his career, it could be party time here in Washington soon. ~Bang

i DO like my Kool-Aid. ~Bang

While i'd agree, there still is that pesky fact that pocket or runner, they all get hurt. A running Qb MAY take 20 hits per game, if he's running like a running back and not using his slide, or the wide open broken field a QB on the run often sees is not there. A pocket guy may take fewer hits, but the chance is higher that he's going to get blasted simply because throwing leaves him in a very vulnerable position. There's more traffic that can accidentally cause him an injury. very very few Qbs take every snap, and when they do it's usually pointed out. Eli Manning has never been hurt.. and he's about the only guy I can think of that can say that. sorry,, don't mean to hijack. ~Bang

I think Cam's biggest problem last year was his attitude in press conferences.. it made small issues magnified, and gave the press something to seize upon. ~Bang

I'd buy into the whole myth of "running QB = hurt QB" if every other non running Qb in the NFL managed to not get hurt. but since they do, and at an alarming rate, i will point out that the Read Option is actually a fairly safe offense for the quarterback. namely, because he is in complete control. If the opening is there, he can keep it and go until it's time to slide. If it's not, he puts the ball in the RBs gut and gets a flag if anyone touches him. defenses can look at all the film they want, but unless they figure out how to get the DE to guess right on which one of them will have the ball, or they can somehow avoid the flags that come with hitting a Qb after he's handed off, the offense is still going to cause mismatch problems. RG3 got hurt last year on a couple of fluke plays, and NEITHER of them were read option runs. Both of them were broken plays with a scramble to avoid pressure, something every QB in the NFL has to do from time to time. (An injury on a scramble cost Alex Smith his job.. and he's not considered a " running QB", is he?) The last play RG3 got hurt on wasn't even with the ball in his hands,, the ball was snapped in the dirt, and his foot caught in that awful turf when he went down for it. Most quarterbacks take an injury during the season. It may not force them all to miss time, but chances are high they will miss some.. be it a half or a game or five games or what have you. Last year 48 quarterbacks threw 30 passes or more. 39 QBs threw more than 170 passes. Somehow i doubt very much that all those Qbs that missed time are runners. In fact, I'd bank my last buck that most of them are not considered runners at all. Is Matthew Stafford a runner? His history of injuries is ridiculous, and it happens in the pocket. even the best of them.. Manning missed a year for hits taken in the pocket, Brady missed a season for a shot taken in the pocket. Running does not result in injury any more or less than being a pocket passer. Every defender is looking to kill the QB on every play, not just the ones where he's off and running. And in the pocket they're more vulnerable when they take a hit. To the topic, it's hard to say who will suffer the Soph Slump, since all of these QBs seem to have pretty solid teams around them. Cam went through his slump, but the Panthers aren't very good as a whole. the 49ers are defending NFC champs, the seahawks are pretty solid, the redskins have talent, and so do the colts.. moreso than most of the Qbs that go through the Slump. Most of the time a rookie phenom QB leads his team to 8-8.. 7-9 (Sam Bradford) and people get excited because typically they're elevating a bad team... then the slump happens because the team can't live up to the expectation. (Cam, for example,, nice rookie year,, but the overall record of the team was a game better last year. so is that a slump?) In all but the Colts case, these teams have been building for a bit before inserting the young QB, so there's a bit more substance to work with. I'll make the bold assumption and say none of them will have a standard Soph Slump. ~Bang

just to throw this out there.. how much of the Colts' surprising success could be attributed to the emotional "lift" if you will of playing for a cause such as a seriously ill head coach? I'm thinking not a whole lot, but the ability to reach down for the emotional inspiration is there. Sometimes a player or a team has nothing left in a game except something like that, and they can serve as a lifter over the short term. ("Win one for the Gipper!", and such.) Luck played great, the defense really stepped up, and Reggie Wayne deserves a LOT of credit for giving his rookie QB the reliable veteran presence that often isn't translated when a young QB comes in after a legend has gone. I guess the main question here, of the hotshot young QBs, who's got the highest chance of a Sophomore Slump? (I count Kaepernick even though he's not a rookie.) Assuming everyone stays healthy, i'm thinking Wilson. for no other reason than I hope it's Wilson. I think of the group, they're the least conventional in that they expect and get more out of players who might not be able to do the same in another uniform. ~Bang