NFL Week 9 Preview- Around the League

By Jeremy Eggers

NEW YORK- We have reached the mid-point of the 2009 NFL season, and it has become clear that this is a year of have’s and have not’s in pro football. With several marquee matchups on the slate for this weekend, let’s take a trip around the league to look at the headlines heading into Sunday.

-Roy Williams takes responsibility for his own inability to run any of the routes in the Cowboys’ offense.

A season ago, the Cowboys mortgaged their future to trade for Roy Williams from the rebuilding Detroit Lions. America’s team gave up two future first round picks and inked Williams to a big money contract extension that can only be described as a flop so far. Through 16 games with the Cowboys, Williams has only 3 touchdowns, and has failed to accumulate the type of yardage that would make him a viable replacement for the departed Terrell Owens.

"He gets the ball thrown correctly his way," Williams said of breakout star Miles Austin. "I'm stretching and falling and doing everything. Everybody [else] who's been here's balls are there. Our footballs [from Romo to Williams] are everywhere right now."

[RIGHT- Williams failing to catch a pass after cutting five yards too early.]

Williams’ point is a very self-aware commentary on his inability to gel with Romo. He has been far from the norm in Dallas, as every other receiver the Cowboys have lined up next to Romo has lived up to or exceeded expectations, from Owens to Terry Glenn to Jason Witten to Patrick Crayton to Anthony Fasano to Austin. Obviously, Williams is completely incapable of playing in the Dallas offense, because every other receiver that has lined up in that offense has found success. In Detroit, Williams was asked to run in a straight line and see if the ball fell into his arms. In Dallas, he has had to run hitches, slants, and do more blocking that he ever imagined.

It would be immature for Wiliams to focus direct the fault to others, but it’s nice to see an NFL wide receiver taking the blame for something that has gone wrong. The opposite mindset would take the team’s attention away from their upcoming NFC East showdown with the Philadelphia Eagles, and I know Williams wouldn’t be so selfish as to jeopardize his team’s chances in such a big game. If Williams does become a distraction, at least Cowboys fans can rest assured that team owner Jerry Jones won’t put up with the prima donna attitude- Jones is a straight shooter who puts the team’s success ahead of headlines every time.

-The Raiders’ season is progressing exactly in accordance with Al Davis’ demented, senile plan.

Off the field, the Oakland Raiders have suffered through constant distractions from head coach Tom Cable, who allegedly punched one of his assistants in the face. More recently, Cable has had to deflect multiple other allegations of abuse from women he used to date. Meanwhile, the team has been persistently unprepared and poorly coached. On the field, the Raiders personnel department has to be a little ashamed of the fact that their last three first round picks are a quarterback with a QB rating of 48, a running back who averages three yards per carry in the rare week that he is healthy enough to play, and a wide receiver who averages less than a catch per game.

Is Raiders owner Al Davis concerned? Of course not, he’s a senile old man, and the team’s disorder echoes his own mandate of total entropy. We ought to have had some inclination that the Raiders had returned to the state of nature when they chased former coach John Gruden out of town after he went to the Super Bowl. Since then, they have been turned down by more coaching candidates than a pimply, autistic 16 year-old trying to get a date to prom. Former players have described the team as a train wreck and totally chaotic. If you fall below the level of expected decorum of a pro football player, something has gone horribly awry.

I hear that things will get worse before they get better. Rumor has it that Davis’ plans for next year include changing the team’s uniforms from mesh to velour, playing two pre-season games on the sands of Venice Beach, and replacing the black hole cheering section in the Oakland Coliseum with an actual black hole. Luckily, even a black hole couldn't suck any harder than these Raiders.

-The entire Cleveland Browns team has been suffering from swine flu for the last eight weeks.

I have not consulted and doctors or medical experts on the subject, but I see no other explanation for how the Browns could have crapped out the season that they have so far. At 1-7, the Browns are not the owners of the league’s worst record- that distinction belongs to the 0-7 Buccaneers. Nonetheless, the Browns have played and acted like a group of people in so much discomfort that they have become delusional and irrational. In 4 of their 8 games, the Browns’ leading passer has accumulated less than 100 total yards. Their one win was a 6-3 victory over the similarly hapless Buffalo Bills. They have lost their last two games by a combined score of 61-9. This week, they fired their general manager, who they hired last offseason. Their head coach, Eric Mangini, fined a player hundreds of dollars for breaking team rules and drinking a bottle of water from a hotel mini-bar. Cleveland fans have become so distraught that a local radio host segued out of the Browns’ news by saying, “the Browns have a bye this week. Thank God.” Advertisers in the stadium have asked that their ads be taken down so their products will not be associated with such a failure. I don’t think mere human incompetence is capable of creating such a disaster; this franchise is truly sick.

-Priest Holmes is the anonymous “Chiefs fan” who started the petition to deactivate Larry Johnson.

You have probably heard by now that fans of the Kansas City Chiefs submitted a petition to general manager Scott Pioli to deactivate running back Larry Johnson rather than letting him return from his suspension to break the team’s rushing record. Johnson proffered a much publicized criticism of first-year head coach Todd Haley after a recent loss, and he earned himself a suspension and a reprimand for his use of homophobic language.

What you probably don’t know is that the Chiefs fan who started the petition’s circulation is former running back Priest Holmes, who holds the team rushing record by a scant 74 yards over the Johnson. “Come on, man, let me have just this one,” Holmes said on his website, “I backed up Ricky Williams at Texas, I was a backup for the Ravens for my physical prime, I had so many concussions that I had to retire way too early, and Ladanian Tomlinson did everything I did better right after I retired, so nobody remembers who I am. At least let me be the most recognizable Chiefs running back since Christian Okoye.”

-Injury update: Reid expects Westbrook to be on the field for the first three plays against Dallas

[LOWER LEFT- The closest thing that exists to an action shot of Brian Westbrook.]

While Dallas deals with internal conflict heading into their showdown with the Eagles, Philadelphia has problems of their own. Star running back Brian Westbrook was injured in last Sunday’s blowout win against the New York Giants, and speculation has swirled about his status going into this week’s matchup. The oft-injured Westbrook has made progress over the last week and appears to be fully recovered from his concussion. Coach Andry Reid said he expects Westbrook to start this Sunday against Dallas, and play at least two plays, maybe three before rolling his ankle, sitting out the rest of the first half, coming out for the start of the second half, hurting the team by trying to play through pain, and eventually being listed as questionable with a sprained ankle for the next five weeks. The prognosis will be positive enough for fantasy teams to start Westbrook, but not positive enough for him to actually help those teams win.

-Jack Del Rio’s mother is extremely upset that the Jaguars game will be blacked out.

There’s no denying that the NFL has struggled to establish a market in Jacksonville. Even though there would seem to be plenty of people in northern Florida to support a professional team, it has proven too difficult to lure men out of Jacksonville’s thousands of strip clubs on Sunday afternoons to sell out their Jaguars home stadium.

For all of the franchise’s struggles, they still have at least one die-hard fan- Olivia Del Rio, mother of Jags coach Jack Del Rio. Olivia is very disappointed that the failure to sell out the stadium will result in the Jags fourth blackout of the year, which will prevent her from seeing her son’s game. Some may say that the NFL need not revisit its blackout policy to serve one old lady, but Olivia’s dedication is unquestionable. Of the four Jags games that have been televised in her home market, Olivia has watched two of the four from start to finish. The other two were utterly unwatchable.