NFL Playoffs – Top 5 surprises to the Downside

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Coach Marinelli cautions Big Tuna not to commit suicide over loss to the Lions

Yesterday we waltzed through the top five surprises to the upside. Today we take a look at the top 5 surprises to the downside. Football being what it is at the NFL level, there are always negative surprises. Many teams are only a couple of concussions from dropping out of contention.

Since your intrepid author has give 3 people concussions in his life, with my extra hard head, it makes me fully qualified to write this article.

1. Denver Bronco’s go with the rookie quarterback at a crucial time of the schedule and even though… they have a fabulous defense, they fail to make the playoffs. Is your gallivanting author implying the Jay Cutler caused them to fail? No, but a clear message was sent to the team that the future was Cutler. Do you think the players might have wanted the present to be the playoffs?

Cutler was the quarterback in the last 5 games and they went 2 – 3.

2. Cincinnati does not make the playoffs and Kansas City does make the playoffs. How does Cincinnati with Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh , Chris Henry, and Rudi Johnson not make the playoffs? Geez, Carson threw for over 4,000 yards and 28 TDs. Rudi rushed for over 1,300 yards and had 12 TDs.

Well, for one thing the Bengals closed out with Denver, Indy, and a hot Steelers team. For another, my grandmother rushed for 200 yards on the Bengal defense in their last exhibition game. They never did get the defense together.

3. The once proud franchise the Oakland Raiders were just terrible. They were so bad that Randy Moss declared he had lost interest in really playing football.

Three times the Oakland Hairbraiders were shut out. The Raiders ended the last 3 games of the season scoring 0, 9, and 3 points, getting decimated by the Jets in the last game to earn the coveted rights to the 1st pick in the draft.

4. Pittsburgh ended up 8 – 8 and missed the playoffs. The Steelers went from Super Bowl champs to never really in contention. It started in the off season, after the Super Bowl, with injuries, the retirement of Jerome Bettis, and Big Ben getting in a motorcycle accident with no helmet. It ended with the team needing to go 6 -2 to close out the season to get to .500. No Coach Bill Cowher may retire. This was not the way it was supposed to happen.

5. My ever loving, often frustrating, perennial losing Lions. How is it that they wait until the last quarter of the last game to sow up a victory to lose the 1st draft pick. OK, true, it is always better to win, but why bash your fans in the face one more time?

They had beaten only Buffalo and Atlanta up until that fateful last game. Dallas must have been paid off by the Fords. Tony Romo looked impossibly bad. Detroit even tried to run several times in the red zone, just so they would not score, but Dallas would have none of that allowing Detroit to score at will.

5b. (The new math) Rex Grossman gets worse with each game. The Bears dominate all over the field and Rex stinks. Now before we put him out to pasture (as the manure), keep in mind that Rex has not really had a lot of NFL snaps in his career, but what the heck, he stinks anyways.

In the final game against the Packers and Brett Favre, Rex went 2 for 12 for 33 yards and 0.0 quarterback rating.

Don’t forget to vote in the new poll.

In the last poll, LT was picked as MVP over Drew Brees. It was not a close vote.

NFL Football Fan Question What other downside stories did you see in the NFL this year?

As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.

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