After Four Weeks, What Have We Learned?

Charles Klein

So the NFL wraps up its fourth week of the 2010 tonight in Miami where the 2-1 New England Patriots visit the 2-1 Miami Dolphins on Monday Night Football (where we get to hear Jon Gruden filibuster for two hours while Mike Tirico refers to each player as 'this guy'). One quarter of the season is nearly over and, as the midterms continue to pile up, it's time to focus on what we've learned so far this year.

1) My two Super Bowl picks appear to be doing just fine, thank you very much. At the beginning of the season I picked the Green Bay Packers to defeat the Baltimore Ravens. Both teams find themselves atop their divisions and coming off important wins versus divisional opponents. Flacco had his professional barmitzvah yesterday in Pittsburgh and acquitted himself well. His touchdown pass in the dying seconds of the fourth quarter to T.J. Houshmandzadeh was absolutely perfect. The Packers, minus their disappointing display against the Bears last week, have looked the genuine article throughout. Let's face it ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Rodgers has already achieved boss status. Clay Matthews leads the NFL with seven sacks and while the defense has not been horribly convincing at preventing other teams from scoring, it has done an excellent job at creating turnovers.

2) The 49ers are not a very good team. If teams were given moral victories in addition to their real ones, the Niners record would be the same as every other team in the dreadful NFC West, 2-2. They morally defeated the Saints at home and morally defeated the Falcons on the road. The pure talent on this roster is better than their 0-4 record, but their level of concentration and professionalism has been inferior to all of their opponents this season. Nate Clements fumbling what looked like a game winning interception tells you everything you need to know about the 49ers this season. Coach Mike Singletary appears to have lost his team. I can't remember seeing a much more defeated looking coach or manager in a long time, and I watched Don Wakamatsu manage the Mariners this season...

3) Having a good quarterback matters. I want to take some time to thank the Baltimore Ravens for proving that the Steelers could beat any team no matter who they had at quarterback. They won that game because they had Joe Flacco and the Steelers had Charlie Batch (whom I love, but hey, he's in his 100th season in the league). And his team needed him to make a big time throw, Flacco did it with ease. Watching the Eagles flop around like a dying fish against the Redskins yesterday showed how badly they actually do need Mike Vick. I don't even think it's that Kevin Kolb is a bad quarterback, but the unique match up problems that Vick provides a defense compensated for a lot of the Eagles' deficiencies.

4) Some teams still get really lucky. Or I guess I really should just say there's always that one team who's meaninglessly undefeated. That may sound like an oxymoron, but with the Kansas City Chiefs it makes sense. Now I do love the Chiefs (my father worked for that organization in the '90s and going to Arrowhead was an early childhood tradition) but I think their success is as unsustainable as U.S. Federal Government deficit spending. The teams they have beaten this year are a combined 3-9 and two of their three wins came at home. Yes, their coaching staff is probably one of the best in the league on experience alone and I have been impressed with their drafting over the past two years, but I do not see them winning the AFC West. After the Chargers wiped the floor with the Cardinals last week, I have every reason to think the West is the Chargers division to lose.

5) The NFC West is even more dreadful than we thought. I thought the Seahawks were ready to take the division by the scruff of its neck, only to see them get destroyed by the St. Louis Rams. The combined records of all four teams is 6-10 and none of the teams have looked particularly impressive. Arizona got absolutely annihilated by an overwhelming offensive performance by Rivers & Co. and the 49ers lost another tight game in Atlanta. This division is so bad it shouldn't even have a playoff spot.

6) The New York Jets look good. I do not know why all of my friends seem to think I have some sort of vendetta against the Jets. People's memories are not as good as they used to be I suppose, as I picked the Jets to go to the Super Bowl on this blog last season. Just because I try to diffuse a little of that New York hype on my twitter account (@charlieklein if you were curious) does not mean that I am ignorant of the talent this team has. LaDanian Tomlinson looks like a man on a mission and while his numbers came against one of the worst teams in the NFL (sorry Buffalo, but you're just awful), he has shown that burst he had a few years ago in the powder blue of San Diego. Not only that, the Jets defense appears to be doing almost as well without Revis. I hate when analysts say that teams can be better without their best players, so I am not going to say that the Jets are better off without Revis because that is just illogical. But they have been doing more than just treading water without him. Granted, the Patriots and Dolphins were able to throw the ball against the Jets, the defense still came up with the key stops to get the team the win. Also, Dustin Keller gets the ball so much it makes one wonder if there is something going on between him and Mark Sanchez that we don't know about (just kidding). Sometimes I really wish I had the sense to draft him in fantasy football... Maybe next year.

And my fantasy team, the Pete Carroll Fist Pumps, appear to be going the same way the 49ers are, 0-4. Perhaps it's because I have Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree...