Week 11 Recap and the Three Worst Football Media Traps

I could say a whole lot of things to open up this week's recap, but here is Tony Allen kicking Chris Paul in the face.  That is all.

Week 11: The Good Stuff

The Steelers Turnaround - A good number of teams would throw in the Terrible Towel after letting a solid offense like the Lions putt up over 320 passing yards in a single half.  But credit the Steelers for doing what few defenses have been able to do this year - completely shutting down Calvin Johnson and Matt Stafford, who went just 3 for 16 in pass attempts in the second half.  Ben Roethlisberger had as good of a game as I've seen in a couple seasons with a 4 TD afternoon to cap off the comeback win.  It looks like the Lions and Steelers are just about as predictable as I suspected they would be, which is to say not at all.

Bobby Rainey and Matt McGloin, Household Names - By my count, at least 11 teams have started backup QBs at some point this season, and some of them have had some very good outings.  Enter Matt "Who?" McGloin, the Raiders benchwarmer behind Terrelle Pryor and Matt Flynn who had a shockingly good debut on the road against the Texans with 3 TDs and completions to six different receivers on Sunday.  Also rising out of nowhere, Tampa's second string RB Bobby Rainey who had a better day than any other running back this week with 3 TDs and 160 yards of his own on the ground.  Now, I'm a firm believer that there's a shelf life to 99% of guys like this not named Kurt Warner or Tom Brady because film study and weekly wear and tear are great equalizers, but kudos to McGloin and Rainey for having a great day no one expected.

A Burfict Game - If you were worried about how the Cincinnati defense would rebound after Geno Atkins went down, remember they just lost two pitiful games to the Ravens and the Dolphins.  But this week, Vontaze Burfict crushed it with a forced fumble for a touchdown and 15 tackles to go along with the Bengals D's three interceptions and a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown.  Who needs Andy Dalton, err, Geno Atkins anyway?

Nailed It!  My Best Week 11 Prediction - True, the Broncos-Chiefs game was mildly entertaining for two and a half quarters with KC holding Peyton Manning to one touchdown, but Alex Smith is going to have to step up his game and his risk-taking two weeks from now to make things more interesting:

• " I'd love the Chiefs to extend their Cinderella story for another week, but when it comes down to it, is there any chance that Alex Smith can go toe-to-toe for four quarters with Manning?  I think not at Mile High."

Week 11: The Bad Stuff

Gary Kubiak, The Decider - There were plenty of interesting coaching decisions going on Sunday but perhaps none more so than Gary Kubiak benching QB Case Keenum before the fourth quarter for Houston’s whipping boy, Matt Schaub. Keenum wasn’t having a banner day with 1 TD, 1 INT and 170 passing yards, but it certainly didn’t seem to warrant pulling the plug for the much more maligned Schaub, who ended up with a lower completion percentage and no TDs anyway. Given 1) that the Texans are all but statistically eliminated from the playoffs, 2) that Keenum has demonstrated at least some big play ability since taking over and 3) that Schaub faced a hostile home crowd that wasn’t going to help with his recent head case-edness, the move certainly didn’t make Kubiak’s hot seat any cooler. Especially by making Andre Johnson so very sad.

The Forty-Whiners - Here we go again. Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers nation make it abundantly clear that the universe is out to get them and they should have at least three more Lombardi trophies by now because of it. I am referring both to Sunday’s personal foul call against Ahmad Brooks that took away a sack-fumble near the 50 with less than four minutes to go and the alleged holding no-call that would’ve given the trailing Niners the ball and a fresh set of downs against the Ravens in February. I’ll grant that both calls were controversial for a reason - they weren’t clear-cut one way or the other upon review and not reviewable for that matter. However, they don’t actually make up for the fact that the 49ers had plenty of chances to win both games and got outplayed. If everything else happened exactly the same way in this one except that Brooks’ “foul” occurred in any other quarter, we wouldn’t even be talking about it. We’d be talking about Colin Kaepernick completing roughly 50% of his passes compared to Drew Brees’ 70%, Frank Gore being held to less than 50 yards and the 49ers earning half as many first downs and punting twice as often as the Saints. I know I’m a homer on this one, but it’s a pet peeve that extends far beyond team loyalty. Hey, that gives me an idea for a weekly feature...

Shanked It!  My Worst Week 11 Prediction: Sometimes the riskier picks pay off in this topsy-turvy league, and other times, they just make you look ridiculous:

• "Let's be clear here.  The Giants are still a pretty bad team.  Trust an Eli Manning fantasy owner on that one.  They ought to win this one and keep the 3-game winning streak on the burner, but I'm going to blindly throw the ball into triple coverage that Eddie Lacy can run on New York and Scott Tolzien is just good enough to manage this game."

Week 11 Feature: The Three Worst Football Media Traps

Seeing as how I've been doing this for a year and a half without even getting paid, I get how easy it is to fall by the wayside with oversimplification and recycled/borrowed narratives about football games and players.  Without turning a mirror to yours truly, here are the three worst football media traps:

1) Blaming an Entire Win-Loss Outcome on One Bad Call - See the “Forty-Whiners” above. To be fair, there is exactly one instance where this is totally allowable: the great Fail Mary of 2012. Even then, the three-ring circus around replacement referees and a sullen Aaron Rodgers blinded fans to the fact that a new defensive superpower was rising in the West that sacked Rodgers eight times and kept his golden arm out of the end zone all night. Bad calls happen, and they happen to every team, usually for both sides in the same game. But to characterize one alleged/real lapse in human judgment as though it overrides the collective outcome of 120 - 140 other plays minimizes what the 106 athletes and their coaching staffs did or didn’t do to get them there in the first place. Good, bad or indifferent, these almost always seem to flare up around quarterback hits and how we should just let players play… right next to the mandatory monthly column about how great the NFL is doing at researching concussions indefinitely.  ***Update: Go figure I write this thing before that thrilling conclusion of Monday Night Football - Referees picking up a flag without a real explanation is sketchy to say the least, but to apply the same theory here, if the Patriots hold the Panthers to a field goal and/or use their timeouts more wisely, they aren't trying to drive the ball into the end zone with 4 seconds left on the clock in the first place.  It doesn't negate the fact that Carolina is a very dangerous team right now.  Just sayin'.***

2) Talking About Poor Performance Only in Terms of Character Issues - A.k.a. every article ever written after Dez Bryant has a mediocre day or the Jets' Dave-and-Buster's-Gate this past weekend.  It's a problem not only because the rhetoric is almost always focused on black athletes but also because it's so convenient to wield only when the game situation fits.  Haven't heard about Bryant's sideline temper tantrums in a while?  Chances are the Cowboys have won an elusive three or so games in a row.  If Dallas is in a tailspin, we'll be reminded of Father Jerry putting Dez on a curfew two years ago.  Did Tom Brady throw his helmet at the feet of some sad sack undrafted third stringer during a loss?  He was just showing leadership, silly; there's no discord in the Patriot Way locker room!  As long as your team is consistently winning, your "character" is a meaningless, intact thing that stays on the writer's shelf... unless you're Ray Lewis.

3) Knee Jerk Mondays - This may be the toughest trap for anyone who does this regularly to avoid.  How many times have you read a tidbit about your favorite team's game the day after where it was obvious the writer just read the stat sheet with no context for what happened?  And more importantly, the narrative is based purely on one game with little bearing on how the team has performed the rest of the season, usually involving some random guy we've never heard of having one good game.  This single knee jerk echo chamber is what gets people like Matt Flynn a plural number of multi-million dollar contracts.  This is also what allows "fantasy football gurus" to make a living on predictions no one is accountable for backing up for their results.  And this is what we had to deal with after two years of Tim Tebow.  Be thankful we're talking about Matt Flynn instead these days, I guess.