Week 7 Recap and Why a QB MVP Would Be a Sham This Year

Ah the fickle fortunes of football picks.  Last week, if you had picked the Vegas favorite to win outright, you would have gone 5 - 9.  This week, you would have gone 12 - 1.  I took a chance on a few underdogs in Week 7, and while none of them panned out, none of them got eviscerated by the competition either.  I think this week will go down as a pretty ho-hum one in the grand scheme of things, but a week of any football is better than one with no football at all, especially in the sports fan Eden of October.

Here's your Week 7 Recap in Quick Snap form.  I'll also feature a big idea, team and/or player each week to keep things interesting.  This week: Why a QB MVP Would Be a Sham This Year. But first, the good stuff:

Week 7: The Good Stuff

• The Steelers' Next Man Up - I hope I'm not overreacting since they only beat the Bengals this weekend, but I was very impressed with the Steelers' resiliency this weekend after an agonizing loss to the Titans in Week 6.  It's not simply that they beat Cincy, it's how they beat Cincy.  Pittsburgh has suffered major injuries to its starting offensive line, running backs and secondary over the course of the early season, so I figured mediocre Cincinnati would finally take advantage of a reeling Iron Curtain, even if it was ugly.  Turns out, these cats put up over 150 rushing yards, shut Andy Dalton and friends down in the second half and controlled the clock for a whopping 37 minutes (15 more minutes than the Bengals if you don't want to do the head math).  The score didn't necessarily show it, but Pittsburgh dominated this game through means I absolutely didn't anticipate.  With Baltimore in panic mode, we may be due for a big shake up in the AFC North.

• Joe Morgan's TD Catch - Just watch it; no words necessary for this rookie highlight reel... of one awesome play.
• The Baseball Giants' Pennant Win - I know, I know, it's not football, but while Matt Stafford was busy getting coronated with sod at Soldier Field, I was flipping back and forth to Game 7 of the NLCS.  The Giants had the game firmly in hand by the bottom of the 3rd, so it wasn't a nail-biter by any stretch, but I so loved watching them close it out in the 9th in the midst of a monsoon.  Normally those MLB wimps shut things down with the first speck of mud, but they let this one go to put the poor Cardinals out of their misery.  You don't see that every day.
• Nailed It: My Best Week 7 Prediction - Nothing extraordinary in the Lady Blitz prophecies this time around, though it's good to be back above 0.500, so here's to Houston's continued traction at the top of the AFC:
• "Even if the Ravens had not lost Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb to season-ending injuries, this upcoming rumble with the Texans would still be an uphill battle for Baltimore.  They just haven't been able to defend the run this year against much less formidable rushing teams...  This is exactly how Houston is built to win games."

Week 7: The Bad Stuff

• Sunday Afternoon Game Scheduling - I'm sure there's a horribly self-interested reason that the NFL insisted on scheduling 8 games in the 12pm (CDT) slot and a paltry 2 games in the 3pm slot on Sunday.  We went from the sensory overload extravaganza of the Giants-Redskins/Saints-Buccaneers/Bills-Titans down-to-the-wire shootouts of mid-day to a painfully quiet two-game schedule in mere minutes.  Sunday Ticket owners should be wringing their hands over this kind of feast and famine.  True, both of the later games went to overtime, but one of them was the freakin' Raiders and Jaguars.  You know, that game where the Raiders couldn't even get close to putting the Jaguars away in regulation without Maurice Jones-Drew or Blaine Gabbert (ok, I get it).  I give a lot of credit to the Jets and Patriots for keeping the rivalry more than serviceable despite New England being a 10.5-point favorite, but there wasn't even any bowling or lumberjack games on ESPN 2 to turn to when we went to half time.  Le sigh.
• The Lions' Red Zone Allergy - Oh sweet Jeebus.  I didn't think that Detroit would be able to steal one in Chicago last night, but it must be absolutely infuriating to be a Lions fan and watch your team waste three separate trips to the Red Zone on turnovers. And "bear" in mind (I know) that Chicago put up only 13 points, so either 2 TDs or a TD and 2 FGs would have at least tied it up despite being totally outplayed for the entire game.  Yes, the Bears are the real deal and I'm loving that ferocious defense, but the Lions were downright painful to watch.  I even started to feel sorry for Matt Stafford even though his chin stubble is hideous.
• Cam Newton's Sweater - I already touched on Cam Newton's serious attitude problem in the midst of his sophomore slump a few weeks ago, so no need to pile on the self-righteousness at this juncture.  Plus, he gave us plenty of new fodder on Sunday with this freakin' avalanche of knitted wool, which will now serve as the world's most expensive potato sack.  Is it a subliminal message for Panthers fans to start wearing paper bags?  I think so.  

• Shanked It!: My Worst Week 7 Prediction - Oh sure, this is the week Chris Johnson finally decides to be worth his teeth and gold.  Definitely did not see the Titans coming back in such a wild fashion in Buffalo with the stakes so different for these two teams:
• "Buffalo has looked mighty good against the bottom of the AFC barrel with big wins over the Chiefs and Browns.  With the AFC East crown still [surprisingly] well within reach, Buffalo should be plenty motivated to take advantage of Tennessee's many woes on both sides of the ball."

Week 7 Feature: Why a QB MVP Would Be a Sham This Year

I know it's way too early to have this conversation, and truthfully, I care only slightly more about the annual NFL player awards than I do about the Canadian Oscars (the Genies, if you will).  But there's no clear front runner for the traditional MVP in my mind so far this year, so here's a few thoughts about why it shouldn't be another freakin' quarterback in 2012:

• Aaron Rodgers' 2011 Performance Deserves Some Serious Respect - Last year was the kind of legendary year for Aaron Rodgers that we'll still be talking about ten years from now.  Man put up 45 TDs to 6 INTs to the tune of a record-setting passer rating of 122.5 for the season.  Even Aaron Rodgers isn't outdoing himself at this point this year-- he leads the league with 19 TDs and a 109+ passer rating.  That means he'll need to play nearly perfectly in the Packers remaining 9 games to get close to where he was this time last year.  There are some very good passers in 2012 to be sure, but everyone looks like a dwarf compared to Rodgers last year. We need at least a year of critical distance from that historic performance before we can go back to worshiping the almighty passer.
• There's Too Much Parity This Year - A still-bigger factor in why the MVP shouldn't be awarded to a quarterback this year is that almost no one is winning the way the Packers were in 2011, which certainly played a huge role in Rodgers' MVP status.  Green Bay had the league's best record in the regular season at 15 - 1.  Only Houston, Chicago or Atlanta could possibly get there this year, and while all should easily have double digits worth of wins in December, I just don't see it happening.  Perennial QB darlings Brady, Brees, Rogers and Manning(s) all got off to slow starts this year and have had at least a taste of a losing record and individually poor games.  As for Houston and Chicago, these teams' success is built on a much more balanced foundation than their QBs, so it would be a farce to consider Schaub or Cutler most valuable to their teams.  As for Atlanta, many say that Matt Ryan is the MVP front-runner, given his early-season lead in passer rating and that the Falcons are the league's only remaining undefeated team.  While Ryan is having a career year, he's tossed 6 INTs in his past two games, which were much closer than they should have been (vs. Panthers and Raiders), and the Falcons have only played one team with a winning record (yep, the Chargers) so far.  Point being, Ryan is still untested at this point and the rest of the passer pack is catching up.
• Virtually No Other Positions Are Ever Acknowledged - You know, it's a real wonder the NFL MVP pageantry is so vastly inferior to college's Heisman Trophy, the main reason being there's no mystery these days-- it's always whatever quarterback has the most relatively freakish year ("Relatively" being the operative word). We've only had two non-quarterback winners in the last decade and none within the last five years.  If you take running backs out of the equation, you have to go back to 1986 when Lawrence Taylor (linebacker and extraordinary life decision-maker) accepted the award for any more variability.  Sure, I get that it's nearly impossible to drum up the kinds of individually-oriented stats for other players that quarterbacks have in their portfolios, but these kind of trends show just how lazy and thoughtless the whole MVP distinction is.  So in conclusion, if I had my druthers, I think the NFL voters should take a good hard look at Houston Texans defensive end J. J. Watt.  This second-year terror already has 9.5 sacks, 34 tackles and 10 blocked passes and we're not even halfway through this season.  The blocked pass numbers are particularly astounding because 1) Watt is already just 1 short of tying the all-time record; 2) these things have created a wealth of turnovers for the Texas defense like this one and they are making offenses scramble for different game plans; and 3) his athletic, disruptive style of play may fundamentally change this very passer-happy game in a couple more years.  Will a Watt MVP happen? No.  Should it? It's still too early to say, but I'm all for it.  Variety is the spice of non-NFL-awards life.