Braves on the Warpath Series: Savior, thy name is Shanahan

Now entering the blog, the first of my "Braves on the Warpath" series. AKA my Redskins Posts.

With all the new coaching changes at Redskins Park, I thought it'd be better to get some of my thoughts about the Redskins out before I get too muddled with all sorts of highs and lows leading up to next season. At least right now, I'm slightly more rational and objective about them, as opposed to teetering on the brink of delusion the day the Redskins season ended. So to catch up those out of the loop, I'll break down the many a happenings over the last month. (Takes a deep breath....) Jim Zorn, fired. Mike Shanahan, hired. Kyle Shanahan to be offensive coordinator for daddy. Greg Blache, set to retire. (NEWS AS OF 1.12.10) Jim Haslett to be defensive coordinator. Owner Dan Snyder still stinks.

A quick breakdown of these guys:



Mike Shanahan - Former coach of the Denver Broncos, who won two Super Bowls in the 90's, was out of football last year after being fired from Denver. Runs a West Coast style offense heavy on rushing who ironically enough, traded away Clinton Portis to the Redskins.



Kyle Shanahan - Worked as O.C. for the Houston Texans this past year and has never worked with his dad until now. And yes, this can and has happened before. Previous coaches Schottenheimer and Gibbs had their sons on staff during their tenure here.



Jim Haslett - Former NFL head coach, most recently of the Saints back when they were terrible. Strong defensive mindset who also was the D.C. for St. Louis. This past year, he was the head coach for one of the new United Football League teams. (The league is supplementary to the NFL and comprised mostly of has beens and/or never was. Just my opinion.)



Bruce Allen - Hired as the new General Manager late in the season to replace the "ousted" Vinny Cerrato (the second most hated man from the Redskins organization). He is the son of the late former Redskins head coach George Allen and brother of former VA senator George Allen. He previously worked in the front office for both the Raiders and Bucs. He was said to have been handpicked by Shanahan before Zorn was fired to be the new GM and pave the way for Shanahan's return to the NFL. Highly suspect, yes. But nothing new coming from Snyder or anyone in the front office here. Maybe I should call this a "Shanahanigan"?

My immediate thoughts are that this has the making for another potential flop BUT is considered a pretty noteworthy ensemble cast. Definitely, they as a unit are an upgrade from the Zorn era and possibly of all of Snyder's hires in his ten years of owning the team. You bring in men, less Boy Shanahan, who have significant coaching experience and obviously the pedigree of two Super Bowl wins with Dad Shanahan. I will proceed with caution before I can judge them a bit more. Their era has only just begun and there are way too many issues yet to be addressed, let alone resolved. They include (takes another deep breath......)the upcoming NFL draft, Jason Campbell, the offensive line, the can't-cover-the-double-move secondary, what to do with the running backs Portis/Bett(i)s/Ganther/Mason, Cooley vs. Davis, Fat Albert (Haynesworth), among many other player and positional concerns.

Til then, Optimus Cheung shall "stay medium".

Wild Card Recap

To keep things a bit current and exciting, I'm going to delve into the world of NFL recaps. This would be my first attempt at football analysis, and I hope I don't butcher it too much to keep these blogs going at least through the Super Bowl.

The 2009-10 NFL season is winding down and we've just finished the first round of the playoffs. Two more rounds of playoff games and then the Super Bowl in February. I'll try to keep these short so I don't bore you with all the little details. And by no means am I an expert, just merely a passionate observer/part time player of the greatest sport in the history of the world.

Saturday
AFC - New York Jets at Cincinnati Bengals - 24-14 Jets.
NFC - Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys - 34-14 Cowboys.

Let's start off with a little context. Both of these games were rematch games from the final week of the season (literally one week before), which is a rarity. Only the Jets needed to win to get into the playoffs. Cincinnati had less to play for among the other three teams; Dallas and Philadelphia played for the title of NFC East division winner and had already locked up playoff spots. I will admit I did not watch both games in their entirety, there was just not enough interest. As I think about it more, I'm going to call them the "Remixes of the Week". The games kinda sorta played the same way from the week before, a couple adjustments here and there, but in the end, the winners from Week 17 won, the losers lost....just not as badly. New York and Dallas won by a combined score of 61-0 against the other two in Week 17. You would think that to lose that badly regardless of your playoff position, you would have learned your lesson. Clearly not.

Cincinnati played nearly identical to New York but had a couple more turnovers that attributed to their loss. Couple that with missing two field goals and leaving points on the field, Cincinnati has to look pretty much at themselves and say they gave it away. To give the Jets credit, they got hot at the right time. And their rookie QB in Mark Sanchez, played mistake-free and allowed their running game to control the clock and tempo of the game.

Dallas and Philadelphia are two teams that I really don't give a damn about since I'm a Redskins fan. BUT, I do enjoy their styles of play and love watching NFC East games regardless. Their game pitted some interesting storylines. Can Dallas win a playoff game? Will McNabb rise up in the postseason and lead the Eagles to another NFC championship? Well, one answer was quite evident. The Cowboys clearly outplayed the Eagles and maintained control from the onset. Watching the game was not as fun from a unbiased fan. The Eagles could not establish a running game and turned the ball over way too much. When you were on the field on offense for only a third of the time, you're going to lose the game. How 'bout dem Cowboys?!?! Haha.

Sunday
AFC - Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots - 33-14 Ravens
NFC - Green Bay Packers at Arizona Cardinals - 51-45 Cardinals in Overtime

Now, here were two games that were exciting in their own right, but personally I found a lot more enjoyment in these two games over the first two. Not to sound too much like an ass or as a hater, but Tom Brady needs to be taken down a couple notches. The whole Patriots organization can go jump off a cliff. (Gosh, Thomas. Tell them how you really feel...) Baltimore, give them their due, played near perfect football from the start. First play from scrimmage, Ray Rice runs 83 yards for a TD. Madden himself couldn't have orchestrated a better play. On the ensuing possession, Brady gets stripped of the ball which leads to another Ravens TD. In the first quarter alone, three Brady turnovers, the other two being interceptions, forcibly took the game out of the Patriots hand and despite the final score, was never as close as it should have been. At least you still have a Pro Bowl game to play in, Brady.

If you ever played Madden NFL football without a defensive strategy, then the Arizona/Green Bay game was right up your alley. Nearly a hundred points, a thousand yards and damn near perfect passing stats, you'd find all these and then some. Arizona was the Super Bowl runner-up and defied the football gods by returning to the playoffs the following year. After this past Sunday, you have to fear a Mr. Kurt Warner. 29 for 33, 379 yards, 5 TDs, just nuts on offense. His counterpart, Aaron Rodgers had a good day statistically as well going 28 for 42, 422 yards, 4 TDs and 1 int. Crazy, crazy stuff. But yes, the teams can play defense, just didn't on Sunday. The game was thought to be over by the third quarter, but Green Bay came back to tie the game. Arizona misses a field goal in the final minute from 34 yards out. Green Bay wins the coin toss in overtime and in a shocking finish, Rodgers gets the ball stripped by Arizona linebacker Karlos Dansby who runs it in for the game-winning TD from 17 yards. Just crazy. Got to give the defense credit. They won it for them when it counted. Green Bay, a Super Bowl favorite, just made a very bad mistake at the worst time possible.


Next week: Divisional Playoffs
Arizona Cardinals at New Orleans Saints
Baltimore Ravens at Indianapolis Colts
Dallas Cowboys at Minnesota Vikings
New York Jets at San Diego Chargers

Stay tuned for the recaps next week. Take that, ESPN!

Sunday Genesis

It honestly didn’t take much convincing to start this blog in the first place. I was in the company of friends at Wing Factory eating/drinking/watching the Ravens dismantle the Patriots in the AFC wildcard game yesterday when we talked about blogging. When I look back, I don’t know why I haven’t in the past beyond the sense of the lazy approach I have with being online. With now a solid ten years into the 21^st century, I’m finally beyond just surfing the net and email.

And so, this blog is born. Optimus Cheung was actually a nickname given to me my senior year in high school, quite fittingly, ten years ago. I’m all about wordplay so it fit. Even the title of this first post is a pun off the Hyundai Genesis. Cars, Transformers, you get my drift. Haha…..Ok, enough of that. I promise that future blogs will be more substantive in content and I’ll try to update at the very minimum of once a week. Blog on!