Philip Rivers had the top rating the league last year?? Great, now I’m going to have to give him begrudging respect, which I despise doing as much as I despise Rivers himself.  34 TD’s, 11 INT’s, 4000+ yards.  Can’t really argue with that too much.  What I can say in an effort to argue is that A.) Darren Sproles represents 5 of those TD’s, turning roughly a sixth of his 29 catches into scores.  I’m betting most of those were dumpoffs with which Sproles made plays himself.  Plus, we all know QB Ratings are garbage.  The rankings will tell you that the average performance of Shaun Hill and Seneca Wallace combined would be better than that of Eli Manning, Donovan McNabb, Jay Cutler, Brett Favre, Kerry Collins and Ben Roethlisberger. 

Matt Cassel led the league in sacks taken?? Yep, 47 times last year he got dropped holding onto the ball.  Where was the so-called great protection I always complain about Tom Brady getting?  Brady got sacked a fraction of the times the previous year, 21 total in 2007.  So either the Pats’ line got decimated by injuries in 2008 (which I don’t remember and I’m too lazy to look up and see), or Cassel had problems holding onto the ball too long and didn’t fully grasp all of the intricacies of the offense, which is both likely and excusable for a backup who played very well.

Drew Brees and Jay Cutler threw the ball a lot in 08.  While neither quite got in the ballpark of the record 691 attempts set by Drew Bledsoe in 1994, Brees’ 635 and Cutler’s 616 are the only two over 600 attempts.  Donovan McNabb threw 571 times, and I remember watching an Eagles game late last year and not even seeing them run the ball at all.  I wonder how Brees and Cutler got through the season without their tendons popping loose. 

Speaking of Jay Cutler, there isn’t anyone more happy that Brett Favre is back than the Bears’ new quarterback.  That’s because Favre’s the only guy who would likely throw more picks than Cutler will.  Cutler had 18, and Favre had 22 in ’08.  Vikings fans in support of Favre (and I think that’s the majority of them now) will ignore the fact that Favre led the league over Cutler while throwing almost a hundred fewer attempts.  And that Favre had a running game that Cutler would have killed for. 

The Jets had Thomas Jones and Leon Washington run for over 2000 yards and 20 TD’s.  Do you know who Denver’s leading rusher was last season?  Me neither – it was something named Peyton Hillis, who charged his way to 343 yards and 5 TD’s.  Cutler himself was close to that, running for 200 yards on his own two feet.  Matt Forte should take more than a little pressure off of Cutler, hopefully bringing that INT total down a couple notches. 

Don’t recognize this guy? Me either.

What is possibly more impressive about both Brees and Cutler is that despite leading the league in attempts, they were each sacked less than once a game – Cutler with 11 and Brees with 13.  Both are underrated mobility-wise, and both have quick releases.  Ironically, Brees may provide the model that the Bears hope to use with Cutler, at least in part:  despite Brees throwing for over 5,000 yards, he had no 1,000-yard receiver.  Lance Moore came the closest at 928.  To be fair, New Orleans had two other receivers besides Moore with yardage in the 700’s, which is pretty damn good for 2^nd and 3^rd WR’s. 

But Cutler and Favre are the new guys in their division, and both will be playing with pretty good run games.  When you combine receptions and carries into total touches for the 2008 season, Matt Forte and Adrian Peterson aren’t that far off, and Forte actually scored 12 TD’s to AP’s 10.  What’s the major difference between the two that could help Chicago and hurt Minnesota?  Peterson’s 9 fumbles with 4 lost to Matt Forte’s 1 fumble, 1 lost.  Can you say ‘Turnover Ratio’?  

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Sorry, I just couldn’t go too long without taking cheap shots at the Purple Jesus.