So I made the mistake of turning on ESPN today and listen to Trent Dilfer talk about his play off favorites. For the AFC he chose the Ravens saying they are the most balanced team. I have no big problems with this pick (although still annoying since the Ravens are NOT the most rounded team because Flacco sucks this year), i have very tapered expectation for the Patriots and i can see the Ravens being the "safer" pick. Dilfer cites hat the Patriots defense is suspect to the pass and they are too heavy reliant on Brady and if he has a bad outing, then it might not look good for the Pats. So okay at this point, i have no quandaries since these are concerns most Pats fans have...Now here is the kicker, in the NFC he chooses Green Bay. See this would be a good choice if it wasn't completely hypocritical in reasoning. The same reasons he cites for not picking NE for the AFC can be cited for Green bay. Yet Dilfer says, Aaron Rodgers will be fine, and the defense is "seasoned" enough to step up...

Umm what? So Rodgers can never have a bad game and Greenbay's suspect defense is now "seasoned"? Okay lets hold on a second and do a comparison between the two teams. Lets ignore their records for a second and focus on purely the statistical part of the game which are:

OFFENSE:
NE: 32.1 points per game / 317.8 Passing yrds per game / 110.2 Rushing yards per game / 46% on 3rd downs

GB: 35 Points per game / 307.8 Passing yrds per game / 97.4 Rushing yards per game / 48% on 3rd downs

The Packers have a great offense, but the Patriots are not far behind. And for all the talk of the Patriots being Brady dependent on offense and one dimensional, the Pats ran the ball better than the Packers this year.

DEFENSE:
NE: 21.4 points per game/ 411.1 yards per game/ 293.9 passing yards per game/ 26 TD : 23 int / 40 sacks
117.1 rushing yrds per game

GB: 22.4 points per game / 411.6 yards per game / 299.8 pasing yards per game / 29 TD:31 int/ 29 sacks
111.8 rushing yards per game

Well what we have here is the worst passing defense in the league and the second worse passing defense in the league (and in NFL history) with the saints coming in third. Surprisingly the patriots are the latter due to the packers giving up a zillion yards to the lions. Still the numbers were similar even before this week. The difference is that the packers have more take aways, but they don't really have much of a pass rush...their 29 sacks is the third worse in the league. And even the sometimes non-existant pats pass rush have managed to come away with much more sacks this season. The Pats also managed to give up less points than Green bay on the season.

So looks like the teams are remarkably similar in nearly every facet of the game. Difference in the records is basically Brady have 3 bad games on the season and Rodger having one really bad game. Yet none of this matters going into the play offs since anyone can have an off day on any given weekend.

My point here is not that the Patriots are super bowl bound, no far from it. Rather i don't see how any person who bothers to look take a second and look at the numbers can say the Greenbay are destined for the superbowl, yet at the same time say the Patriots have too much defensive problem. If you say the NE are too flawed to make the SB that's fine, but don't then go and justify the Packers as the model team since in terms of their flaws and strengths;
both teams are in the same boat here (along with the saints to a slightly lesser degree).

Brewers last year won 96 games, best in their franchise But this off season has been pretty up and down for the Brewers. Prince Fielder has yet to sign, but there is no chance he's returning to the Brewers. In doing so the Brewers lost a 5+ fWAR 1st baseman. They did sign Aramis Ramirez who is solid but unlikely to fully replace the value lost on Fielder. They also signed an underwhelming Alex Gonzalez to fill a hole in SS. Then there's the shocking news of the suspension of NL MVP Ryan Braun for 50 games, which might be the biggest loss for the Brewers. So with their off-season being a mix bag of goodies there might be a chance that the Brewers could be sellers before the trade deadline. So then the question would be; "What do they have to offer?"

When you look at the Brewers roster, the clear prize would be Ryan Braun. But he's signed through 2020 and with $ 145 mil committed to him. Whether this long term contract would be a worth it if Braun continues to produce at his current MVP level. So it's unexpected that the Brewers would move him. The next two most valuable hitters for the Brewers this year (Aside from Fielder) would be Corey Hart and Nyjer "Tony Plush" Morgan. But neither of those guys are exactly upgrades over Swisher, Gardner or Granderson. After those guys their offensive players are pretty underwhelming.

So then the only option is to look at their Rotation for a potential trade piece. Yovani Gollardo was considered the Ace of their staff and is a pretty good pitcher posting a 3.59 ERA/ 3.59 FIP / 3.19 xFIP. But he's also signed in a team friendly deal til 15 with a 6th year option. But the Brewers do have two pitchers going to hit the 2012 FA market and they might be willing to trade one, if not both of them if the team under-preforms. Shaun Marcum last year posted a 3.54 ERA/ 3.73 FIP / 3.89 xFIP and 2.7 fWAR. While Captain Crazy Pants...I mean Zack Greinke posted 3.83 ERA/ 2.98 FIP/ 2.59 xFIP and 3.9 fWAR. So which of the two pitchers would be a better fit for the Yankees? Marcum has seen AL east success and probably would cost less. However he is heavy fly ball, had arm problems before and fell hard in the second half. Meanwhile Greinke's peripherals has him as probably one of the best pitcher in the league, is a true Ace and had a great second half. However his postseason (in a SSS) was mediocre and there's that over-emphasized mental aspect of him which was a reason why the Yanks balked on him last year.

However despite being "Teh Crazy" I still think Greinke would be the best option for the Yankees. First off, I don't think anyone knows whats going through Greinke's mind and since I'm not Mentok The Mind Taker, I won't pretend i know how his psyche is. So I'm simply going to focus on the Greinke's talents:

• First off, ignore Greinke's ERA for a second. His first half numbers were terrible but it was heavily inflated by two months of a LOB % in the 50's. Meanwhile when his LOB% normalized in the second half, his ERA was only 2.59.
• Greinke's had the best SEIRA and xFIP in the league meaning with some luck he would have been the best pitcher in the league. He had the best K/9 in the league and was 8th in FIP.
• He had a 47.6 GB% which is nice to have in Yankee stadium. It doesn't hurt that he has had AL success including his amazing 2009 Season, where he posted the best fWAR in the AL since 2000 Pedro Martinez.

So it's quite clear that Greinke is a premium talent, and trading for him can give Yankees a solution in their rotation as well as to see how Greinke might preform here before pursuing him in FA in 2012 (or even just extending him outright if they like him enough). Paying twice for a pitcher is usually not a good idea but with Danks signing an extension, Hamels and Cain working on one, the deep 2012 pitching field is slowly dwindling. So then the question is what should the Yankees to give up to get him?

The Brewers farm is one of the worst in the league after they went all in last year and traded most of their top talent for Marcum and Greinke. The price they paid for Greinke was outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and pitching prospects Jeremy Jeffress and Jake Odirizzi for Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt. So the price the Yankees will have to pay for Greinke would be similiar.

Yankees Give: Hughes, Dellin Betances, Gary Sanchez

Brewers Give: Greinke

My reasoning for this trade is that what the Yankees give up for Greinke now would be slightly less than what the Brewers gave up for Greinke to Kansas due to Greinke hitting the market after the season rather than two years of control. Hughes would be an arm that can help the Brewers now as well as the future, and while Hughes as a starter has been down right underwhelming the AL east, he might have better success in the NL like IPK did which might appeal to a team like the Brewers. This also opens up a rotation spot for Greinke. Betance is a high potential piece, but he has trouble with control, still the talent is there and if he goes to Brewers, he might be one of their top 3 prospects. Sure he might be a potential Ace, but Greinke is already a proven top 10 pitcher. Gary Sanchez would be a bat at C that the Brewers need. Reviewing the Brewer's top 10 prospects list they don't have a top catching prospect despite being weak at the position. And assuming Montero is the future at C, while Romine/Russ might be a back up, this effectively blocks Sanchez from having a future roster spot. (Unless he can play SS...okay i'm kidding) The Yanks would trading from an Area of depth, while fulfilling the Brewer's Area of need.

The Yankees essentially are giving up a former number one prospect with still some hope left and their 3rd and 4th best prospects for a year of an established pitcher. This might seem like an overpay for some of us,but with less and less pitcher hitting the open market in their prime, much less top pitchers, it's worth a gamble on Greinke.(Assuming the Yanks get over the fact that he is "crazy") This is with the thought that if he preforms here, we can resign him or extend him. Even if he fails, we still have Banuelos and get to keep Montero as well as a potential draft pick seeing as Greinke is a type A FA.

Okay i think every one killed this topic from the end of the game to this morning. I'm sitting here bored in class so now lets about about the 58 other minutes of the game everyone has forgotten.

Offense:

Brady: it's official he's back. We now show we can pick apart good def. not just mediocre ones. Everything seemed to point to brady being back from the injury and slow start to pick up where he left off b4 08.

Moss: the guy is a beast. everyone talks about how he's diminishing as he get older, well...those ppl can eat it.Even if he isn't as fast as he used to be, his hands and ability to catch in traffic makes him a huge threat even if he gets older. Next week he gets rematch with revis, which will be interesting.

Welker: Welker being Welker. No need to point to how he's been doing cuz he's simply mr. consistent

Faulk: great running by faulk and barely missed a big catch. I'll be sad if he simply becomes a 3rd down back again after morris/taylor returns. right now he seems like the best RB we got.

Maroney: iunno what to say about maroney. He's simply up and down. At times he looked great and looking like about to break out. But the rare endzone fumble costed us big. it seems like he either gives us good yrd or gets stuffed for a loss/no gain.

Vollmer: Freeney will be happy to not see vollmer again for a while. He might take Light's job. But on the other side Kaczur got man handled by mathis. When light comes back i think there might be some shifts in our O-line

Defense: I'm not gonna point out too much individuals on def stood out too much. i will say the def played greta in the beginning. a lot fo their scoring came on insanely good catches despite our coverage. However the problem was either we stop them on the first drive or we let them drive down field for a td. if we limited one of the drives to a fg only, the game would have ended in our favor. It seems this defense is either very good or very porous. Every game they seem to have one quarter where there is a lapse in def. With at said, for the first few innigns we got pressure on Manning which was good. also we shut down clark for the game. our pick ups of burgess and bodden played well and showed y we got them. I'm hoping warren and TBC will be back soon tho so the defense can run on full capacity. Ona  side note, i'nm wonder what happened to shawn springs. i would've liked him to cover reggie wayne over the younger more inexperienced guys.

you thoughts guys?

Oh ya: The loss doesn't really account for as much as some people made it out to be. We can still get a first round bye depending on Bengals and Broncos. Bengals looks good but they have the vikings so there's hope there. While Bronco's def and offense have in lacking recently so if we keep winning we can get a heads up. the 2nd seed is still very much up in the air. the division can be over if we beat the jets and miami agian in the coming weeks. The loss to the colts was tough but it wasn't devastating in terms of the future.