New Breakfast Served on Thursdays

"The Breakfast Table is a (mostly) morning e-mail exchange between football writers and friends Mike Salfino and Scott Pianowski. Always snappy, sometimes snippy but never high in carbs, the BT's main course is an in-depth analysis of the latest NFL developments. But side dishes of music, movies, television and the rest of the cultural zeitgeist are ordered up when the mood strikes. Salfino is stuck somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. Pianowski lives above the desiccated remains of Jimmy Hoffa in Michigan. They've been tabling together since 2002."

Revolution, Week Nine

From: scott pianowski
To: Michael Salfino
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 3:18 AM
Subject: revolution nine

Once a year I get to drive, pick the restaurant, introduce the topics. We'll still haggle and eat hearty, but I'm making the original choices. Open up that menu and let's see what's inside.

Perhaps you want to start with the Breakfast of Champions? Peyton Manning reminded us that he's the best player in the game Sunday (the Colts and Broncos also played the game of the year), while the Bears reminded us that they're nasty at home (the San Francisco JV was no match for them). What can the Broncos do between now and January if they're going to challenge the Colts? Have the Giants and Falcons made any ground on the Bears, or is it time to crown their ass, as Arizona Getaway Green likes to say?French Toast might best describe another messy outing by Jake Delhomme and his Carolina Panthers. What's happened to Louisiana Lightning the last two weeks? And what's wrong with this defense, a unit Tony Romo embarrassed Saturday night? Jumping over to Dallas, has TO finally learned to share and make friends? Can the Romo-led Pokes get back into the hunt? Is this the final meal for Bill Parcells, and if so, does it have a happy ending? Was it really all Drew Bledsoe's fault?

The Vikings got pancaked by New England Monday night, though all the Patriots fans had a near heart attack wondering when Genius Belichick would take Tom Brady out of the game (throwing with Brady midway through the fourth quarter, ahead 24 points, looked pretty stupid to me). Can the Pats whip up a similar recipe and stop the Colts this week? Were the Vikings exposed as frauds, or was this a perfect storm of everyone playing like dirt on the same night?

I guess we could do a Hashing of the Browns, though really it's reply that deserves to be put under the microscope. Where the Jets robbed on the Chris Baker push-out, or did the officials get it right? What's the Jersey stance on reply, anyway? Retry, abort, delete?

I've only scratched the surface here, and you're free to order off the menu. Mandatory samplings should include the Jekyll-Hyde Jaguars (they're so unpredictable they're almost predictable), the bizarre-script Eagles (can they eventually recover after the latest crazy loss?), the resurgent Michael Vick and the scrambled Ben Roethlisberger. Should we be hurling eggs at Jon Gruden for all those passes in the windy Meadowlands? It's my restaurant, they're our themes. We've still got 13 weeks of football to figure out. Get the caffeine flowing, Week Nine Breakfast is served.

From: Michael Salfino <salfino@comcast.net>
Date: November 1, 2006 9:11:29 AM EST
To: scott pianowski <spianow@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: revolution nine

Thirteen more weeks of football.... That sounds comforting. Here I was thinking that the season was half over. Well, at least Halloween is over. Those with kids know this is the second hardest day of parenting after Christmas. But it may net out even tougher because life is going on all around rather than shutting down like on December 25. So, we have all these obligations and are still expected to go about our lives like October 31 is just a normal day. The one thing that redeems Halloween? No relatives. Okay, stealing candy from your kids (for their own good!) is okay, too (though bad for the waistline).

Manning is so good. After this crazy baseball postseason, can't we finally learn to appreciate the process of getting there and the skill and consistency required to do so? I'm really rooting for Manning this January because I'm sick of the carping about his supposed big-game deficiencies, carping that I've been a small part of some years. But it's not like he's lost to some unworthy opponent. Haven't the Colts always lost of late to the eventual Super Bowl champions? And, let's face it, this is a very flawed Colts team with tremendous defensive deficiencies. If it wasn't for Manning, I doubt they'd even finish .500.

Brady v. Manning is like Jeter v. A-Rod, isn't it? Manning is the player for the ages. Brady is great and has the rings and the big-game mojo. But can anyone honestly believe that if they had reverse addresses that the Pats and Belichick would have won any less? I've told you a million times and I know this for a fact right out of a lot of the horses' mouths: coaches never think about injuries and neither do players. That's like being a soldier and thinking about a bullet or a bomb. You can't operate that way. Plus, we forget how rare major injuries are even for running backs. You can't even shoot the QB an angry glance nowadays without being flagged for a personal foul. The Patriots were fine tuning that passing offense for this week in case they need to score 37 points to beat Indy, which is likely, I think, because there is no stopping Peyton.

The Broncos can't do anything. They're beat. Their championship aspirations over. They will have to beat the Colts in Indy and that ain't happening. That's why pass offense and pass defense is so important. But, barring weather and maybe, MAYBE, some Belichick genius (but what hasn't he thrown at Peyton that could possibly still work?), Manning can't be stopped by any defense. He'd shred the Bears in Chicago right now, I'm convinced. Manning trumps everything. If you want to beat him, you have to give him his 30-plus points and attack that defense not with the run, like they've suckered everyone into doing, but with major air strikes. If you happen to miraculously find yourself up multiple scores in the third or fourth quarter after some lucky bounces or maybe some tipped passes that get picked, then you can actually make the Colts pay for having that rotten run defense.

No one is beating Chicago there in January because the Bears can finally pass not just decently, but with great power and efficiency. If you're down 14-0 to them, you're beat because that front four is going to pin their ears back and murder your QB without the need to blitz at all (that's how you play pass defense). But if Grossman gets hurt again, all bets are off (and injuries haven't been rare things for him, as you know).

Parcells and all these teams are trying to catch QB lightening in a bottle. It just shows how pitiful teams are in identifying the key qualities of a successful NFL QB. Romo, Delhomme, Huard/Green, Gradkowski, Walter, Hasselbeck/Wallace, Bulger, Garrard, and the king of all the frogs-turned-prince, Brady himself.... It seems like being a late-round QB is a badge of honor. If these teams would get a clue and learn that QBs are defined more by their minds than their arm and learn to scout the head better, they'd make better decisions on draft day instead of rummaging around like old men at the beach with those metal detectors.

I have no feel for the Panthers and no interest in the numbing Bucs. I'm buying into Michael Vick. I don't believe in coincidences. I've gone from thinking there was little chance to now thinking there's a good chance he's well on his way to being the most unique and unconventionally dangerous weapon to ever play the position. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is a process. But Falcons fans should be very, very excited right now.

I hate the Baker call and not because I'm a Jets fan. It's intellectually vapid. The rule should be that the player is ruled in unless the officials feel beyond a reasonable doubt that he would have been out of bounds. One official, the closest one, said he would have landed in bounds, which should have meant "touchdown." But we're giving the defense two bites at the apple: knock the ball out by blasting him and, if you don't, knock him out of bounds and force the conference where, I guess, one guy can express doubt that both feet would have gotten down.

The Vikings? They're like the Broncos -- a playoff team we shouldn't waste any time thinking about winning a championship because they lack a big-league passing game. By this criteria, the season has shrunk down to the Colts, Pats, Chargers, Bengals, Bears and Giants. I'd throw the Falcons in there, too, because I'm at least on the cusp of buying into Vick. I need to see more Romo evidence and Hasselbeck back on the field after all the nonsense with Alexander in Seattle.

What about the Steelers? Well, they're 2-5 and maybe objective medical science is right in saying that Roethlisberger should be sidelined until December after the last KO. You can ignore this, as Cowher has, but that doesn't mean that Roethlisberger isn't going to play like he's in a post-concussive fog. And even if Big Ben's head clears beginning this week, he's going to be very prone to another concussion in the short-term. So, it's likely going to remain a disaster in Steel City.

From: "scott pianowski" <spianow@comcast.net>
Date: November 2, 2006 9:39:39 AM EST
To: "Salfino" <salfino@comcast.net>
Subject: 99 luftballoons

The kids were cute this year, no one hazed the pets, the house seemed to hold up. We got away easy this season.

I'm with you hoping we see the Manning coronation, and it's essentially so all the chuckleheads can shut up. He's the best we're likely to ever see. Instead of cutting him up, why not appreciate?

You got my wheels turning when you compared Manning/Brady to ARod/Jeter. On the Manning side, I definitely see a fit; it's criminal how Manning gets all the blame whenever the Colts lose in January. Brady/Jeter I'm not sure I agree with, mainly for this reason: Jeter still gets too much credit for anything good the Yankees do on his watch, while it's possible Brady still doesn't get enough credit for New England's run (I know, not from you and me, but in some places he's underappreciated). Do the Yankees still win all those division titles (and a few rings) with Royce Clayton or Jose Uribe instead of Jeter? Maybe not all of them, but probably most of them. Would the Patriots have won a thing without Brady? Forget it.

Maybe we should stick to the Marino/Montana comparison and be done with it, but I'm splitting hairs here. More importantly, how do you see the game Sunday night? You must love how the Colts are winning with no run defense whatsoever, spitting in the face of the conventional BS.

On Brady's extended play in Minnesota, it comes down to this - at some point in the fourth quarter Belichick has to think risk-reward. Brady throwing on fourth down in the middle of a blowout against a defense that's frustrated - I can't help it, I only see the downside to that. This is the *one* player you can't do without. Extra reps in the middle of the season don't mean much. Belichick was reckless and continues to get away with it, but I stand behind the idea that he was stupid to temp fate. Come on, you don't want to bash Belichick when it's sitting here on a tee for you? And if coaches weren't worried about injuries in meaningless sequences, how come so many major players sit out the final preseason game? Bottom line is this - football injuries may be random and hard to predict, but there's no sense in being reckless and increasing your odds for something bad to happen when there's nothing to be gained. Brady should have come out at least one series earlier.

On the 2006 Broncos, it's simple - they need someone else to beat the Colts. Things fell perfectly for them last year, but then they wet their pants in the AFC title game anyway (while Pittsburgh continued its Forrest Gump run through the post-season). I bet Roc Alexander enjoyed last week's game. I wonder what Marvin Harrison and Champ Bailey did with their day off.

As for the "outscore Manning" theme you present, let's not forget how the Titans almost beat the Colts a month ago - they went into a two-deep shell, tackled well, ran the ball down Indy's throats, shortened the game. Do the Patriots have a better chance to win a 21-20 game than a 37-34 game? Maybe. The older Pats would beat the crap out of the Colts receivers at the line, disrupt timing, hope for a hands-free approach from the refs, but Bill Polian and the angry mob made that illegal a few years ago. Is the game better off now? It's hard to type with all these flags flying at me.

The Bears have that monster of all monsters, the non-gimmicky pass rush. When you can get to the QB with your front four or with your vanilla looks, teams are in big, fat trouble. And even when some good offense finds a way to keep the pass rush at bay, you still need to outscore this offense, which suddenly has teeth. Looks like I'll be apologizing to Rex Grossman after all (though I don't think the offense would fall off that much if Brian Griese wound up playing).

All scouting is messed up, bro. The combine in some ways is the worst thing you can have. If I'm examining a college player, I'd take his game tapes far more seriously than anything he did as a lab experiment with a bunch of clipboarders looking on. Watch the kid play, talk to him and see if he fits what you want to do, then make your evaluation that way. Throw your measurables out the window - or at least to the bottom of the decision-making process.

Vick has changed his game the last few weeks, no getting around it. He's finally looking to throw off his scrambling, and his accuracy and touch on those throws is improving all the time. I'm still not sold that he can stay healthy for the long haul playing like this, and creative defenses will still confuse Vick, but he's taken a few major steps forward. I can't say I really like any of his wideouts, though, other than Algernon Crumpler. And the Atlanta secondary has fallen apart in recent weeks (you and I could run past Jason Webster), so there's a cap to how excited Falcon fans should get. And aren't they all stuck in traffic, anyway?

Here's what frosts me about replay and its limitations - I haven't talked to one single person who thinks the Baker call was right. Not one person! But the way the rule is constructed, that sort of play can't be reviewed. To me, that's nonsense. If the tape proves your argument, it should be in play. (I also wonder if the NFL would have less hassles on sideline passes if they switched to the one-foot rule they use in college. Why not consider this?)

The Bledsoe lesson for everyone boils down to this - there's a difference between limited mobility and no mobility. Guys like Manning and Brady and Palmer don't have a lot of mobility but they can slide here and there, buy that extra half second - and in the NFL, that's an eternity. Bledsoe might as well be buried in the sand at the beach. Maybe Romo works out long-term and maybe he doesn't, but you need to have a fortress in front of Bledsoe to make it work, and Dallas didn't have the personnel to pull it off. (Romo gets two big pieces of help in his corner: Owens believes in him, and his buddy and roommate Jason Witten can now go out for some passes after spending two months in the trenches. This offense officially has teeth again.)

Let's get some Week 9 predictions into the bowl and hand them out. The slate is top heavy this week but we've got three legit ones to consider. What happens in Foxboro? What happens in Baltimore? What happens in Pittsburgh?

From: Michael Salfino <salfino@comcast.net>
Date: November 2, 2006 11:03:55 AM EST
To: scott pianowski <spianow@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: 99 luftballoons

I generally like the Mike Pereira spot on the NFL Network where Pereira, the NFL's head of officiating, analyzes the week's most controversial calls under some decent questioning from Rich Eisen. But after this week, I've decided the spot is only good on plays the ref's reasonably got right or at least were reasonably boarderline. When the refs clearly screw up, if this week is any indication, he either clams up (the Baker play, rationalizing that he's not going to criticize referees publicly on such tough calls) or comes up with bizarro arguments (the Wiggins ruling on Monday night) where he actually said that the replay shouldn't have been relied upon because, in real time, the play looked like an incompletion (actually, in real time, I thought it was a catch and a fumble out of bounds, but whatever). How crazy is that argument? Eisen, to his credit, said, "Well, you have replay and isn't the purpose of that to not have to rely on how things seemed in real tiime?" Pereira's response was that he wasn't going to allow ticky-tac fumbles on these kinds of plays. Whatever. It was like arguing with our wife.

Well, the Patriots would have won all those Super Bowls with Manning, I think -- though that doesn't really take away from Brady's greatness. I trust your New England roots in assessing the consensus view of Brady. The cult of personality there in Patriots land is Belichick, obviously. He's the wizard, but, without Brady, isn't he mostly just a man behind a curtain? I think so.That's a good point about preseason games. Coaches and players do almost irrationally fear injuries in preseason games, which is why they are so universally reviled by all but the NFL bean counters and the fans forced to shell out regular-season coin to see them.I hear you on the risk/reward thing. But you can get crazy with that. If the Pats are playing the Texans at home, should Brady sit out because he's very unlikely to be needed to win that game? Players play when the game's count. Coaches play backups in blowouts not because they want to avoid injury but to reward the backups for all those practice reps. Tony Dungy was an exception, obviously. And, for one game that's definitely meaningless for a playoff bound team, almost all coaches will treat it as an exhibition and put those preseason rules in place. But if the Colts clinch everything by Week 15, don't expect the team to again take three weeks off (including the bye, but, to be safe, Manning owners better hope for a Colts loss this week).

You didn't get the Colts A game against the Titans, who just didn't scare them. It's like shooting hoops in your driveway versus in a hotly contested pickup game. You need to have your senses aroused to play your best. Manning is going to have that perfect focus on Sunday night. I'll be absolutely stunned if the Colts scored less than 30 points.That's the reason I hate looking at quality of opponent. At Denver is a quality opponent and Manning and the Colts had been on autopilot for most of the season, though still winning and doing exactly what you'd expect when the game hung in the balance. But was anyone surprised that Manning came out with fire in his eyes and played accordingly? Put him out there against the Niners on the same afternoon and he's probably going to be pedestrian in an underachieving, ho-hum win. This is just human nature.

If the Patriots come out with guns blazing and determined to score a TD on every possession as quickly as possible, they win a shootout that will go down as one of the best regular-season games ever. Brady and the receivers are ready for it. The Colts pass defense is never really tested because teams want to run when the game is close and have to pass when the Colts are ahead. The great thing about the Patriots offense is that they can spread you out with base personnel and thus not allow the Colts to get their nickel out on the field. But if the Patriots lose by at least a TD if they try to grind out a win and limit Manning's possessions (he's still getting the ball no matter how long you keep it and right after your done, so I never understood the strategy to this). If Brady has to rely on those receivers against a defense that is situated to defend the pass, he's going to be in a little trouble. That's a copout? Okay, Pats 37-34.

I didn't know that was Crumpler's name. Do we call Vick's TD passes to him "Flowers for Algernon?"

More predictions? I hate the Ravens and sort of like the Bengals, even though the offense isn't nearly as multi-dimensional and dangerous as it was last year. The Ravens can be beaten with the passing game, as all but the all-time greatest defenses can be. The Bengals should spread out that 46 defense with three and four WR looks. But they must protect Palmer better than they have most of the year. I think the Bengals win and take control of the division that's theirs for the taking. But my stats say Ravens by about five.

Pittsburgh's still in the league? You know, they have a very good net yardage number and the offense has been moving the ball consistently except for all those interceptions. Mike Bell is the guy the Broncos should go to in this game because the Steelers can't get the blocking matchups they want out of the 3-4 because the Broncos don't man up on defenders, they block whoever comes into their area. This makes the linebackers more hesitant and opens things up for the one-cut, upfield back like Mike Bell. I'll assume that doctors think athletes should sit out more than a month after two KOs are saying it for a reason and that Roethlisberger won't be right again. Broncos 20-10.

It's just the English Muffin for me today, so I'll grab the check while you close. I have a couple of deep dish pizzas being flown in from Chicago for my birthday and want to be able to eat hearty (if not healthy) later. Air deliveries are big in Chicago now, as you know.

From: "scott pianowski" <spianow@comcast.net>
Date: November 2, 2006 11:33:49 AM EST
To: "Michael Salfino" <salfino@comcast.net>
Subject: a perfect day for bananafish

For better or worse, Eisen is one of the degrees of separation between you and I. He's a Jet fan like you, and he's a Wolverine like me (my adopted state and college team). Either way I like the general aim of the Eisen-Pereira spot, even as it seems to work some weeks and not work in other weeks.

I don't think Brady is underrated in New England at all - but in other areas of the country, he might be. I'll still never understand (or forgive) Lloyd Carr for platooning Brady as a senior so Drew Henson could get his "please don't leave for the majors" snaps (Carr was basically sweet-talking a recruit he already had in uniform). I suppose the New England guy in me shouldn't mind, because Brady never gets to the 199th pick had he played more in college. Then again, maybe he wound have - he's the kind of a guy who loses ground at the combine, at least while the stopwatches are still running. But you know as well as I do that Manning and Brady beat so many teams before the ball is ever snapped - so much of it is between the ears. Manning probably hasn't thrown a spiral in 10 years but he still rips your heart out, with one cut or with 1,000.

As for when to bench your QB, it comes down to this - you play to win the game (thanks Herm), but once that's salted away without question, get your guy out of there. Heck, the Vikings took Brad Johnson out before the Pats lifted Brady, that's telling. Was Brad Childress dying to evaluate Brooks Bollinger? Hardly. He realized that it was time to call off the dogs and be smart with his only legit QB of the moment (no matter how terrible Johnson may have been that night).

You hit on why I like New England this week as well - I don't trust the Indy corners (and when teams play Cover 2, they're essentially conceding the same thing). Now that there's been enough time for Brady to mesh with his receivers, we can see the offense for what it is. The Patriots don't care who the No. 1 target is - their approach for the entire Brady era has been about finding your weak guy and exploiting him. If the Colts don't locate Robert Freeney before the game (or get the game of Robert Mathis's life), they're not going to make enough stops on defense. Maybe Manning can bail them out anyway, maybe he can't (I do think he'll get his even as the Pats haven't allowed a touchdown pass in a month; matchup analysis for Manning is a moot exercise at this point). Patriots 34, Colts 31. To be continued.

As for the undercard, it's hard not to root for the Bengals offense (pretty to watch) to outscore the old, boring, if-it-was-a-car-you'd-junk-it offense Baltimore runs. The Ravens defense still blitzes on a high percentage of snaps, and now that Chris Henry is back that's a mistake - Cincinnati has too many good targets, run-after-catch guys, people who will burn you if you gamble too many times with corners on an island. Palmer's confidence is a little touch-and-go right now but he's feasted on this back seven in the past. Carson gets his groove back, 31-14.

The ghoul in me wants Jake Plummer to lay an egg in Pittsburgh so we can accelerate the Jay Cutler experience. But I think Shanahan can keep Jake on a short leash here and win the game on defense. Roethlisberger's confidence is shot right now and the running game can't win this one on its own, not against Denver's speedy front seven. Call it 20-14, and call a cab for the Steelers - they're not making a comeback.

The fridge is calling me back, or maybe it's the dentist chair (I overestimated the goblin count from Tuesday, which puts me over the calorie cap today). Click, print, ship.