Midweek Gameplan 12-7-11
The Bucaneers’ Most Recent
If the Bucs are essentially going to give up on the season, I might as well just give up on writing about them. Hopefully, they win the toilet bowl against the equally reeling Jaguars.
Injury Updates and Commentary
The big injury of last week was Josh Freeman‘s shoulder which kept him out of the game. It is listed as a shoulder strain but this is a nondescript word often used in miedicine for “nothing is horribly wrong, but it really hurts.” Shoulder strains are different than other muscle strains, especially in throwers. Sprains and strains will often lead to stiffness in the shoulder, which in turn creates more pain. This cycle can repeat itself, until the cycle is broken and this takes time and quite a bit of rehabilitation effort.
With throwing athletes this is accentuated, and makes it harder to come back as the most likely direction for the stiffness to develop is in internal rotation. With limited internal rotation, a player’s follow through is abbreviated and the player will lose velocity and some control. In both baseball players and quarterbacks this causes the ball to sail over their intended target. Thus, even if Freeman is able to come back this week, he may have a limited ability to deliver the long ball or squeeze it in tight spaces.
NFL News
If you haven’t seen San Fransisco play much other than the game in which they demolished the Bucs, you really need to start paying attention to them. They are winning with the old school Pittsburgh, Baltimore and past Tampa teams’ formula. Control the ball on offense and sustain drives, them play disciplined and controlled defense with good tacklers. Like the early 2000’s Bucs, they will give up some yards here and there, but they force a lot of turnovers and surrender field goals rather than touchdowns.
I don’t know if they quite have it all together quite yet to beat the Packers, but they have that lurking in the background with a really good team look to them. It really reminds me of the 1999 Bucs who lost the NFC championship to the highly touted Rams on a call which has later been ratified in the rulebook.
Fantasy Focus
It is the time of year in Fantasy where the leagues are wrapping up the regular season or just starting the playoffs. If you have done well enough to make the playoffs to compete for a championship, take a long hard look at your roster and the matchups over the final weeks of your “season.”
If you are like me and keep a player or two around for a couple of weeks based on potential here and there, this is the time to cut them lose and pick up any handcuffs you don’t have for your starters. In addition, you can cut a player if you only may use him, but he faces a couple of tough opponents. The key is, if you aren’t likely to use them, secure insurance for your roster. I didn’t do this a couple of years ago and lost the championship game when starters were rested on teams which had secured their playoff position. Thus, if you own Aaron Rogers, have a backup plan in weeks 14-16.
At the End of the Day
Boise State has to win the two-faced award of the year with their actions this week. Last night, when watching Sportscenter, they featured Boise‘s coach Chris Peterson providing some harsh criticism of the BCS. Then today, I see that Boise State joined the Big East(of course, this is for football only as it would be cost prohibitive for the other sports). So, in less than 24 hours they go from saying the entire system is repulsive to jumping right into the volcano.
Never mind the fact that they are joining a sinking conference on the other side of the country just to try to make money on the BCS. They obviously joined the Mountain West this year to improve their chances of a BCS game (as the conference has 5 of 8 teams going to bowls), then jumped ship at the first knock on the door by a BCS conference. I just think that they should shut their traps as their actions over the last 48 hours are just as bad pas the BCS system itself.
Until next week, don’t direct or coach thug like behavior.