News and Notes

NFL Round Up With Kurt Eckert

2008 Season Is Anything But Predictable

By Kurt Eckert
09/22/2008

The Cowboys' win Sunday night was a calming chapter in what has started out to be in an increasingly unpredictable 2008 NFL season.

While Dallas was expected to do well, three weeks into the season, fans are gnashing their teeth over their office pools because two teams predicted to do nothing, Denver and Buffalo, are still undefeated.

Meanwhile, several teams with high hopes, including the aptly named Cleveland Browns, are sitting on the precipice of tumbling into the proverbial crapper.

Minnesota, Chicago, and to a lesser extent New Orleans, Seattle and Indianapolis, all with high hopes, and all at 1-2, might soon come tumbling after.

Yet Tennessee, which has no discernible quarterback play, is somehow also at 3-0.

But the strangest part of the day was Miami's dominant 38-13 performance over New England. Losers of eight in a row in Gillette Stadium, the hapless Fish matched their win total from last season by somehow melding a nearly flawless performance by QB Chad Pennington with a generous helping of some sort of college wing-T formation.

Running back Ronnie Brown took six direct snaps and ran for 113 yards and four touchdowns. He threw for another. It was the first regular season loss for New England since December of 2006, also to the Dolphins, and the first Patriots home loss since November, 2006, when they lost to Pennington's New York Jets. Ricky Williams added 96 yards rushing, and Pennington was 17 of 20 passing for better than 200 yards.

You don't need spy cameras to figure out how the Dolphins exposed Patriot Coach Bill Belichik. The supposed genius is reaping what he's sown, and now has a group of aging overachievers. And the other teams were definitely paying attention.

Miami showed how to play against this senior defense. Keep them off balance by using multiple, unpredictable formations. If they allowed to constantly keep receivers in check with their patented, bumping coverage -- and if they aren't allowed to overload the box, they can be made to look pretty pedestrian.

Remember, defensive stars like Mike Vrabel, Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi were already getting a little long in the tooth during New England's first Super Bowl run in 2001.

New England's Matt Cassell was actually not too bad in his second start at quarterback since high school. But the Patriots inability to get any big offensive plays, or keep Miami's offense off the field, clearly exposed how valuable last year's MVP Tom Brady was to their team.

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Kurt Eckert
Hllsboro Argus
503-214-1111

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