NFL Week 4: And then there were two ...

It was the last full week before byes began (remember when teams might have a bye in Week 3?), but some teams didn't get the memo and left early. The Colts probably wish they could have a bye, or at least some healthy players, while the Packers might want to remove the bye from their schedule. (Note: neither team is actually off this week.)

• For the second straight week, the Lions completely shut down in the first half; for the second straight week, the Lions mounted an improbable comeback. Two years ago, Detroit's defense had just 9 interceptions. This year, through 4 games, they have 7. Sure, some of those have been on the quarterback in question, but a good number of them have come as a result of pressure. Despite what Cris Collinsworth thinks, you can't simply turtle at halftime, especially not with Stafford and Johnson finding single coverage wherever they need it: you must throw the ball, and you must do it carefully. (Besides, the Lions are once again near the top of the NFL in power run defense – 2nd in power success and 7th in stuffs through 4 weeks – so conservative play calls aren't going to work.)
• TonyRomoTonyRomoTonyRomo. I know. But the Cowboys managed no sacks of Stafford (the third Lions opponent to be shut out), and you already know that on the clinching touchdown, the Cowboys had 12 players on the field, and only one was covering Megatron. The problems in Dallas are not just at QB ... and as with other teams, there simply are no comparable options. Do Cowboys fans chanting for change realize that Jon Kitna is 39 years old and has thrown 2 interceptions in 10 passes this season? Romo's making bad decisions, but he is what you have. Better to learn to work with him than to swap him for someone most likely worse.
• What goes around comes around: Pittsburgh is being beaten by teams with good defense and running games and James Harrison is sidelined indefinitely after another helmet-to-helmet collision. (While I hesitate to wish ill of anyone, Harrison deserves such an injury more than most, simply from his insistence on breaking rules and endangering fellow NFLPA members. If the union will not stand up for the victims, then it's up to karma to take care of Harrison. I hope he makes a complete physical recovery, but can never play football again.) The Steelers' OL has been savaged by injuries, so Roethlisberger's insistence on holding the ball to make a play is costing them bigtime. Five sacks in 35 dropbacks ... Pittsburgh's overall ASR is 9.3%, but it doesn't all come from the backup linemen. Their QB needs to learn to get rid of the ball more quickly, or else Mike Tomlin will be choosing someone from the Backup Carousel.
• One of the NFL's best offenses took a big hit when Andre Johnson went down with a hamstring injury. Schaub has a number of weapons he can use, but he's certainly favored Johnson this year: just over one third of his completions have gone to Johnson. This isn't like the running game, where a good line allows you to use back after back and get solid production; someone's going to have to step up and be the primary threat in the passing game. (Owen Daniels is a solid TE, but Houston needs a WR to carry the load; Daniels can't open up the defense the way Johnson could.)
• Carolina might actually have borrowed Auburn's offensive playbook from last year. It remains to be seen how often the Panthers can run the midline read, or variations on it, and keep Cam Newton intact, but if there is a QB in the league built for that kind of offense, it's Newton. The rookie has taken the worst offense in the NFL and boosted it to 9th; unfortunately, the defense is still bad and the special teams are worse. No team can be safely rebuilt in a year (see the Dolphins for proof of that), and of course there's no way to be sure that Newton will be as productive in December as he is now, but Panthers fans must have a great deal more hope now than when they thought their new young starting QB would be Jimmy Clausen. (Dear Notre Dame fans: you were completely wrong.)
• Sorry to interrupt the euphoria in Chicago, but Sunday's game is not proof of a revitalized offense. What you saw was Carolina's defense making everything work for the Bears. The one thing the OL does well is block in power situations (100%, actually, tops in the league); 33% of their runs have been stuffed, their ASR is a whopping 10.8%, and Cutler's DYAR is worse than virtually everyone else in the league. The offense isn't very good, the defense isn't very good, and when teams stop kicking to Devin Hester, special teams won't be able to carry the team. Up next for the Bears: Detroit, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, and after the bye, Philadelphia, Detroit again, San Diego, and Oakland. Cutler may not survive that run, and even if he does, the Bears will likely have no more illusions about repeating their NFC Championship appearance.
• Minnesota isn't really that bad, you know. They just keep giving games away. OK, you're right, I don't believe that either. The Vikings just aren't very good. They can't keep expecting 150+ from Peterson combined with a couple of rainbows from McNabb. The aging Syracuse veteran passed his prime long ago, and we're already seeing signs that perhaps what happened in Washington wasn't all on the Shanahans. Minnesota is already 4 games off the pace in the North, behind not one, but two 4-0 teams, and they have yet to play the Packers. Their playoff hopes are effectively over; the purpose for McNabb's presence is gone. Now is the time to start giving Christian Ponder reps, and if McNabb won't cooperate, then deactivate him and make Joe Webb the backup. 
• On the other hand, there's no question about how bad Kansas City is. Take a bad team, subtract a top player on both offense and defense, take into account the inexperienced head coach, and you have a recipe for disaster. To make matters worse, the Chiefs face the NFC North and AFC East ... while they've beaten Minnesota and have Miami later in the schedule, crushing losses to the Bills and Lions bode ill for games against New England and Green Bay. I would not expect either Haley or Matt Cassel to be in Kansas City next year. Cassel put up gaudy numbers in one full season in New England, but conventional stats hid what advanced metrics did not: Cassel is Just A Guy, and without the weapons he had in New England, he's really not that good ... and this season, he's been worse. (Two side notes: Scott Pioli will likely be done as well, and isn't it interesting how few people leave New England and have any measure of success?)
• The Bills are likely a playoff-caliber team. With that in mind, the loss to Cincinnati will probably turn out to be one they regret down the road. The AFC is not short on playoff contenders, and if the Bills can't win the division (FO has them with a 32.1% chance of pulling that off), they may well be a 10- or 11-win team on the outside looking in. It's unknown whether or not the Bills can continue to survive in Buffalo – once Ralph Wilson dies, the possibility of moving will rear its head again – so it's good to see that the city may get to see one more shot at a Super Bowl win. Of course, to continue down that road, they'll have to survive their three-week trip through the NFC East. Philadelphia, the Giants, and Washington are up next, and while the Bills have arguably been playing better than all of those teams, they may not be able to afford a loss to any of them. 
• Cincinnati seems like a Dallas-type team, but to a lesser extent: winning games you thought they might lose, losing games you thought they might win. Andy Dalton is surviving his rookie season, Cedric Benson is having a pretty decent year, the defense is better than expected, and Mike Brown hasn't broken anything yet. It's a shame that the iron hand the NFL wields with respect to its marketing isn't used internally as well. How much stronger would the league be if incompetent owners were bought out by the league? (Obviously they'd be paid back by revenue from the sale of the franchise to the new owner.) 
• No, I didn't think the Titans would be 3-1 at this point, certainly not if Chris Johnson is having a bad season, but then that underlines the point some of us were making about CJ's demands. Unfortunately for them, RBs are fungible in the modern NFL: there's no point in paying a guy $10M if you can get reasonable performance from someone else for $2M. (You can justify a higher salary by looking at the position as requiring hazard pay, but then shouldn't that apply to just about any position?) Maybe one game is the result of a team keying on Johnson at the expense of the passing game, but I doubt that's true for all four opponents thus far. Seattle's offense isn't any good, Tennessee's offense has taken off ... perhaps Matt Hasselbeck was the guy the Vikings should have pursued.
• The Redskins are not as good as their record. They barely beat a bad St. Louis team, squeaked past the Cardinals, and blew a game to the Cowboys. Week 1 was the only time they've looked good this season. The Rex Grossman Experience is going to blow up in Shanahan's face (either or both of them). Philadelphia is up next, and the way the Eagles have been playing, this is a game Washington can't afford to lose, not with Carolina, Buffalo, and San Francisco following. 
• St. Louis is in an unenviable position: they're the favorite for the #1 pick at this point, and yet one of the few teams in the league who should have absolutely no interest in a rookie QB. (Bradford is not nearly what some people think he is – it's amazing how people don't bother to look at number of attempts when evaluating conventional stats – but he's no Jimmy Clausen.) Of course they can trade down, which actually might not be a bad plan no matter where they finish. There are still plenty of holes on this team, and the Rams would do well to follow the Lions' lead and work to fill many of them at once. Offensive line would be a good place to start, especially in a pass-heavy offense. You can't have your QB taking a sack every 10 attempts or so if he's throwing 40 times per game.
• It's not Alex Smith. It's the defense, special teams, and a favorable schedule. Seattle, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, and the Eagles seem less impressive each week. Of course, you don't have to be any good to win the NFC West, and the 49ers may just do that, but they will not be like Seattle last year. The top wild-card team could well be a 12- or 13-win team that will be mindful of 2010, and playing in San Francisco is not like playing in Seattle. The next two games are home against Tampa Bay and at Detroit; those should give us a better idea of how good San Francisco is compared to the teams they might face in the playoffs.
• The New Orleans defense still seems to be a little worrying, but the Saints are entering a six-game stretch where the biggest threat is a pair of games against Tampa Bay. Even a split with the Bucs would leave New Orleans at 8-2, in great position for a playoff spot, and a sweep would make them 9-1 with no less than a two-game lead plus the tiebreaker against Tampa Bay. Winning the South may be necessary for a playoff run; with wild-card teams in the NFC also looking good at this point, failure to take the division could mean a road game against the NFC East winner followed by a game at Green Bay ... better to avoid the Packers for as long as possible.
• Jacksonville is a bad team with a weak fan base and a head coach blissfully unaware of the importance of the QB position. Perhaps Garrard really did make terrible choices in practice, but clearly McCown has been no better in live games, if not significantly worse, and the Jaguars aren't good enough to provide support for a rookie QB. This franchise was given to Florida thanks to smoke and mirrors, but now that the truth is out (Jacksonville simply can't support an NFL team in the best of times, and these are not the best of times, either for the city or the team), it's hard to see this team as anything but the Los Angeles Not-Jaguars. If the team can play in the Rose Bowl or somewhere similar until the downtown stadium is built, this team is gone, and so is Del Rio. (In fact, he might be gone this season.) And why not? If LA wants to go into debt to give a billionaire a playground, let them.
• The Falcons looked bad in their Week 1 loss to Chicago and really haven't looked impressive since; beating the Eagles isn't nearly what it should have been, and when you see the yards and points they gave up to bad offenses (the Bears and Seattle), it's fair to question whether or not this is a playoff team. Matt Ryan is alternating between good seasons and average seasons (I'd blame his stupid nickname, but then he had it after his rookie season), the running game is below par yet again (or about 1/100th of what Madden 11 and Madden 12 think it should be; then again, EA killed any chance of producing realistic sims when they moved to arcade-style play, prizing button-mashing over tactics), and the Falcons have the misfortune to be in a division with two contenders and also playing an NFC division with two contenders (the NFC North). Should Atlanta lose at Detroit, they may find it difficult to get an invitation to the postseason party unless they can drag the Buccaneers back to third, and that will be difficult given their Week 3 loss to Tampa Bay.
• The Pete Carroll era peaked with that playoff victory over New Orleans; what's left for Seattle is a sharp decline into the Millen Pit, where double-digit losses and high draft positions await. Carroll has always been an overrated coach: he took a good New England team that Bill Parcells built and made it into a mediocre one; while he revived a sputtering USC program, he did so in a weak conference, and there are questions as to how much of what he did, if any, was legitimate, given that he took off for the NFL as soon as sanctions were threatened; and he's now taken a mediocre Seahawks team, pushed it just enough to steal a weak division title, and replaced a QB who's now putting up solid numbers in Tennessee with a QB who wasn't any good in Minnesota. Seattle might be able to use Andrew Luck, but is there enough help to make him a worthwhile pick, and if not, will Carroll understand this and acquire that help? I'm afraid the answers are no and no.
• The pain of the season-opening loss to the Redskins is fading quickly as the Giants have quickly moved to 3-1 (which should be 4-1 with Seattle coming up), but upon closer inspection, there isn't a lot to be excited about. New York has had the easiest schedule through four weeks by quite a bit, and their remaining schedule is the toughest in the league. Miami and Philadelphia at home are the only remaining games after the Seattle game that should pose little threat, and even then, there is the possibility that the Eagles will have worked out their problems by then. Combine that schedule with the strength in the North and South, and the Giants might miss the playoffs if they can't win the division. Their margin of error against Dallas, Washington, and Philadelphia will be quite small.
• There are three things we can say about the Cardinals: losing their best defensive player hurt the defense significantly; getting a competent QB hasn't helped the passing game nearly as much as you'd think; playing in the NFC West means that the first two things may not matter. Beanie Wells is running like NCAA investigators are chasing him, and if that's enough to get Arizona past San Francisco twice, they could well be the second 7-9 team to snatch a playoff berth. A win over a struggling Minnesota team would be a good step toward getting back into playoff contention, and with a lot of winnable games on the Cardinals' schedule, they could well be meeting the 49ers around Thanksgiving for the West title.
• Hello, Indian- er, New England. The Patriots seem to have borrowed a page from the Colts: build an unstoppable offense and it won't matter if your defense is terrible. The fact that they gave up 24 points to what looks like a bad Miami team is a major cause for concern: losing to Buffalo is, as of yet, not at all something to be ashamed of, but with the Jets, Dallas, and Pittsburgh coming up, if New England can't start playing defense now, they'll have, uh ... few problems with the rest of their schedule. It's actually pretty soft in terms of opposing offenses. The Giants, maybe the Eagles, the Bills again, and a bunch of nothing. So maybe Belichick was right again: if the teams you face generally don't have good offenses, why worry about defense? (The possibility of the Patriots giving up 50 points in a playoff game, though, has to be an enticing thought for the anti-Belichick crowd.)
• So hey! Jason Campbell doesn't suck. Actually, he's ... 12th in ANY/A and 10th in DYAR, and the rushing offense is a solid 1st, so maybe Crazy Al did something right by accident. The defense isn't very good, but see Arizona for an explanation of that. Oakland looks to get battered by Houston's offense this week, but they have Cleveland and Kansas City at home prior to the bye, so this should be a 4-3 team heading into November. The Raiders will likely have to win the West to make the playoffs (FO gives them a 1-in-3 shot to win the division, but a 1-in-20 shot to get in as a wild card), so their games against San Diego, including the season finale in Oakland, could make the difference.
• So I'm all like "it's not Kyle Orton" and as if to prove my point, the Broncos' defense gets pummeled, but then it's Green Bay's offense, and they do that a lot. Actually, it does look like the Denver offense is struggling, but it's more the offensive line than the QB. The Broncos are dead last in power success (20%), and while they don't get stuffed much, they don't get big gains either. Second-level and open-field yards, strengths of the team prior to Josh McDaniels completely destroying the offense, are now weaknesses. It may take John Fox a couple of years to rebuild the line, and by then, either Orton will be gone (to a city that will appreciate what he can do), or Tebow will be gone (to prove that he really can't be an NFL QB).
• Did you know that Aaron Rodgers just set an NFL record that we just made up? Yes he did. (Devin Hester broke a record that people care about. What Rodgers did was just put numbers together in a certain way.) Sure, Rodgers has put up some awesome numbers, but he's played four bottom-half defenses so far (although New Orleans is in the top 16 pass defenses). Atlanta is a little better, but their pass defense isn't as good as the Saints. Rodgers may not face an adequate test until ... Detroit??? (Did I just say that? But it's true: the Lions are 4th in pass defense and 3rd overall.) The Packers are a virtual lock for the playoffs at this point; the only concern is what most teams fear, an injury to their starting QB. Don't forget that last year, the Packers scored 3 points against a Lions' defense much worse than this one ... and unlike Detroit, Green Bay has a backup who has been tested and found wanting. 
• Tony Sparano has run out of time. It's become obvious that 2008 was a fluke and that the Dolphins simply can't compete week in and week out with the beasts in the East (and that group now includes Buffalo). The Wildcat, like every other formation in NFL history, is no longer new enough to trick any but the worst coordinators, so it relies on talent and execution, neither of which exists in excess in Miami; with Henne out, the Dolphins will be relying on a guy who couldn't wrest the starting job from Jimmy Clausen; and even if Moore can play well, that won't fix the huge problems on defense. This is not a good year to struggle against the pass, and the Dolphins have done that in spades. Fortunately, the AFC East plays the NFC East, so Miami gets the Rex Grossman Experience, a 50/50 shot at Bad Tony, and Mike Kafka (because we all know Vick isn't going to be healthy in December). Unfortunately, Dallas is one of six games Miami has against top-10 passing attacks ... 0-16 is unlikely, but I doubt Miami will win more than 4 games.
• In another year, San Diego would be out in front of the West again, looking to cruise to a division title, especially with Kansas City crippled. This season, though, Antonio Gates isn't (and might never be) healthy, the defense isn't great, and while special teams have improved, they simply moved from atrocious to not good. Vincent Jackson is the only receiver doing anything; Mike Tolbert's helped out a bit, but someone has to catch some of the passes that Gates would, and that's not happening yet. The offense will have to score some points while the other units slowly improve ... actually, with Green Bay, Detroit, and Oakland (twice) on the schedule, the defense will have to improve significantly, especially with the Raiders right behind the Chargers. The non-East wild card (if there is one) may be coming from the South this season, so Norv needs to get these things fixed now.
• The Jets' offense is terrible. Mark Sanchez, by virtue of playing in New York, is the most overrated QB in football, perhaps even in recent memory. He's incapable of running even a basic offense well, although in his defense, the offensive line hasn't played that well, and the running game is completely nonexistent. Defense and special teams will only get you so far. The Collinsworth remark above came from his comment on Sunday night that the Ravens should stop passing and just run the ball with the lead in the third quarter; if the Jets get a lead like that, even if it were a good idea in general, it wouldn't be feasible for them, because Shonn Greene just can't find any holes, and neither McKnight (hey look, another overrated USC running back!) nor Tomlinson (who is not LT, fools; that man played defense for the Giants) does much better. The Jets will play themselves out of a playoff spot, and once again, Rex Ryan will discover that his bluster cannot hide the glaring weaknesses on his team.
• The Ravens need a win against Houston after their bye week. Everything is set up for them to dominate the North: Pittsburgh's done, Cincinnati isn't quite there (and of course Mike Brown could blow things up at any minute anyway), and Cleveland still isn't a threat. However, the Bengals and Steelers are right behind Baltimore, and one unexpected loss could make this a race again, even if the Ravens have quality that the others do not. We know the Jets' defense is good, but the way that the Ravens imploded against it was hard to understand ... Baltimore might match up well with the current New England team, but they might not draw the Patriots in the first round, and they need to learn to move the ball against a good defense.
• Looking at the yardage, you might think Curtis Painter did a hell of a job against Tampa Bay, and in all fairness, the Colts did execute two good plays that kept them in the game ... but you have to keep in mind that Garçon's two catches made up more than half their passing yards. Painter was just 13 of 30 for the game, and while he didn't throw an interception, he did take 4 sacks, and he didn't really move the Colts well (4 of 13 on third downs). The offensive line, actually, hasn't been playing that poorly: they're doing pretty well on running plays, and their ASR is bottom-half, but not by much. Attribute a good bit of that to Collins' lack of familiarity with the offense and inability to get rid of the ball, which is something Painter seems to share. The left side of the line, in particular, has done really well on run blocking, so you might see some more stretch plays against Kansas City and Cincinnati to get the safeties to give Painter some room to throw. The Chiefs might be just what the Colts need ... but they do have to play well to beat Kansas City, as Minnesota just found out.
• For a change, it's the Bucs' defense that isn't playing well. Josh Freeman is doing a good job with the passing game, special teams are really good ... but wow, Tampa Bay has been lousy against the pass. Two of their next four games are against New Orleans, and then they play Houston, Green Bay, Tennessee, and Carolina, so if Raheem Morris can't get those problems fixed, the Bucs could easily be 6-6 or worse when the stretch is complete.

After four weeks, total and offensive DVOA comprise over half of the variability you'll see in end-of-season DVOA. That doesn't mean that Buffalo, Tennessee, Oakland, and Detroit are all playoff locks, but it does mean that they probably aren't going to go 4-12 ... not this year, anyway.

Lions season outlook, Week 4

Hard to say how this changes from last week: winning is good, struggling on the road is expected against better teams but a sign of trouble against weaker teams. (Compare with the Tampa Bay game.)

First we look at Massey's predictions:
Week 4: at Dallas, slight favorite
Week 5: Chicago, favorite
Week 6: San Francisco, heavy favorite
Week 7: Atlanta, heavy favorite
Week 8: at Denver, favorite
Week 9: bye
Week 10: at Chicago, slight underdog
Week 11: Carolina, overwhelming favorite
Week 12: Green Bay, slight underdog
Week 13: at New Orleans, underdog
Week 14: Minnesota, heavy favorite
Week 15: at Oakland, tossup
Week 16: San Diego, heavy favorite
Week 17: at Green Bay, heavy underdog

Tossups are 50%; slight favorites are up to 3-2 (60%), then favorites up to 3-1 (75%), then heavy favorites up to 86% (5-1), then overwhelming favorites. Reverse for underdogs.

So you can see Detroit is favored to an extent in the rest of their pre-bye games and underdogs in half of their remaining games. Their Expected Wins are 10.95: this would give them the first wild-card spot (with Green Bay winning the division). It's not unreasonable to suggest that Detroit could be 8-0 at the break; a pessimist would suggest 5-3, losing both road games plus one of Chicago/Atlanta. Overall, best-case is probably 14-2 if everything goes right; a pessimist would say 8-8.

Football Outsiders isn't showing defense-adjusted data this early in the season, but their Playoff Odds report gives Detroit 10.5 mean wins, an 81.8% shot at the playoffs, 39.5% for a division title, 24.3% for the #1 seed, 17.0% for a Super Bowl appearance, and 7.8% for a Super Bowl victory. (Also, interestingly, 0.6% for going 15-1, the second-best chance behind Green Bay.)

The way the Lions are playing, I would lean toward 12-4, with an "upset" win at Chicago and a loss in the tossup at Oakland. I don't think they beat Green Bay either place ... they need to demonstrate that they can play a great game against someone better than the Chiefs first.

Obviously all these pretty much guarantee a playoff spot (with apologies to Braves and Red Sox fans). The issue will be the Green Bay games: lose those and the division title is out of the question, and any Super Bowl hopes will rest on at least one outdoor win. Split, and the Lions could get lucky; sweep, and it's hard to picture the Lions with anything less than a bye. (We know the NFC West winner will be playing in the first round; that leaves the East and South. A Lions team that sweeps the Packers would likely be 13-3 at worst.)

On the other end, the Chicago and Atlanta games are key to a playoff appearance. You have to hold serve. (The San Francisco game, too: you can't lose to "non-contenders".) 5 or 6 wins at the break would have sounded great prior to the season, but the way things are going, that could mean a 9-win season and no playoffs. Atlanta could turn things around (especially with a win in Detroit), Tampa Bay hasn't lost since the Lions game, and the NFC East could always produce two or three 10-win teams.

Current mood: optimistic

NFL Week 3: what?

Note: nothing that I write has any effect on anything that actually happens. No, I'm not telling you this. I'm telling me this.

Yeah, so ... this happened. We need to know more about the Vikings to understand how much this means, but at worst, erasing a 20-point deficit on the road against a weak opponent is a good thing (although obviously going down 20 is not). If Minnesota is closer to 8-8 than 4-12, it'll look that much better. Yes, it's nice to be 3-0, but I remember 1980 and missing the playoffs. I also remember six straight wins, 12-4 in 1991 and getting clubbed in the NFC Championship, and seven straight wins to squeak into the 1995 playoffs and still lose in the first round. I'd take a playoff game in a heartbeat after the last decade, but the Lions' 3-0 is not like the Packers' 3-0.

Yet.

On to the games:

• The Lions finally gave up a sack. Well, five of them, actually. They didn't turn the ball over, though, and they did come back from 20 points down, as you may have heard. Again, you can't project 3-0 into 15-1 or whatever, but 3-0 does mean that .500 ball puts you at 9-10 wins for the season, and that is close to playoff territory. Detroit now has a 1 in 4 chance to get the #1 seed in the NFC and a 7.8% chance to be playing right here in Indy in February. A lot can happen, of course, but woo! The Lions' ANY/A is 8.8, which is in the wow range, and their defense has been solid, second only to Tennessee so far. The Dallas game will be another test, like the Tampa Bay and Minnesota games combined: a tough team on the road in a very noisy environment. If they can pull off that win, they'll be undefeated and on national television for the first time since 1975, when they were 2-0 and lost to Dallas, 36-10. (Side note: in 2009 and 2010, the only four teams not to appear on Monday night were Detroit, St. Louis, Seattle, and Tampa Bay. The Lions' 9-year drought isn't the longest, either: the Bucs went 14 seasons without appearing, 1984-1997.)
• The Vikings have some issues, don't they? The passing game is exactly what you'd expect with McNabb at the controls, the defense is slipping (the DL can only do so much), and at some point, teams will stop punting to Sherels. The lack of ability to adjust at halftime has to be a serious concern. Fortunately, Minnesota has a Super Bowl IV rematch coming up with Kansas City. (Uh, the Chiefs won that, so ...) Win that game and the Arizona game the next week, and things might be OK. Even though Kansas City nearly beat San Diego in San Diego, if the Chiefs win at home against the Vikings, especially if it's another blown halftime lead, people may start to wonder when there will be change in Minnesota.
• So this Buffalo team is a lot like last year's team, isn't it? I mean, it isn't like there's a rift in time between 1991 and 2011, so that Jim Kelly and James Lofton and Thurman Thomas are actually playing again. (I hope not; while an NFC Championship appearance would be great, a beat-down would not be.) So what changed? Has anything changed? The Bills and Lions have one opponent in common – Kansas City – and that's not inconsequential. New England's pass defense is bad, but Oakland's isn't that bad. The Bills have Cincinnati next, but Philadelphia and the Giants after that. We'll know at the bye how much of this is real.
• Is New England copying the Colts for a change? Focus on offense, forget the defense; if they stop the other team, great, but if not, it'll just take one more TD to win. Tom Brady's 625 YAR leads the league by a ton ... again, when defensive adjustments kick in, we'll have an idea as to how good that offense is, but the defense, well ... the return game with the Bills is New Year's Day.
• San Francisco, ugh. I guess someone had to win, but ugh. Alex Smith has yet to show that Harbaugh's approach has been any more effective than all those before who tried and failed to make him an NFL-caliber QB. Take away those two return TDs in Week 1 and people are calling for Smith's head, but now they're leading the worst division in football.
• How much of a difference can Andy Dalton make? I mean, Mike Brown still runs the team, right? The Bengals' defense does deserve some credit, though, and with Jacksonville and Indianapolis up on the schedule after the Bills' loss (you really think they'll stand a chance?), Cincinnati could be a respectable 3-3.
• Apparently Jason Taylor said that Chad Henne is more talented than Mark Sanchez. (This is a surprise? Well, either: that Taylor said it or that he believes it.) The problem in Miami is primarily with respect to talent evaluation. I mean, Reggie Bush was rarely productive in New Orleans' offense ... so the Dolphins sign him ostensibly as a primary RB. Ha ha. Even so, the problem is more on the other side of the ball: it is a terrible time to have a weak pass defense (as this year's Chiefs and the Lions of 2008 and 2009 will tell you), and with Buffalo's resurgence, the Dolphins may end up buried in the East.
• Cleveland has done just enough to win their last two games, but unlike Detroit and Buffalo, they don't have a quality win, and that loss to Cincinnati isn't getting any better. Still, the AFC North plays the NFC West and the AFC South this year, so Cleveland has a pretty favorable schedule coming up. If they can hold off Tennessee at home, they could look like a contender by December. Unfortunately, four of their last five are against Baltimore and Pittsburgh ... they could easily fall from 7-4 to 7-9.
• Repeat after me: Kyle Orton is not the problem. For some reason, people think there are 50 NFL-caliber starting QBs around somewhere, and if their team would just drop the current loser and pick up a good one, everything would be fine. Almost without exception, these people are watching teams that have significant problems at other positions. Changing the QB does not make the pass defense better. (However, if you'd like to give Tim Tebow the start in week 8 against Detroit, that would be fine with me.)
• The loss of Kenny Britt will hurt the Titans' offense, especially now that Chris Johnson is continuing his 2010 ways (whether it's defenses keying on him, the predictable letdown after a huge season, or both, only fools and Mrs. Johnson believe he's going to repeat 2009), but defense can make up for a lot of shortcomings. The Titans will still have to throw the ball effectively, though. Can Hasselbeck run the offense well when he's missing his best weapon? He'd better. If you thought defenses keyed on the run against Tennessee before ...
• So the line on the Texans was that their offense would continue to roll and the defense would improve just enough to give them a shot at the playoffs. Instead of being neck-and-neck with the Colts, though (see what I did there?), they may end up holding off the Titans for the division. The defense has been pretty good, and their loss to New Orleans is understandable for a team with defensive issues. Baltimore and Oakland figure to test the defense as well, but it's hard to point out any other team on the schedule, even Pittsburgh, as a team that can push them similarly. Houston may end up in a really good position if they can split with or sweep the Titans.
• New Orleans has faced Green Bay and Houston already, so of course the defense looks bad. But after Jacksonville, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tampa Bay again, and Atlanta, the very same defense will suddenly look pretty good. In reality, of course, it'll be in between. The December 4 game against Detroit could be very interesting: the Saints should be locking up the division by then, and Detroit might be playing meaningful games in December for the first time since 2000 ... when the Lions opened the season with a 14-10 win in New Orleans.
• Those key injuries on defense are really holding the Giants back, aren't they? Never mind the Arizona and Seattle games coming up: New York will be tested when the Bills come to town. Losing Steve Smith to the Eagles has hurt the passing game, but as long as the running game can be a strong complement to Eli, the Giants should have a good shot at the playoffs. If Manning struggles, though, running yards will be harder to get, and we may finally see the impact of those early-season injuries.
• It's amazing to me that in a sport with 53-man rosters, people assume that you can sign 5-10 guys and suddenly become so dominant that playing the games is an afterthought. Never mind that the Eagles are trying to make Vick a pocket passer; their acquisitions didn't really fix some of the problems Philadelphia has had for years, and those problems are already being exposed. No power running game means no easy TDs in the red zone, and Reid's reluctance to let Vick roll out means no option plays ... so why go for it on fourth down? Clock management is still an issue, play selection is still an issue ... and of course you can always call plays to take advantage of the Eagles' aggressive defense. In two weeks, the Eagles visit Buffalo, and that could be a challenge. It's not really a make-or-break game, though. With both Chicago and Atlanta struggling, and with the NFC West as bad as ever, the playoff picture is still pretty favorable, so there is still time to get this collection of FA talent to the postseason.
• You can't blame Blaine Gabbert for anything that happened Sunday, because those conditions give you nothing to work with, but the Jaguars' offense is still pretty wretched. We'll never know exactly how bad David Garrard was in practice, nor if there were other issues that led to his release, but it's hard to see the value in releasing the veteran and assuming that Luke McCown would somehow be ready to run the team. Jacksonville got an NFL team based on smoke and mirrors, and it seems that's all that's left of the Jaguars. I don't see Del Rio around much longer, and I'm not sure the franchise can last much longer. It'll either move or fold; it's just not possible for that city to sustain a team.
• Cam Newton's doing a pretty good job in Carolina so far, which is to say much better than some people (including me) thought he would do. His completion percentage is pretty low, but then he had 34 attempts in that Jacksonville game. Carolina's ANY/A is 7.3, which is middle-of-the-pack and thus a huge step up from last season. (2.9!!! Then again, that's Jacksonville's current ANY/A, and the league as a whole is up about 0.8 yards/attempt so far this season.) The Panthers should surely be better than last season, but their last 7 games could be brutal: they include games at Detroit, Houston, and New Orleans, plus a home game with Atlanta and both of their games with Tampa Bay. 
• Speaking of overrated players from USC, it'd be something if the Jets had a good QB, wouldn't it? FO pointed out that Sanchez had excellent luck avoiding interceptions last season (15 dropped interceptions, most in the league), and even so, the Jets' ANY/A was 5.4, behind teams like the 49ers and Lions. His completion percentage was 54.8%, worse than everyone except Carolina and Arizona, teams that frankly didn't have a QB then and did something specific in the offseason to fix it. Sanchez is that something in New York, or at least he's supposed to be. If you look at his similarity scores, you see some good possibilities (young Brees, young Elway, young Eli) and some horrifying ones (Tony Banks, Chris Miller, Dave Brown). The Jets' defense is going to have to be outstanding this season to overcome all of Sanchez' flaws, or else he's going to have to suddenly become Drew Brees Jr.
• Hey, it might not have been Jason Campbell in Washington after all! Don't tell Al Davis (no, I mean that literally – don't), but the Raiders are on a roll. Sure, they lost to Buffalo, but look at the Bills now! Ignore that the Raiders face the AFC East and NFC North; focus on their productive running game. Once we figure out how good the Jets are, we can get a better idea of how much Oakland has improved in the air; we're past the point where you can build a team with only a ground game, so they'll have to complement McFadden and company with some good passing.
• I don't know which is the real Ravens team, the one that whacked Pittsburgh and St. Louis or the one that stumbled against Tennessee. Baltimore does have three more games against the NFC West, but then that doesn't help them within the division, and the loss to Tennessee could be a problem if the Steelers beat the Titans later this season. Baltimore should hammer the Jets this week, but wait until after the bye: if they can handle Matt Schaub and the Texans, then ignore Week 2 as an anomaly.
• St. Louis has to be in the worst position you can imagine. They've got a good shot at picking #1 again next year, and there's no way they can draft Andrew Luck. (There should, at least, be some takers if they want to trade down. No way were people trading into the top spot prior to the new CBA.) With no Amendola, no healthy Jackson, and no improvement on defense, the Rams look to sink to the bottom of a bad division yet again. 
• Kansas City needed that win against the Chargers. They aren't going to get many opportunities this season. The Chiefs' defense may not be as bad as it looks, even without Eric Berry, because Buffalo and Detroit may just have improved that much. With Minnesota and Indianapolis up next, we'll learn for sure: if the Chiefs can't stop those teams, they won't be able to stop anyone.
• The Packers are another team in the Indianapolis mold: the offense can outscore most teams, but if they run into problems, it could get ugly. Green Bay gets a break by not facing Detroit until Thanksgiving, so they may see Shaun Hill instead of Stafford. (Of course, it was Drew Stanton who led the Lions past the Packers in Detroit last season, so maybe it's Rodgers who's the key.) The pass defense is 22nd in VOA, and I doubt either Carolina or Chicago is going to improve it that much. (Obviously the Saints can still move the ball.) Still, a healthy team could do some damage that last year's team couldn't during the regular season, and obviously we know how the playoffs went.
• Chicago's offensive line is 30th in Adjusted Sack Rate, 32nd in Adjusted Line Yards and in percentage of plays stuffed at or behind the line. In their next six games, they play Detroit twice and Minnesota and Philadelphia once each. All are in the top 10 in ASR and Stuffed %, and their division opponents are also top 10 in ALY. If the Bears don't change some things quickly, Cutler isn't going to finish the season, and then the insane people asking for Caleb Hanie will get their wish in spades.
• I don't have much to say about Arizona or Seattle. Kolb has been a great improvement, but then QB Cardinals was terrible last season. Seattle's upset of New Orleans may be a franchise highlight for years; Pete Carroll may wish that would be his legacy rather than what is happening in Seattle. (Tarvaris Jackson?)
• So Matt Ryan has been regressing since his rookie season, from 7.0 ANY/A in 2008 to 5.0 so far this season. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that Atlanta is in the toughest division in the NFC, the East is still 2-3 teams deep, and Detroit's resurgence is making up for Chicago and Minnesota sinking. There is no guarantee that there will be a wild-card spot for the team that doesn't win the South, and the Falcons have yet to show that they can. The win over Philadelphia was big, and this was possibly a tough opening stretch (if the Bears really are contenders), but the loss at Chicago looks worse now that the Bears have done poorly against Green Bay and New Orleans. 
• As for the Bucs, well, they should be 4-1 going into their Week 6 game against New Orleans. That opening loss to Detroit looks better every week, and the win at Minnesota may prove to be big if Tampa Bay continues to hang with the Saints and Falcons. Josh Freeman is completing a lot of passes (nearly 70%), but not really getting anywhere with them. At some point, he's going to have to be able to move the team quickly downfield when the Bucs aren't trailing.
• Pittsburgh is probably the second-least impressive team in the NFL behind San Francisco. They nearly lost to a Colts team that has just a defensive line, and the one quality team they played beat them to a pulp. They have injuries beyond injuries on the offensive line, and that's something no team can cope with. You can't just grab an OL via waivers or free agency or whatever like you can a WR or a RB, so as the Steelers finish their four-week tour of the AFC South, they may lose a game or two strictly because of those injuries. Really, though, aside from that Houston game, they have New England and Baltimore back-to-back, and that's really it. Pittsburgh could win 11-12 games and still be struggling.
• Yeah, Kerry Collins hasn't picked up where Peyton left off, but he was just getting to the point where he was starting to feel comfortable in the Colts' offense. Remember, Peyton struggled when he returned from knee surgery, and he practically designed this offense. The idea that the Colts could pick up some other QB and do better is absurd. If this were a simpler offense, then maybe they could get QB-off-the-street, but really, can you say with a straight face that David Garrard would do better than Collins? He was cut for being unable to run Jacksonville's offense against the Jaguars' defense. (Of course, the Colts may have to sign someone anyway if Collins has post-concussion symptoms.) The Colts' defense has done a great job holding on as best they could, and the OL has done a surprisingly good job, but the special teams have been terrible. What the Colts really needed was for Polian to draft someone other than Curtis Painter, someone who showed NFL potential in college. The guy who's watched the offense for years is the guy who should be able to step in and run it. I think Jim Sorgi gave Colts fans that feeling; Painter only does because he isn't the guy under center right now. (Indianapolis, welcome back to the NFL. This is a quarterback controversy.)
• Hmm, maybe Rex Grossman wasn't the answer after all. Washington's 2-1, sure, and the win over the Giants was big, but they nearly lost to Arizona, and it doesn't look like they ever moved the ball consistently against Dallas. If the offense struggles, the defense will eventually give way. (Insert DeAngelo Hall joke here.) Worse yet, Dan Snyder will wake up and remember that he likes to meddle in things he doesn't understand. 
• Tony Romo is not the problem. He looks like the problem because his mistakes come at bad times, but he also makes great plays, and anyway, the alternative is not a QB similar to Romo but without the mistakes, but a 39-year-old guy who has had a higher interception percentage and sack rate and a lower ANY/A than Romo in the same offense. The Cowboys need some kind of production from their backs so that Romo isn't having to pull miracles out of a hat, and they need better performance on special teams. They have an interesting matchup in Detroit: if the Cowboys lose this one at home, expect the calls for a change at QB to increase in volume, no matter how silly it would be.

Remember, you can't extrapolate, but you do get credit for performance. Throwing for 1000 yards doesn't mean you'll throw for 5333, but starting off 0-3 does mean you'll have to improve a lot to get to .500, and starting off 3-0 means you're that much closer to a playoff spot.

Thoughts on Week 2 in the NFL

• Good teams blow out bad teams; average teams struggle against them. 48-3, whether or not tampering charges were motivation, is a blowout. Last year, the Lions crushed St. Louis, 44-6, and then won just one of their next seven games. True, that included close losses to the Jets, Bears, and Bills, but the point is that last year's team lost those games. This year's team beat the Bucs in a close game. 
• Speaking of "teams that look really good because they crushed the Chiefs", let's hold off on Ralph Wilson Memorial Super Bowl Appearance talk for now, and not because Ralph Wilson isn't actually dead yet. (He's no Al Davis.) Buffalo gave up 35 or 41 points to Oakland, depending on who you think caught Campbell's Hail Mary. Again, it's better than starting 0-2, but you still have to beat good teams to be a good team yourself.
• If someone could explain how the Ravens gave up more than 350 yards to Matt Hasselbeck in a game they lost, i.e. not in garbage time, I'd like to hear it. Is their defense only going to play during odd weeks? Only against division opponents? And the offense ... Ray Rice can't do it all, people.
• Is it too soon to start the "Donovan McNabb is done" talk? What's that? Yes, people have been saying it, but until last year, there was no real proof: his average net yards per attempt dipped last year, but that could just as well be because it was Washington's offense (insert Kyle Shanahan joke here). Well, [QB Redacted]'s ANY/A was actually worse last year than McNabb's was in Washington, 4.7 vs. 5.3. McNabb's dismal performance in Week 1 isn't likely to recur, but then the Vikings' '70s-era offense only wants a caretaker performance out of him this season, and that looks like it'll be enough to keep Minnesota under .500.
• JAY CUTLER IS NOT THE PROBLEM. The problem is that the offensive line sucks. Yes, a QB can contribute – compare Peyton Manning to Kerry Collins – but the Bears know what kind of QB Cutler is, and yet they still have a Martzian offensive line. Obviously two-week stats don't extrapolate perfectly to a full season, but even at half of the current rate through the rest of the season, Cutler would be sacked 55 times, and the Bears have yet to play Green Bay and Detroit. Martz' decision to ignore TEs when the Bears had perfectly good TEs and weak WRs will prove to be a disastrous one, and Cutler will be the scapegoat. This Lions fan thanks the Bears fans who will make this happen.
• Mark Sanchez is taking over [QB Redacted]'s spot as the most overrated QB in the NFL. Football Outsiders pointed out how Sanchez had a lot of luck with dropped interceptions, and yet his ANY/A was still a weak 5.4 last season. He looked better against Jacksonville (I accidentally typed Hacksonville at first; maybe I should have left it), but then that's kind of like beating Kansas City: it's an expectation, not a sign of improvement. 
• I think I just saw the Pete Carroll bandwagon rolling past. Looked pretty empty. I'd say it's NCAA karma, but then that organization is going to blow up in about five years (there is pending litigation on several fronts that the NCAA can't stop). Anyway, while the Seahawks deserve full credit for knocking off New Orleans, this is clearly not the same team. The decision to let Hasselbeck go is reasonable, but Tarvaris Jackson is not the answer. 
• I don't believe that the Shanahans have magically transformed Rex Grossman into an NFL quarterback, not yet. I do believe that the NFC West is actually worse this season than it was last season. Bill Simmons isn't convinced that the division will be won with more than six wins. I'm not either. I have a friend who's a huge Seahawks fan, and there's no truth to the rumor that his wife has removed all sharp objects from the house. 
• Is it time to start asking questions about the Packers' pass defense? Drew Brees, sure, especially when trailing, but Cam Newton? I mean, Steve Smith is still good, right? 156 receiving yards? (Calvin Johnson is looking forward to those games, right?) And no, Newton isn't the next Peyton Manning. He's just a rookie who's been asked to throw the ball a lot. Kind of like Sam Bradford. So maybe he's the next Sam Bradford.
• I see Tony Romo cost the Cowboys another win ... wait, what? Someone probably needs to explain to Jim Harbaugh that he's not coaching in the Pac-12* any more: take the points off the board, run more clock, and kick a shorter field goal. 
• I think the Broncos ought to start Tim Tebow the rest of the season. That would show those fans. I mean, usually the starting QB actually has to struggle before they call for his head ... the Broncos will be raiding the waiver wire for WRs, and yet it'll be at Orton's feet when they lose. (Make sure Tebow's starting when Detroit comes to town, k?)
• So I guess the Texans' defense is just fine, but what's wrong with the offense? 23 points against Miami? Just kidding. Beating non-contending teams is a requirement. Thrashing Indy was a good sign; struggling at Miami was OK, but not quite what Gary Kubiak needs to see. If Houston is making a run at the playoffs, they need to put these games out of reach.
• Tom Brady blah blah high-powered Patriots offense blah blah. The injury to Mesko would be notable on most teams, but Belichick is one of the few coaches who can make decisions purely based on value and not on risk avoidance. If he had to go for it more often on fourth down, you wouldn't even notice. (It's interesting, though, how the Belichick coaching tree is quickly pruned everywhere else it goes. Coordinators, not bad: head coaches, terrible.)
• If the league wants to get serious about head shots, Dunta Robinson will sit for eight games. He won't, mostly because the NFLPA has no balls when it comes to protecting their own. I've never understood why players' unions always protect the dirty players. Aren't the victims also union members? If you want to change behavior, you penalize it more and more heavily until it changes. Obviously guys like Robinson and James Harrison don't care that they're taking 20-30 years off their own lives, but they have no right to do that to their opponents. (If Mike Smith really teaches it that way, then suspend him for eight games as well. If he's just sticking up for his player in the press, well, everyone has the right to an attorney.)
  I wouldn't be at all surprised if Jeremy Maclin has post-concussion syndrome and is later quoted as saying he barely remembers the last half of Sunday night's game. That was an easy pass to catch – this Kafka kid, he can throw the ball, and I think the Eagles' offense resembles what he ran at Northwestern enough for him to fill in adequately if needed – and Maclin simply couldn't bring it in.
• The Giants are in a no-win situation tonight. Their defense is banged up, Hakeem Nicks might not play, and yet if they beat the Rams, it really won't show anything at all. If they lose to a St. Louis team without Steven Jackson and Danny Amendola, it'll say something, and Tom Coughlin won't want to hear it.

Remember, you can't win anything in Week 2, but you sure can lose it. (No, really. Two weeks don't extrapolate to sixteen, but a difference of two poorly-played games can turn a good season into a non-playoff season.) The Lions are second in the NFL in points scored and also in points allowed (even with the Monday night game not having been played), and Stafford has not been sacked in two games: Detroit is the only team to allow no sacks so far. None of that will be true at the end ... but if the offensive line continues to protect the 2009 #1 pick, football in January might be worth watching in Detroit. 

* Hey, they only had 12 as of this post. It's not my fault.

Cats and storms

(It's Sunday, and a storm is rolling in. It's dark outside, and we can hear thunder every few minutes or so. I am standing up playing Rock Band 3; Calle is sitting on the sectional. Josie comes around the couch, low-walking to where I am.)

J: OMG DO SOMETHING BIG LOUD NOISES OMG WERE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!
C: We're not going to die. Stop being such a baby.
J: CANT YOU HEAR THE LOUD NOISES? OMG OMG OMG ...
C: It's rained like this before. Now shut up. He's about to play Roundabout, and I like that song.
J: You don't care because you're old!
C: I don't care because I kicked cancer's ass. WTF is a storm going to do to me? Now go and hide under the bed. We all know you're going there anyway.
J: AM NOT. (Runs off to hide under the bed.)

Don't try this at home

So, the weekend before last, I was feeding cats for some friends. They don't live that far away, so I figured I'd ride up and take care of it rather than driving. It wasn't a bad ride – 5.5 miles round-trip, which is about 8.8 km for you metric folks – and on Saturday, I did it pretty quickly, as I may have mentioned before.

On Sunday, I made the outbound trip at 15.3 mph, which is about 0.8c on a hybrid. On the inbound trip, I met a snake.

Well, it wasn't really a snake, but it hissed, and there is never a good time to hear a hissing sound. I pulled onto the grass, hearing the hissing sound the entire time, and as I stopped, I also felt a hot breeze from behind me ... no doubt about it, it was a flat tire. I spun the wheel, found the offending object, and removed it. There was no point in digging up the patch kit because I had no pump; I couldn't remember if my friends had one in their garage, so on foot, I continued the journey.

Anyway, blah blah blah, I get home, leave the bike in the garage, and make a note to change the tube. Today was my next ride, so I headed out early to see if I could manage it. I figured that 20 minutes would be enough time ...

It turns out that a) it's extremely easy to remove a tube from a tire when it's completely flat. In fact, it's easy to remove a tire from a wheel when the tube is completely flat, or at least it's easy to remove my tire. I didn't need tools at all. The wheel is a quick-release wheel, so I popped it out, worked it out from the chain, put the new tube in, tried to air it up, lined up the valve better, aired up it for real, and that was that. Five minutes, tops. It'll never be that easy again.

So we went on our usual Thursday ride, except we went through Fort Ben instead of to the market. This was unfortunate, as it meant no mid-ride snack, and of course I had planned to eat at the market. Whoops.

As you can see, it was a slightly different path.


View 7/14 CIBA ride in a larger map

There were some more hills, but that was good: I needed the practice. I felt a little weaker without that extra energy, but it was a good ride, and we pushed hard at the end. 20.49 miles, 13.36 mph ... not bad for having ridden only 8 miles in two weeks.

Google "plus"

I wasted about five minutes today trying to figure out how to tell Google that its phishing sensor is messed up yet again. Of course, there's no option to contact Google, because they don't believe in providing customer support.

See, I'm on this mailing list, and messages to the list, as you might expect, are a) sent to everyone on the list and b) indicated as coming from that person to the list. But because a reply goes to the list, Gmail says OH NOES, PHISHING. Every time.

There is, of course, no longer a way to report the message as "not phishing", because too many people were pointing out that Google's filter was too aggressive. So every time I get a message from the list, Google puts a band across it that says "This message may not have come from relative@example.com." Really? You're a genius. I know it didn't come from them.

And that, my friends, is just one reason why I do not intend to fall for Google "plus". Other reasons are that I don't trust Google to keep my various services separate when I want them separate, and as far as I'm concerned, Google+ is just Facebook, except Google had a history of ignoring privacy concerns way before they got into this, whereas Facebook didn't expose themselves as wanting to sell every detail of your life to advertisers until after the site had been up for a while.

Riding here, there, and everywhere

figuratively speaking. That sounds much better than "I was lazy and then I got a cold or something and now I'm catching up."

So: the 23rd, we did the usual ride-to-the-market-and-back at a faster clip, 12.8 mph for 17.7 miles. Now, I did stop after the hill climb to let others catch up, so that could affect my overall speed a bit, but I doubt it'd be 0.5 mph.

The 25th was the N.I.T.E. Ride, a nighttime ride through downtown Indianapolis. Last year, this was the first organized ride I'd done, and it was pretty impressive: the sight of hundreds and hundreds of bikes streaming out of the area around the Velodrome and up the hill on Cold Spring was cool to see. We also did the Dinner Ride beforehand – a similar-length trip that circles through Broad Ripple so that you can stop and eat.

This year, the N.I.T.E. Ride started at IUPUI's Carroll Stadium (not inside, silly, it's not paved like the Brickyard), so the route was a bit different. 17.9 miles, about 11.2 mph, but we weren't really trying to go that fast anyway. It's a good thing, too, because our route took us along St. Clair, which has a stoplight approximately every 40 feet, and none of them are in your favor. (On the other hand, we didn't have to feel guilty about the car that couldn't pass us. It's not like they would have been going through multiple lights either.)


View Dinner Ride 2011 in a larger map

We went to Union Jack's for dinner; they have a decent-sized bike rack in the back, and we were able to lock pretty much everyone's bikes. (NOTE: Always take your lock. You never know when you're going to want to stop and leave your bike somewhere. I was surprised at the number of people in our group who had locks and didn't take them ... of course, it's easier to say this with a hybrid. I have plenty of space to loop mine around my head tube and keep it out of the way.) After a nice meal, we headed back to IUPUI to sit, watch people, and wait. Little did we know that that would be a recurring theme ...

If you've never been to something like Race for the Cure or the Mini, you have no idea what it's like to see a street filled with people waiting to start. I have, so wisely (I thought), I supported waiting in our comfy chairs in the parking lot for the bulk of the riders to get underway, and then we could swing to the back and join them. We didn't quite wait for the pack to move, and that was a problem.

The ride was supposed to begin about 11; because it was late and dark, we couldn't quite tell where the front of the group was, only that the blinking lights (you did remember your taillight, right? good rider) started to spread out a little more. What was troubling was that the rest of the pack didn't really seem to move much. 11:10, 11:20 ... still no real signs of movement. By 11:25 or so, we were starting to creep forward, but it was that uncomfortable middle ground where it's just fast enough that you don't want to get caught walking if it picks up, but just slow enough that you can barely ride before you have to get off again.

Finally, by about 11:40, we approached the start line, and we saw that they were sending off riders in bunches. Seems somewhat reasonable, I guess, if you think all people are going to ride at the same speed ... if you don't bother to sort them out beforehand, though, it's pretty dumb. So we finally got to start: we got on our bikes, began pedaling ... and quickly caught up to the group in front of us. Eventually we got a little open space, but it wasn't too long before we were back to walking. WTF? What was happening?


View N.I.T.E. Ride in a larger map

If you zoom in on the map, you'll notice that we head south on West Street and turn left onto Orr Plaza, then head north on Senate. That's the problem. Instead of taking us straight down Ohio, which is fairly wide and built for traffic, they funneled us down a narrow street with stupid concrete objects on each side that was also under construction. Keep in mind that this is, I don't know, barely a mile into the ride. We spent 40 minutes waiting to get started and we can't even get up to speed. (The sad thing was that they had one of the volunteers standing on one of the obstacles, which was good, but trying to make light of the situation, which was bad. Don't make them take the blame for your stupid course design decisions.)

Finally, after that mess, we went around the circle (Indianapolis joke: the fastest I've ever traveled around Monument Circle was on a bicycle) and headed up Illinois. It was at this point where we noticed a significant difference between last year and this year. In 2010, pretty much all the intersections were blocked. Cars simply couldn't cross. This year, there were plenty of intersections where that was not the case. There were even a couple of times where cars were actually on the course behind us. (Note: this is not unusual for a daytime ride, especially a longer one where you can't really block off 50 miles of road. It is unusual for a night ride.)

Other than the crossing traffic and the locals (in one block, a couple of kids were literally playing in the street, and if you want to know where the mom was, it looked like she was reaching out trying to high-five rides, rather aggressively ... one of us actually got smacked by her), and the poor road conditions (Marion County is, of course, short on tax revenue, so the roads are a lot worse than in Hamilton County), and the fact we were about an hour behind schedule, that part of the ride wasn't bad.

We finally made it up to Butler's campus, where the utter darkness of some of the streets (not surprisingly, streets in residential areas are not necessarily brightly lit at all hours) was countered by young, possibly intoxicated[1] coeds cheering us on. Naturally, this was my favorite part of the ride. Well, that and when we were encouraging other people to drink every time they saw a bicycle.[2]

The good times came to an end, though, when we came up to another giant mass of people. The organizers put the SAG stop directly before the entrance to the IMA, which doesn't sound like a big deal ... except that there's a narrow bridge we cross that allows no more than double-file traffic, maybe not even that, so not only was traffic backing up from that, it was backing up from people leaving the SAG stop as well. At this point, we knew the rain in the forecast was closing in on us[3], and given that it was a short ride, we decided to skip the SAG stop.

We also heard a couple of riders talking about skipping the IMA and heading down Michigan. This is the part on the map where we squiggled: the alternative, we thought, was to head down to 38th and turn right. Not a great idea, but with heavy rain coming, we didn't want to get caught in it who knows where, so we headed out with them. Naturally, one of the volunteers told us not to go down 38th because it was dangerous. (Hey, we ride out this way, we know the risks.)

BUT ... someone else remembered that there was another entrance to the IMA, and it might be unlocked. It was, in fact, and so we did go through most of the IMA (thus the squiggle), only without the mindless bottleneck. Why wasn't this the normal route? I have no idea.

Finally, we shot down White River Parkway, back to Indiana and onto IUPUI's campus, just as rain was starting to fall. We looked at each other, considered our general lack of hunger, and mostly skipped the dinner at the end. (Fazoli's, last time: not bad, but not worth getting soaked at 1:40 AM.)

18.2 miles, 1:47 (does include some circling), 10.2 mph. That is not a misprint. Horrible, miserable ride ... and the worst part is that they do not publish the route in advance. I'll do the dinner ride next year, but I won't be doing the N.I.T.E. Ride. This was the worst organized ride I've ever done, and frankly I can't understand how you can have a recurring ride like this organized in such a way that it makes you wonder if the people who mapped the route have ever ridden a bike or organized a ride before.

ANYWAY, end rant. Throw in another Thursday ride-to-market (17.6 miles, 12.5 mph; that's an estimate, one rider blew out a tire – yes, literally – and I forgot to start My Tracks when we resumed the ride) and a quick trip to a friend's house to feed cats (5.5 miles, 14.9 mph), and that's a touch over 75 miles. Not bad for 10 days, but a far cry from last year. Ah, to be less busy again ... just a joke. I'd rather make money than ride my bike.

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[1] It's summer, a Saturday night, maybe 12:30 or so, and they're standing outside and cheering for people they don't know and probably can't even see that well. Draw your own conclusions ... (return)

[2] Note: do not do this. Now, if you drank every time you saw a tandem or a recumbent ... (return)

[3] Always travel with people in recumbents. They can do special things, like check the weather while riding. (return)

Old cats, new tricks

So recently, Calle has been meowing at me with a particular volume and frequency that means something. To a cat, the meaning is perfectly clear, but to me it means one of the following:

• Feed me!
• No, with fresh food.
• I'm bored, pay attention to me.
• I'm going to throw up, where should it be?
• There is a dangerous intruder in the house, ready to steal all of our tuna and catnip ...
• or maybe it's just a beetle.
• Open this door, I forgot what's behind it.

Normally, I ignore these meows so that they don't set any more of a precedent than they already have, but given that there was, in the past, a similar sequence that eventually led to I can haz cancer (warning: may contain weepiness), I figured I should investigate more closely.

I put fresh dry food into the bowl. I sit down and watch the cat eat. It turns out that she's eating, well, like I did when I had my braces on. Carefully. This is somewhat good (she has energy, so if the big C has come back, it's still early) but mostly bad (because normally cats that like dry food will eat it normally).

Next test: tuna. I get out two small plates, put tuna on one and broth on the other (for some reason, Josie is one of about four cats in the world who won't eat tuna). Calle's tuna is gone. OK, that makes it seem like wet food might be an option. (She's 16. I'm lucky her teeth have lasted this long.)

So I stop at the store, and among other things, pick out three different types of wet food. (These cats are picky; more than a couple of types of food have been rejected.) I come home, and the Meow Parade returns. I open one can, split it about 60/40, and serve it.

All gone

Yep, this one too

Yeah, so that's pretty much definitive. Yes, both plates are pretty much clean, which means yes, Josie ate her food too. (Also, Calle went back to both plates after I'd taken the pictures, just to make sure they were really clean.)

Sooooo ... I guess we'll be buying wet food from here on out. So glad I just bought a big bag of Science Diet ...

Another nice ride, must be the weather

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I think I see, where the heat is. Where it is not, is here, at least right now. It's getting hotter, but it's still in the metric 20s[1], so riding is not at all a problem.

We did sort of the same route as last week, to the Millersville Farmers' Market and back, except that apparently Mayor Ballard found some money for road repairs (most likely from the feds), and they're paving approximately 90%[2] of our normal route, so we changed it up on the way back. (Suddenly that unplanned practice on the unpaved Monon is paying off ...)

This time, the Farmers' Market purchase was Maggie Moo's. Sadly, there were no mix-ins, just plain ice cream. Yes, I ate some, no, I did not take pills, yes, that may be some kind of dieting trick (although not intentional), and no, you shouldn't have asked. Some people don't want to read about that kind of stuff on this blog.[3] Did I mention the music? Last time there was a guy doing passable Billy Joel covers (pretty much standard for a solo artist with a keyboard); this time it was a duet covering the Eagles, Cat Stevens, and other AM radio blasts from the '70s.[4]

Finished our snacks, back on the bikes, went back a slightly different route but still up the nice hill and got back in pretty good shape. ems will tell you that I "cheated" and "never stopped" prior to the hill: I say that the car coming from the right slowed waaaaay down (it did), obviously giving us a chance to build up speed. Not my fault that no one else planned for that.

Overall, it was about the same as last week. In fact, it was identical according to My Tracks: Slightly slower, 12.30 mph. Although the ride was shorter (17.01 mi), we took only slightly less time (1:23). Bonus fact: when uploading your data to Google Docs, My Tracks doesn't overwrite the existing workbook, but adds new rows below what you already have, so it didn't overwrite the combined totals from last week's ride. (There's no way to pause recording, so when we take a break, it splits the ride in two.)


View Thursday 6/16 ride in a larger map

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[1] For metrically-deficient folks, 25°C is 77°F. It's not that hard to go from C to F when you stay on the fives: 9/5 C (divide by 5, multiply by 9, so that's 45) plus 32 (see, 77). Still can't do it? Get some help. (return)

[2] Exaggeration. It was more like 40% ... it just happened to be most of the first 40%. (return)

[3] Which is too bad: someone almost literally shit a brick today at work. When I went into the stall to change, there was a fairly thick, um, log still in the toilet. I did my business and flushed. Still there. I changed, which meant two more flushes, because the sensor for the automatic flushing mechanism isn't centered (and thus you have to stand off to the side or else it flushes regularly). One more attempt and it was still there ... add in the one from the person who deposited it, and it survived at least five flushes. This guy needs either a doctor or a trophy. Maybe both. (return)

[4] I remember when New Kid in Town was released. We heard it at least three times on WTTS that night on our Sesame Street radio. No, it's not around any more, and yes, I'd recognize it immediately if I saw it. Google didn't turn up any hits. (return)

Not 95-degree weather

Yes, folks, today I went on a little ride and I did not sweat like an Ohio State fan awaiting the NCAA's verdict. It was a relatively short ride, from BGI North to the farmers' market at roughly 56th and Emerson IIRC, then back. (We took a shortmedium-length break when we were there for snacks. I had a white-chocolate-covered strawberry from Chocolate for the Spirit, light on the chocolate. I wanted pulled pork and such, but it was still in the 80s and we had about 7 miles to ride back.)

We rode at a pretty good clip on the way there, just under 13 mph by my phone's calculations, and a good bit of that uphill. The one good climb was on the way back, though ... my hill work on Tuesday did remind my legs of what to do, but we really couldn't build up any speed at the bottom (crossing Fall Creek, for one, and waiting for oncoming traffic for another), so I was doing my 100-rpm spin in 1-1. lol. Oh! Summary: 17.68 miles, 1:15, 12.48 mph. Max speed, 24.61, pedaling downhill. (I probably could have gone faster, but it's not good practice to run over fellow cyclists, especially on road bikes. They can catch you.)

The farmers' market was definitely worth it, though. Lots of interesting food there. We'll have to go some time when we can take some food back with us ... the Camelbak that I have is the slim 50-ounce kind, and when it's at capacity, if I have my first aid kit as well, there isn't really room for cargo.

It was good to get out in cooler weather and to ride twice in a week. Might do a longer ride at some point, or maybe just more hill work.


View BGI to Farmers Market in a larger map

Perfect riding weather

can be found in many other parts of the world right now. However, at this time of year, Indiana typically has two types of weather, heat and thunderstorms, so I figured I'd ride in the heat. (My evenings are much busier than last year, so I have to take what I can get.) The high today was in the mid-90s (mid-30s for my friends in Metricville), so it wasn't great weather, but I had my Camelbak, my helmet, shade along the way, and experience in heat, so that was good enough.

Goal today: hills. Actually, I mean "hills". In northern and central Indiana, hills are little bumps on the map. It isn't until you get to southern Indiana (Bloomington, Columbus, etc.) that you get hills that are numerous and challenging. (We do have hills here, kind of, depending on how close you are to a river.) So there are nice little inclines along 146th and up the Monon that I thought I'd do.

I started off at the Rohrer Road trailhead, conveniently forgetting that the 0.5-mile stretch to 146th was slightly uphill. Headed east across Meridian (btw, the pedestrian light at the entrance to Clay Terrace changes immediately when you press the button, unlike other lights that make you wait a cycle), around the corner to the Lowe's lot, and then back up the hill. Up to the intersection, around the corner, back up the hill again ... and at this point, I decided that perhaps smaller inclines would be a good idea. You know, a heat index nearing 100° and all that.

So I headed back to 146th, crossed at the light, and headed north. The Monon is slightly uphill for the rest of the way, so I got some more slow-climbing practice ... until I crossed 161st, and I realized that they'd a) fixed the part of the trail that was under construction last year and b) extended the trail into Westfield.

Now, that sounds like really exciting news, but let me tell you this. If you ride a road bike, you do not want to ride this part of the trail. 2.9 miles on a gravel road – at least it was the gravel that you pave over and not a gravel driveway, or else I'd never have made it, not even on a hybrid. As it was, there were a couple of parts where the trail was a little soft and I slid a little, but I made it. However, there was a lot of bouncing (no shocks on this bike), and there were several parts of the trail where there was no attempt to make a smooth transition from one surface to another.

So, after my little 5.8-mile stretch of semi-off-road cycling, I got a somewhat-downhill leg back to the trailhead. Got in a nice little 18-mph sprint to 146th, about 17 for the half mile after that, and then it was time to get off the bike and get into a cool car. (Um, after I remembered to switch it from new air to recirculate, and from defroster/feet to face/feet. lol.)

Stats from this ride, nicely uploaded to Google Docs (thanks to My Tracks for making that happen) and to Google Maps (hopefully you'll see that below):

Just under an hour (0:59 riding time), 11.66 miles, 11.79 mph, 511 ft gain in elevation (cumulative, I suppose), top speed of 19.01 mph. That's actually pretty close to what my cyclometer read (11.87 miles, 12 mph even, 19.5 top speed).

Also, Chocolate Chip Creme Pies are tasty. I prefer them to Oatmeal Creme Pies, even if they don't taste that chocolatey. (Yes, that wasn't the best post-ride snack, although honestly it's not that bad for you, and anyway, you weren't in Kroger offering to buy me an expensive smoothie, now were you? No? Then hush.)


View Hill practice, Carmel/Westfield in a larger map

If the Pacers left, where would they go?

We were talking at a meeting tonight about the possibility of the Pacers moving and the cities who might consider stealing them. We didn't have any good candidates, but we knew that to take an existing franchise, a city pretty much needs a good base of population and an existing arena of decent size. Conseco Fieldhouse opened in 1999 and seats 18,165, so that's kind of a benchmark for our searches.

Criteria

We should consider size, both in terms of television market and population. TV markets are important because larger markets can mean better deals, which means more money, which means more money to spend on players or to fatten owners' wallets. Arenas are requirements, too, although an expansion franchise can be obtained simply with a promise of a new stadium. History is important as well, although less so: some cities are eager to regain teams while others simply can't keep them.

Size

Indianapolis is roughly 25th in TV market size. Fortunately, many cities above them have teams, but several do not, including Tampa-St. Petersburg (significantly larger), St. Louis, and Pittsburgh (both slightly larger).

In terms of city size, Indianapolis is much bigger, 12th overall, with only San Jose and Jacksonville both larger and without an NBA team. However, looking at metropolitan areas, Indy drops to 34th, with only five NBA cities smaller (Milwaukee, Memphis, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, and Salt Lake City). The three larger TV markets, plus Cincinnati, Kansas City, Las Vegas, and Columbus, are all larger areas. (Baltimore is also larger and separate from Washington; it's unlikely that a team could move that close to an existing team. The Nationals were in a different situation, having been ruined by an incompetent owner and in desperate and immediate need of a place to play.)

Arenas

The St. Louis Blues play in a multipurpose arena that can seat 21,000 for basketball. The Tampa Bay Lightning arena can seat 20,500; the Penguins' place holds 19,000, and the Shark Tank can hold 18,500. Kansas City has a relatively new 18,555-seat place with no regular tenant.

Cincinnati has an aging arena that seats 17,000 and is unlikely to be NBA-worthy. Jacksonville's new arena seats only 15,000, and while it's much newer, it's also small enough that it likely wouldn't be a viable place to play (especially in a city that can't fill an NFL stadium). Columbus has an on-campus arena that seats somewhere close to Conseco's capacity, but I'm not sure that's a viable option. Las Vegas still has the Thomas and Mack Center, but while its capacity is not an issue, there's a little detail that has yet to be resolved to the NBA's satisfaction.

History

St. Louis had an original NBA team and had another team that is still active, plus one that lives on in perpetuity[1].

Pittsburgh had a BAA team that didn't even make it to the NBA, as well as a short-lived ABA team, so there isn't as much history there, and of course Tampa has never had a team.

Ironically, both Cincinnati and Kansas City not only had an NBA franchise, but it was the same one, and it's likely to be on the move again.

The other cities never had a professional basketball presence.

Viability

Las Vegas is completely out until the gambling issue is resolved: after that, they'll be completely in, but I'm not sure whether the NBA wants to be the first one to embrace gambling. Jacksonville, Cincinnati and Columbus don't really have good places to play, at least not for an existing franchise. It's unlikely an owner would take an existing team and move it to a similar market with a worse arena.

Kansas City has an arena with no real conflicts, but I'm not sure there's much of a difference moving there (unless you count it as revenge for Indy taking the NCAA headquarters). San Jose has the size and an arena, but the Kings and Warriors have both been moving here and there during their California histories, and even the Clippers took a brief look around before settling into the Staples Center. There's definitely money in Silicon Valley, but perhaps not enough to support another team.

That leaves Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Tampa-St. Pete. The first two would be slight upgrades in TV market size and metropolitan area, but I'm not sure the interest is there (although they might help to pay back the city for helping to build the Penguins' shiny new toy). Even Tampa isn't an obvious winner. Although it's a much larger market, both in TV and population terms, it's also in a fair-weather state (meant literally rather than in sporting terms) with two existing teams. Florida isn't exactly supporting three NFL teams, it's not quite supporting two MLB teams, and there are questions as to whether any NHL teams can survive down there. A third NBA team is probably not a great idea.

So ...

There are a lot of options, there are a few reasonable options, but there's no obvious choice. Then again, the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City because someone wanted them to, and the Hornets moved to New Orleans because the owner was run out of townsomeone wanted them to. The NBA seems more open to franchise moves than the other leagues are, and if there is a lockout in the near future, there's no guarantee that current ownership will want to keep the team; Herb Simon might just decide to dump the team on the next billionaire he meets.

Now, if there were any billionaires in Tampa who had experience owning franchises ...

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[1] No lie. $14.57 million per year simply for stepping out of the picture ... not that they made that much at the time, just that they bet well and won huge. (return)

SQL Server 2008 and ColdFusion 9: no problems, right?

Sure, once it's set up. lol.

ColdFusion and SQL Server talk to each other very well, except when they don't. In a development environment, like, say, your laptop, they don't talk at all by design: CF wants to connect via TCP/IP and SQL Server ships with TCP/IP disabled by default.

So, thanks to Adobe help, Ben Forta's post, and Marc Esher's post, I got it working ...

• Follow the instructions in Esher's post above to open TCP/IP services in your SQL Server instance (enable TCP/IP, click on Properties, IP Addresses, delete all Dynamic Port values, and enter 1433 as the TCP Port, assuming you do have it running on 1433).
• Follow the instructions in Forta's post as well (enable Windows and SQL Server authentication, create a SQL Server account for ColdFusion[1], and give it access to the database in question).
• In the CF Administrator, enter the username and password for the SQL Server account you just created[2], leave the server name blank, and enter the name of the database to which you want to connect.

That's everything, I think, although I probably skipped over some of the painful details. Anyway, it's more complicated than it should be, and it's not all on Microsoft: there are plenty of JDBC connectors that don't have this issue. Adobe just hasn't improved their built-in connector.

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[1] Unless, of course, you already have ColdFusion running under a separate user account, which is good, in which case you simply let CF log in using Windows Authentication. (return)

[2] Username and password are required only for SQL Server authentication; for Windows authentication, neither are required (because the user is already logged in). (return)

That's the end of that

Last season, Purdue struggled without Robbie Hummel in the lineup. They pulled out an 8-point win over Northwestern in the first round, but then took a 40-minute dump against Minnesota in the semis.

This year, the dump came one round earlier. While fellow possible #2 seeds Duke and Syracuse were playing tight games, Purdue failed to show up against Michigan State. The resulting loss not only secured the Spartans' spot in the tournament, but will likely drop Purdue to the bottom of the #3 line, hoping not to get pushed into a #4. (Now the Syracuse-Connecticut game needs to go the other way; the Huskies seem the most likely team to move up to a #3.)

It also begs the question of the chances that Purdue has to make a run this season. Gone is the glow from knocking off Ohio State and Wisconsin in the same week; in its place is the uncertainty brought on by losing to two second-division conference opponents in one week.

Matt Painter has his work cut out for him. He needs to get the problems fixed in practice the next few days, or one of the better teams in Purdue history is going to join some of its peers in the Disappointments section of the history books.

Purdue's #1 seed chances, Friday update

Recap from yesterday: no big surprises. Louisville crushed Marquette, so that sets up a semifinal matchup with Notre Dame that pretty much requires Purdue to reach the BTT finals. Looking at today's games:

• Purdue has to beat Michigan State, or else the rest is moot.
• A Duke loss to Maryland would be nice.
• A BYU loss to New Mexico would be even better; anything that prevents a BYU-San Diego State matchup in the Mountain West Finals is a good thing. (The winner could end up in front of Purdue no matter which one it is.)
• Connecticut is the team to support in the Big East. The winner of the Louisville-Notre Dame game will also be closing in on that fourth #1 seed.

Looking at the other side of the coin, North Carolina is up against a hot Miami team, but a team that just played a game last night. It's hard to tell exactly when that extra fatigue kicks in, but it could be tonight. San Diego State has only UNLV between themselves and a probable date with BYU; unfortunately for them, they're playing in Las Vegas. Florida plays Bruce "Dead Man Walking" Pearl's Tennessee squad, so despite possible consequences I'm rooting for Florida. (They're one of the three SEC schools that doesn't oversign in football – Florida, that is – so that's another good thing.) Texas plays archrival Texas A&M, and that might be just the type of game to end their Big 12 tournament run before it really starts.

No change from yesterday: a realistic seed for Purdue is the top #2; a worst-case scenario is the third #4. Updates to come later.

Purdue's #1 seed chances, Thursday update

Purdue's road loss to Iowa dropped them from a solid contender for a #1 seed to a possible #3 or even #4, depending on what happens in Indianapolis. Bracketology 101 currently has them as the last #2 seed, but they've still got a chance at a top seed if a number of things go right.

• Purdue must win the Big Ten tournament, most likely by beating Ohio State. It would help if they also beat Wisconsin so that they get two more top-20 RPI wins rather than just one. Doing it by beating, say, Penn State and Michigan will not help their position as much.
• Duke needs to lose in the ACC tournament, preferably not to North Carolina, who is right behind Purdue. If UNC wins out, they could conceivably pass the Boilers even if Purdue also wins out.
• BYU probably needs to lose once – none of their opponents, other than San Diego State, will do anything to help their SOS, and the loss of Davies may affect their seeding even if they do win the Mountain West. Their narrow escape against TCU today probably didn't help their cause.
• The Big East tournament needs to break properly. Notre Dame can't win it, because that will probably solidify their #1 seed. (Pittsburgh's loss probably didn't matter; they're reportedly a solid #1.) Syracuse can't win it, because that will likely keep them ahead of Purdue due to the strength of their conference. (Syracuse beat St. John's in the quarters; Purdue will draw Michigan State or RPI dud Iowa.) Unfortunately they're in different brackets, so Purdue fans need to root for Connecticut and the Louisville/Marquette winner (but see below).

If Purdue doesn't win the conference tournament, then they probably can't keep their seed unless their loss is to Wisconsin or Ohio State, and even then, they'll need North Carolina to lose at a comparable time. San Diego State can't win the WAC, especially if it means beating BYU. The Aztecs are in a shaky position but simply don't have many losses, and a marquee win might get them past Purdue if the Boilers don't also get one. Florida can't win the SEC: even though it's a weak conference this year, it's not like the tournament champion is going to drop a seed or two. Texas probably shouldn't win the Big 12, either.

Louisville could become a problem, especially if they knock out both Marquette and Notre Dame. That could get them by a Purdue team with a quarterfinal loss; if the Cardinals win the Big East, that might get them by anything but a conference champion Boiler team. Wisconsin is in a similar position: unlikely to come near Purdue unless Purdue nosedives or Wisconsin wins the conference tournament (which would probably mean a win over Purdue). St. John's is out (guess the refs worked the whole game this time), and Kentucky may be too far back to pass the Boilers even if the Wildcats win the SEC.

For now, a realistic seed for Purdue is the top #2; a worst-case scenario is the third #4. Updates to come later.