SB Nation User Blog: Cassieper

106 Reasons to Hate the New England Patriots

Cassieper — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:59:01 -0000

106 Reasons to Hate the New England Patriots

The guys over at 18to88.com have come up with 18 more reasons to hate the Pats in addition to their earlier 88. Sit back and enjoy the hate!

Note: These 2 articles are primarily meant as humor pieces. If you are a Pats fan, please don't go insane and kill everybody in your general area or start killing me in the comments.

The Day of Depth- An analysis of current injuries and their effects on our depth

Cassieper — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:07:55 -0000

So, are you awake yet today? If you are at least somewhat awake (and I've been awake for about 30 hours now), you know that someone must have really pissed off the football gods yesterday, because they are now raining injuries on the Colts. So, my purpose in making this FanPost right now is two-fold. First, I want to get all of the injuries in one place for easy access. Also, I want to examine the positions afflicted with the injury curse (not an injury bug; I've upgraded it to a curse) and see who is left starting and what quality of depth is available for these positions. Because injuries have affected seemingly every part of this team, I'm going to do this unit-by-unit. By the way, those in a fragile emotional state might not want to read the rest of this FanPost. Don't wanna get sued for something that might happen to you ;-)

The analysis format is this:

Unit: Starters if the game was played today (Any healthy depth if the game was played today), List of injured players with injury description, Any other analysis of this position (like depth issues)

Let's start off on a good note with the offense, shall we?

Running Back: Joseph Addai (Donald Brown, Mike Hart, Chad Simpson), Since Brown practiced fully on Wednesday and Thursday, I have to assume he's 100% healthy and ready to go Sunday, This is one of our best positions, injury-wise, right now. Brown was previously hurt but seems fine now, and Addai-Brown makes an efficient 1-2 combo.

Quarterback: Peyton Manning (Jim Sorgi, Curtis Painter), Some speculated that Peyton was sick last Friday, but the team said it was a planned resting period and will become a regular thing. I'll trust that they're not stupid enough to lie to us, Once again, we're completely fine here. No injuries to date.

Wide Receivers/Tight Ends: Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie (Gijon Robinson, Hank Baskett, Jacob Tamme, Justin Snow), Anthony Gonzalez- arthroscopic knee surgery on 11/05/09 to clean out loose stuff remaining in the knee, supposed to be back in 2-3 weeks, Wayne, Clark, and Collie are awesome, and are consistently making Peyton (and us) happy, that's for sure. However, Gonzo is a great and consistent receiver who should have a bright future ahead of him if he can stay healthy. Right now, Gonzo's injury rates as a pretty big loss mostly because Garcon has seemed to forget how to catch the ball again. We saw his drops in preseason, and they're back. It's also important to remember that we literally haven't had Gonzo all season, so we should see a solid bump in the offense upon his return, unlike our offense getting worse until he gets back, if that makes sense. Unless Garcon can become the receiver he was against Miami and Arizona again, this offense will continue to struggle a little bit by its standards until Gonzo makes his triumphant return.

Offensive Line: Charlie Johnson, Ryan Lilja, Jeff Saturday, Mike Pollak/Kyle DeVan, Ryan Diem (Dan Federkeil, Jamey Richard, Tony Ugoh), No injuries to date. The only one the whole year has been to Charlie Johnson to my knowledge, and he's completely fine now, The lack of depth here is concerning. There's only 4 players readily available to sub for an injury, and the Colts usually scratch 2 of them. Other than that, we're fine with what we have on the O-line.

Now let's move on to the defense:

Defensive Line: Dwight Freeney, Dan Muir, Antonio Johnson, Robert Mathis (Keyunta Dawson, Raheem Brock, Eric Foster, Fili Moala, Josh Thomas), Aside from Ed Johnson getting axed for fatness and Dwight Freeney having a somewhat tender knee, nothing to report here, This is also one of our best spots. The injury curse tried to infect Dwight Freeney, but Dwight Freeney instead ______________ (insert comically appropriate action here).

Linebackers: Philip Wheeler, Gary Brackett, Clint Session (Freddy Keiaho, Ramon Humber, Cody Glenn), Tyjuan Hagler- ruptured biceps (ouch), out of the year, Our starters are still great. Brackett and Session are beasts, and Wheeler should do fine as long as he's not a reincarnation of Gilbert Gardner. Our depth here is basically gone. Keiaho can fill in for Brackett, and did OK when he filled in earlier this year, but I have absolutely no confidence in the other 2 backups. We absolutely cannot take any more injuries here or we are in serious trouble.

Defensive Backs: Jerraud Powers, Jacob Lacey, Melvin Bullitt, Antoine Bethea (Tim Jennings, T.J. Rushing, Aaron Fransisco, Jamie Silva), Bob Sanders- torn biceps (ouch again), out for the year. Marlin Jackson- torn ACL, out for the year. Kelvin Hayden, knee injury, out for around 4 weeks, It speaks to our early depth that we can lose 3 starting caliber DB's and still have an excellent starting backfield, which we have with Powers, Lacey, Bullitt, and Bethea. Powers, Bullitt, and Bethea have earned my complete trust with their play (Bethea is having a Pro-Bowl year right now), but I'm still a little apprehensive about Lacey. I want to see a couple more games from him to establish some consistency. But now, say good-bye to our secondary depth as it is 100% gone (3:45 mark). We have Jennings and Rushing as semi-adequate backup. If we get one more injury back there, our pass D could be toast. For now though, we once again have good starters, and they need to hold on until Hayden comes back in a month. Until then, nail a horseshoe above your door and grab a rabbit's foot stuffed with 4-leaf clovers. The Colts need all the luck we can get.

Overall injury analysis: For now, we should be fine. Only a couple of our actual starters are down for the count, and they have been replaced by great depth hand-selected by Polian. Also, two of our most important players in Gonzalez and Hayden will most likely be back within a month. However, our depth in wide receiver and any defensive position not on the defensive line is completely shot. We pretty much literally have no one left to "step up" if someone else gets injured. So, now is not the time to panic as we should not see much change in our offense's or defense's performance in the coming weeks. However, you are allowed to panic if we do suffer another injury in the hard-hit places. I'll be panicking along with you. For now, grab the nearest leprechaun and hope that the Colts are not put in this scenario.

College Football/Anything Thread, Part II

Cassieper — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:32:31 -0000

OK, we've been talking all day and have reached the point where my computer is starting to get mad at me for posting in a 550 comment thread. So here's your new one. Feel free to talk about:

1. Exciting Iowa-MSU game

2. Surprisingly exciting Florida-Miss. St game

3. How much Mizzou sucks

4. Anything else you want

It's Saturday night and we have no friends. So, let's keep talking!

An Even Harder Quiz........

Cassieper — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:59:07 -0000

After the fun that we had with the Sporcle quizzes last week, I immediately thought that we should have a Colts one. The one that Colts Homer linked to, which was a quiz of the Colts' 1st round draft picks since 1998, was a great start, but I thought it was way too easy and short (ignore the part where I forgot about the 2000 1st round pick). So, I decided to build upon that. For the past week (nothing to do during 2 bye weeks), I have been working on and off on a quiz for every single Colts draft pick of the Peyton/Polian era. That would be from 1998-2009 for those unable to figure it out. Well, I've now finished it. Take the quiz here, if you so desire.

There are 96 draft choices in total. For the record, I got around 56 correct when I tested the quiz. The obscurity of many of these names should give even the most knowledgeable Colts/draft fan a serious challenge.

Good luck! I wonder which SB user will do the best........

Dr. Cass - Dr. Blue's Unofficial Assistant - Dwight Freeney

Cassieper — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:10:03 -0000

Sorry for stealing your gig Dr. Blue, but just like everybody else, I'm wondering what's going on with Dwight Freeney. He is so ridiculously important to this team that an extended absence (like an ACL tear) could and probably would sink this team. So, I decided to take my extra time on Monday before class (my 1st one isn't until 12:30) and do a little research into just what could be wrong with Dwight Freeney based on what we know. A fair warning beforehand: This post won't be as awesome or detailed as the Dr. Blue entries. I'm not that good. Oh, also, I'm not a doctor. I'm pretending to be an unofficial assistant to a fake doctor. How sad is that?

OK, this is what we know about the injury so far from interviews and my own eyes:

The injury was to Freeney's right quadriceps muscle.
Freeney had his leg bent strangely when going after Kurt Warner.
Freeney had no problems walking off of the field, holding interviews after, and appeared to be in little pain or possibly none. Of course, I'm not Freeney so I can't know that for sure.
He's going to have an MRI either today or tomorrow.
Freeney said he felt/heard something pop.

So, then I did a little research. I found out from this handy site that the fact that the injury is to his quadriceps and that Freeney heard something pop (the most helpful information given out yet), makes this injury initially consistent with a right quadriceps strain. Whether you heard something pop or not is an essential question the doctor asks you when diagnosing a quad strain.

By the way, full disclosure states that I also found out that rupturing your quadriceps tendon also results in hearing a pop (which is a very serious injury), but I am 99% sure Freeney doesn't have it, because a symptom of a quadriceps tendon rupture is the complete inability to bear weight on the leg, and we all saw him walk off the field and take those interviews. No way it was a tendon rupture.

So, you may ask, it's a right quadriceps strain. What's next? The next step is to determine the grade of the strain. Luckily, it looks like we're able to do that with our information available. Thanks to this equally handy site, the parameters for each grade (or severity) of the strain are spelled out for us. It's also a sports injury site, so we don't need to adjust the symptoms and treatment to athletic terms. Let's go through the symptoms for each of them now, starting with a Grade 1 (least severe):

A twinge in the thigh is usually felt.

A general feeling of tightness in the thigh.

Mild discomfort on walking.

Probably no swelling.

Trying to straighten the knee against resistance may be uncomfortable.

An area of local spasm may be felt at the site of the suspected tear.

That doesn't sound too bad of an injury. Now let's look at the symptoms for a Grade 2 quadriceps strain:

A sudden sharp pain when running, jumping or kicking.

Unable to play on.

Pain affects walking.

The athlete may notice swelling or even mild bruising.

Pain on feeling the area of the tear.

Straightening the knee against resistance causes pain

Unable to fully bend the knee.

OK, I've bolded the 2 most important things for you there. I didn't see anything affecting his walking when he went off of the field, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be standing up and taking those interviews if he was in enough pain to affect his walking. By the way, for a Grade 3 strain, you can't walk without crutches, so that's not it for sure. Based on what we've seen, my (very early) diagnosis is a Grade 1 quadriceps strain.

So, what's the treatment/prognosis for this injury? First, Freeney must apply RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) for 24 hours. Considering the MRI time, that would probably lead into Wednesday. Then you must use cold therapy and rest for 3 days. That leads into the weekend. If there is no pain then, Freeney can come back to practice (with the doctors' all-clear of course). So, what does this tell us about Freeney's future (considering my diagnosis is correct)?

This is nowhere near a long term injury. The popping noise is worrying everybody, but it doesn't always signal the worst case scenario. Freeney walking on his own with no limp off of the field is what we can really focus on.
Freeney is out vs. Seattle Sunday. Once the diagnosis comes, Freeney will be resting and staying off of it until the weekend. No way Freeney can come back for the game. Luckily, we shouldn't need him against Seattle. The Colts are on fire right now, and the Seahawks are not a good team.
Freeney will most likely not play vs. Tennessee either. With the fact that the Colts have a bye week directly after this game and knowing the Colts' injury tendencies in recent years, I have a strong feeling that Freeney will probably be 80-90% going into this game and Polian will keep him out to prevent any further injury. Then Freeney will be ready to go right after the bye week.
There is no evidence that this kind of injury will affect Freeney's play down the road. He should be fine once he's fully healed.

So, to some up my diagnosis and prognosis:

(Early) Diagnosis: Grade 1 quadriceps strain

Return to the field: 100% by St. Louis game (Game #6)

[Update] Dwight Freeney did in fact turn out to have a mild Grade 1 quadriceps strain as I diagnosed. But instead of taking it a little easy and resting until the St. Louis game, Freeney was ready to go and played on passing downs in the very next game (vs. Seattle). He looked great and was well enough to execute his famous inside spin move on his second play in and record a sack in garbage time. So, my diagnosis was correct, but I was happily way off on the prognosis. Freeney's a tough beast. There's no way around it.

Brackett and Hayden Out for Sunday Night's Game.

Cassieper — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:09:28 -0000

In greatly depressing news, Gary Brackett and Kelvin Hayden didn't travel with the Colts to Arizona for the game. This obviously means that they aren't going to play Sunday. Here's the source.

This is huge news. Brackett and Hayden are essential members of our pass defense and we are going against one of the best passing teams in the league. Our odds of beating Arizona just took a astronomical hit. We pretty much have 2 avenues for winning this game now:

1. Freeney and Mathis both play out of their minds, sack Warner mercilessly, force fumbles and interceptions in the process or cause him to use only short throws because of the pressure.

2. Peyton scores pretty much every time he touches the ball.

That's about it. This game is not looking good guys, and I consider myself a realistic optimist. I just don't see it. Brackett and Hayden are that important. Hopefully, their injuries are like Powers' and they are back next week. Until then, enjoy you more than recommended dose of Tim Jennings and Freddy Keiaho, otherwise known as probably the 2 most hated players currently on the Colts' roster.

Tip to skywalker for telling me and depressing me with the news.

Tomorrow's TV Games

Cassieper — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:26:48 -0000

Tomorrow's TV Games

the506.com has updated their TV maps for Week 2. Here they are. Enjoy a Sunday without the stresses of Colts football!

Hank Baskett Will Sign with Colts Today

Cassieper — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:33:11 -0000

Apparently (at least for some Stampede Blue commenters), dreams do come true. Adam Shefter reported around a half an hour ago from his Twitter page here, that the Colts will in fact sign Hank Baskett today. If this was anybody else reporting it, I would be skeptical of the accuracy of this scoop, but this is Adam Shefter. He has like a 95% accuracy rate with breaking news. Here is the exact text of his Tweet (That word still doesn't feel right):

Not that there was a doubt but Marvin Harrison will not be back with Colts. Indianapolis will sign former Eagles WR Hank Baskett today.

This means a couple of things:

1. Gonzo is going to be out for a while guys. If he was only going to be out from 2-4 weeks, we would have either just stuck with Collie and Garcon or brought Taj Smith off the practice squad.

2. All of you commenters can rejoice now that Bill Polian has (finally) signed a player that you guys actually wanted him to sign and have been talking about for the last 3 days.

By the way, tip to indyboys for leading me to the Shefter Tweet in the comments of a story.

[2:12 Update] Mike Chappell has now done some great reporting by circumventing the Colts (who still haven't said anything) and going straight to Baskett's agent to confirm the story. Read his story here. In doing this, the IndyStar became the first media place to actually confirm the signing. Good for them. They always get shortchanged by the Colts.

Ben Utecht Out for the Season

Cassieper — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:27:40 -0000

Ben Utecht Out for the Season

These old Colts' players are dropping like flies. This time it's Ben Utecht who suffered a concussion and had to be taken to the hospital. He was a good blocker and a good compliment to Dallas Clark.

Cato June Out for the Season

Cassieper — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:05:11 -0000

Cato June Out for the Season

Cato June recently broke his forearm and will be place on IR to end his season. This is a little sad for me because I always liked Cato June and was sad to see him go.