SB Nation User Blog: jobe

The All NFC North Team

jobe — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:06:31 -0000

Not the most talented division in football, but easily my favorite one to follow. I'll write comments under positional races that are close.

Offense

QB: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers

FB: Jason McKie, Chicago Bears

Don't know much about McKie, but if he's helped Matt Forte to such a good rookie year, he must be pretty good.

RB: Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings

LT: Bryant McKinnie, Minnesota Vikings

Chad Clifton hasn't run blocked well enough, or for that matter pass blocked well enough against elite rusher to be called the best Left Tackle in the NFC North.

LG: Steve Hutchinson, Minnesota Vikings

C: Olin Kreutz, Chicago Bears

Scott Wells isn't that far off from Olin Kreutz.

RG: Roberto Garza, Chicago Bears

I'll confess my ignorance. I probably should study up on my Black and Blue right guards.

RT: Mark Tauscher, Green Bay Packers

Because no one else has stepped up.

TE: Desmond Clark, Chicago Bears

Would have better stats if half those passes weren't going to former Orioles closer Greg Olsen.

WR: Greg Jennings, Green Bay Packers

WR: Calvin Johnson, Detroit Lions

Defense

DE's: Jared Allen, Minnesota Vikings, and Aaron Kampman, Green Bay Packers

Allen is the better rusher, Kampman's more complete. Alex Brown, Chicago Bears, isn't that far off. In a preview of things to come, Cullen Jenkins could have gotten a spot here had he stayed healthy, because he was playing almost as well as his brother.

DT's: Kevin Williams, Minnesota Vikings and Pat Williams, Minnesota Vikings

Tommie Harris, Chicago Bears, is utterly disappointing.

WLB: Lance Briggs, Chicago Bears

MLB: Brian Urlacher, Chicago Bears

I hate doing this. This is BS, but I had no choice. EJ Henderson was far and away playing the best football, but he's out for the year. Nick Barnett was dissapointing like Urlacher and now he's out for the year. Paris Lenon isn't that bad, but he's still a Lion. I can't give it to AJ Hawk for just one game, can I?

SLB: Chad Greenway, Minnesota Vikings

For how he played against the Packers and Buccaneers the last two weeks. Brandon Chillar would have gotten more consideration had he started more so far this year.

CB's: Charles Woodson, Green Bay Packers and Antoine Winfield, Minnesota Vikings

Al Harris has been absolutely lockdown, since coming back from the spleen injury but Winfield's been great this year.

FS: Nick Collins, Green Bay Packers

SS: Darren Sharper, Minnesota Vikings

Special Teams

P: Chris Kluwe, Minnesota Vikings

K: Mason Crosby, Green Bay Packers

PR: Will Blackmon, Green Bay Packers

What can I say, Devin Hester? Blackmon's just been better. I can't just automatically hand it to you.

KR: Devin Hester, Chicago Bears

Actually, I can just hand it to you.

Final Numbers

Packers: 8

Bears: 7

Vikings: 10

Lions; 1

Needless to say, Packers and Bears fans love Brad Childress.

Off Topic: Why I love Wisconsin part 1 of ?

jobe — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:34:47 -0000

I'm obviously a Packer fan, but I'm not a Wisconsinite. I'm from the DC suburbs of Maryland. But the Packers aren't the only thing I love from Wisconsin, though. Heres a growing list of people, places, or things I love about Wisconsin.

Michael Feldman-Has a public radio show alot like Garrison Keillor, but seperates himself because 1. from Wisconsin as opposed to Minnesota, therefore better, 2. funnier than Garrison Keillor with a helluva lot less effort at it and 3. he's Jewish, and he's from Wisconsin. How awesome is that?

The accents-With one side of my family from Michigan and the other from Illinois, I'm pretty familiar with how people from Wisconsin talk, but that does nothing to diminish my love for it. GOW BEADGERS!

Senator Feingold-Opposes the Patriot Act, wants universal health care. Sounds like a beast to me. Plus, he's Jewish and from Wisconsin. How awesome is that?

Bob Uecker-This one needs no explanation.

Usingers-Simply the best Bratwurst. God, I could look at those catalogs all day.

Caron Butler-Far and away my favorite Wizard of all time.

Any other suggestions?

A Washington Capitals blog-PLEASE!

jobe — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:43:16 -0000

Us Washington Capital's fans desperately need a blog on the SB Nation. We have plenty of good bloggers in the blogosphere, so it won't be much trouble finding a good one. What about Japer's Rink? I've been forced to meet my Hockey commenting fix on 'Die by the Blade', but I can't just talk Jason Pominville, Ryan Miller and Derek Roy all day. I need a Washington Capitals blog, please.

A look at the Falcon's youth movement

jobe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:54:23 -0000

It's pretty obvious at this point the Atlanta Falcons are going through a major youth movement. They drafted a couple of pretty good rookies this year that will get plenty of time to play this year for them: LT Sam Baker and MLB Curtis Lofton. I watched and took notes of a preseason game they had with the Tennessee Titans earlier this year, and these were some of my observations.

#50 MLB Curtis Lofton: I liked watching this guy play at Oklahoma. He's short and is very comparable to a London Fletcher or for Falcon's fans a Jessie Tuggle. I remember reading Michael Lombardi not liking the fact the Falcons drafted him in the second round seeing as he was only a two-down player, and he indeed does come out on passing downs. While he quickly identifies plays and really explodes to the line of scrimmage with a good motor, he can get lost in the muck as well. He allowed himself to be cut blocked on a couple of plays and could have identified them better. If the Falcon's consider him that big a linchpin to their defense, they need to put a two gap system in front of him with two big D-Tackles so he can be allowed to move around unencumbered.

#72 LT Sam Baker: He went up against Kyle Vanden Bosch, one of the toughest match-ups for a rookie LT in the league right now. The Falcons called alot of three step drops during the game which allowed the quick Sam Baker to cut Vanden Bosch on a number of plays, and this unsurprisingly got Kyle Vanden Bosch pretty angry. Eventually Vanden Bosch was getting into scrums at the end of every play, obviously frustrated about not being able to get in the face of the rookie QB Matt Ryan and thats how I knew Sam Baker was doing a really good job. When Vanden Bosch beat him inside, he got help from the left guard. They didn't get burned by it because I don't think Albert Haynesworth was playing that night, so Matt Ryan was still allowed to step up into the pocket. If we still had Cullen Jnekins playing tackle on passing downs we could burn them when they do this, but we don't and they may just get away with it. The Falcons will also line up a Tight End on Kampman's side and have the Tight End chip Kampman. Sam Baker probably could have finished off blocks better on the second level, but it was still a pretty impressive performance as he had almost completely taken a very good player out of the game.

#20 CB Chris Houston: The Falcons left Chris Houston out on an island for most of the game, however he will gamble. He jumped a post corner route and the receiver was able to get behind him. However, we may not get a chance to do this if we can't stop the Falcons when they....

Line up DE's John Abraham and Jamaal Anderson on the the same side. This worked pretty well in the game and all of us know just how explosive a player John Abraham can be and so far has been this year. There has been some communication problems on the O-LIne so far for us this year, this is the game we really should start to get this stuff down. Oh yeah, and Grady Jackson makes his triumphant return to Lambeau.

Bottom Line: Even though, we have alot of guys out, this is a very winnable game upcoming against the Falcons.

Thoughts on Final Cuts

jobe — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:06:39 -0000

I was happy to see KGB was not ultimately cut because that means the coaches think he could be healthy enough to play this season. Also glad to see Charlie Peprah was not cut, because I wouldn't be comfortable with carrying just three safeties on the active roster. With Rob Davis, we really didn't know what we had until he's gone. We are going to need to sign a new snapper. Any other thoughts?

4 Linebacker package this year?

jobe — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:28:08 -0000

Did anybody else read about the four linebacker look with Nick Barnett, AJ Hawk, Brady Poppinga and Brandon Chillar they were experimenting with in mini camp. I'm pretty excited to see if this goes anywhere. With a four linebacker look the potential is greater for tough to pick up zone blitz schemes, as well as being harder for the offense to identify which linebacker might blitz if any of them. This seems to be a good way to salvage Brady Poppinga's stay with us as he and Nick Barnett are both exceptional blitzers. What about seeing KGB stay up and play a hybrid position to disguise where his rush will come from.

I also have to believe that Bob Sanders is also trying to compensate for some of the lost interior pass rush that went with Corey Williams' trade to Cleveland. Everyone must admit that while our defense was pretty highly ranked last year in a lot of categories, it underachieved just a tad, so I'd like to see Bob Sanders tinkering with some things this training camp.

Oh and topic number two concerning the defense: Who will Aaron Rouse subplant first at one of the starting safety positions: Nick Collins or Atari Bigby?

I haven't posted much here, and I've posted mostly on Camden Chat, the SB Nation blog for the Baltimore Orioles. You can probably expect more stuff from me, that will usually center on the Packers defensive side of the ball. I'm kind of obsessed with Football defense.

Brian Matusz pitching breakdown

jobe — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:47:34 -0000

Brian Matusz pitching breakdown

Pretty thorough breakdown of our first round draft pick, Brian Matusz from Drivelinemechanics.com. Now lets just hope we can sign him to a contract before August 15th.

Willie Randolph gets fired

jobe — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:08:55 -0000

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/06/17/bc.bbn.mets.randolphfir.ap/index.html?eref=T1

I guess the Mets just fired Willie Randolph. What is sort of head scratching is not why he was fired, but the fact that the only other guy on the coaching staff who was really qualified to be the interim manager is practically a clone of Willie Randolph in former White Sox Manager Jerry Manuel. This story is going to be all over ESPN so make sure to get fill of it on Camden Chat and not on the Worldwide leader.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oosl1TltNOk&feature=related This is my cousin's comedy group, and...

jobe — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:40:01 -0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oosl1TltNOk&feature=related
This is my cousin's comedy group, and they did a sketch on Cal Ripken thats kind of cute. My cousin is the one in the Indiana shirt.

AJ article on espn.com

jobe — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 06:58:13 -0000

Its pretty hard not to get excited about Adam after reading this. I won't give away too much here, because it was such a damn pleasure to read and everyone should take a look. My only gripe is that why haven't we been hearing about this clubhouse stuff from Roch.

Here's the article
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2008/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=3302059