Kanya-Living Jewels » and winning a Jack Adams Trophy in the process

Some thoughts on Week 2. Lets start in Buffalo - How about E.J. Manuel? Maybe - just maybe - the Bills have found a quarterback for the next 10 years. But with a very close loss against New England and a dramatic win over Carolina you cant help but be optimistic about the possibility. Manuel went 27-of-39 for 296 yards, yet the most impressive aspect was moving the Bills 80 yards for the winning touchdown - not a field goal but a touchdown! And when youve done it once, its a bit easier to do it again when the challenge presents itself. You cant help but like E.J. Manuel. Living where I do, I get a lot of Buffalo Bills coverage. And Manuel comes across as a guy who is happy to be there. No arrogance, no sense of entitlement. Just trying to figure it out in the well-paid, high pressure of NFL football. There was a great moment where, after beating Carolina, he found his father in the stands and made him a part of his first NFL win. At the risk of sounding over-sensitive - that was great. You add that quarterback play with Mario Williams being more productive in one game than any other and Buffalo is better than expected. In Chicago, the Bears are 2-0. Thats very significant because coach Marc Trestman inherited a 10-6 team and the excuse window for not winning is very small. Both of his games against were last moment wins, but they do play a decimated Steelers team - so win No. 3 just might happen. The jurys still out if Jay Cutler has improved under Trestman, but a 2-0 start means the pressure is off for at least another week. Now Im not sure how to read the Eagles after two games either. The obvious statement is yes - Chip Kelly has an explosive and entertaining offence. But Philip Rivers ran an offence for 538 yards and looked great too. Many NFL offences have looked good, but the Chargers just looked great. San Diego also had a 40-minute time of possession, which relates to Kellys offence almost scoring too fast and giving an opponent extra opportunities. Against Washington, the Eagles ran 77 plays. And they ran just 53 against the Chargers. On Thursday against the Chiefs, it will be interesting to see if they end with a high number like they did in Week 1 or a low number like in Week 2. Now the Washington Redskins have problems. Theres a lot of talk about RGIII not being RGIII. But on defense, the Redskins have already allowed 1,000 yards in two games. Against the Eagles, Griffin had to overcome a major deficit. It was the same case against the Packers. When youre down by two or three touchdowns, youre playing major catch-up football and you lose play-calling balance. And the best player on the Redskins roster right now is Alfred Morris. But with such a major points deficit to overcome, hes eliminated from the offence and play action passes are not respected. The Redskins best games may be after November. Kansa City is 2-0 with an easy win over Jacksonville and a tough win over Dallas. Theres nothing flashy about Alex Smith, but he had another turnover-free game. The Chiefs will be the type of team that waits for you to self-destruct and take advantage of that moment - the complete opposite of Seattle. The Seahawks force you into a mistake and take advantage. Russell Wilson is excellent and thats a given. But the Seahawks are a Super Bowl contender because they have the best combination of pass coverage and pass rush. When Ken Irvin and Chris Clemons get back, it will only get better. When Anquan Boldin catches 13 passes one week against Green Bay and only 1-for-7 the next week against Seattle, youre really good at your job. Finally, the Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, 20-10 over Pittsburgh was solid, but it should have been 42-3. Pittsburgh came into that game limping in every way possible and the Bengals couldnt dominate. I will say this, though - Giovannie Bernard is going to be a major player. And if they get Andrew Hawkins back, the combination of the two with that explosive speed could put Cincinnati over the top. The time is right for someone to take the AFC North and with Baltimore looking average, Pittsburgh rebuilding (yeah, I said it) and Cleveland (always) rebuilding, its a giant opportunity for Cincy to step up. Playing Green Bay at home this week will say a lot. Trevor Siemian Jersey . And rest hardly led to rust for the two-time defending NBA champions. Randy Moss Jersey . 1 goaltender tonight when they conclude a four-game road trip versus the Winnipeg Jets. http://www.officialauthenticvikingsshop....ins-jersey.html. And theyre pointing to the NHLs biggest market: Toronto. With Gretzky paid out for what is believed to be $7 to 8 million, Gretzky may be eager to get back into the NHL and TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reports that the Maple Leafs are very much interested in The Great Ones services. Brian ONeill Vikings Jersey . -- Canada played to expectation up until halftime. Custom Minnesota Vikings Jerseys . After making his All-Star debut in Fridays Rising Stars Challenge, the Raptors sophomore centre wont be sticking around for the duration of the weekends festivities, thinking about the big picture instead.Bryan Murray’s termination of Paul MacLean as Ottawa’s head coach on Monday morning wasn’t surprising. The team had won just four of its last fifteen games, and MacLean was already on the hot seat stemming from last season’s disappointing finish. Ottawa’s general manager cited myriad reasons as to why the team decided to go in a different direction. Ultimately, he could have pointed to the club’s underlying numbers to illustrate rapidly depreciating performance from those playoff teams of yesteryear. Many have fairly pointed out that Paul MacLean was likely a victim of his own success. Carrying two low-budget teams to the post-season in his first two years – and winning a Jack Adams Trophy in the process – set the benchmark high for future seasons. But, his team – comprised of many of the same players from those playoff-caliber clubs – has struggled mightily in the last season and a half. One of the best ways to illustrate the nosedive that Paul MacLean’s team had taken over the last hundred or so games is to pull out Ottawa’s possession numbers using Fenwick% (all unblocked shot-attempts) and Corsi% (all shot-attempts, including those that were blocked) since his retention. We can use a 20-game rolling average to smooth out the results some. Remember, 50% would indicate an average possession team. The dotted line indicates the beginning of the 2014-2015 season. I think the biggest takeaway from this graph is pretty simple. The “Pesky Sens” label handed out to the team during both playoff years also coincided with controlling more than 50% of the play over 82-games. The club earned a reputation as a scrappy bunch of overperformers, but for the most part, they were an above average hockey team. You’ll also notice three stretches of significantly positive play prior to the start of this year -- two of which likely triggered respective runs into the post-season. This year (all things right of our vertical dotted line), there’s really no comparison. The team’s been on a steady nosedive contrary to prior Paul MacLean seasons. This is a team that’s indiscernible from the likes of Colorado, and by percentage points, closer to the likes of trying-to-lose-Buffalo than upstart Nashville. Strip away the league’s 5th-best save percentage (.922), and you’re likely talking about Ottawa as a very serious contender in the draft lottery. To further investiggate the dive in either of the above possession proxies (we will use Corsi% here), we can split the metric into ‘shot attempts for’ and ‘shot attempts against’.dddddddddddd For years, Paul MacLean’s teams have been featured fantastic shot generation, but poor shot suppression. If we use the same 25-game rolling averages for CorsiFor (per 60) and CorsiAgainst (per 60), can we pick up which of the two significantly deviated? I’ve created a mid-line of 54 – the average number of shot attempts a team takes (or yields) per 60-minutes. I think this graph is pretty telling. Ottawa’s always played with frenetic pace under Paul MacLean – both their CorsiFor and CorsiAgainst per 60 are, for the most part, significantly higher than what we would note as the league average. This season, the CorsiFor per 60 has plunged, but the CorsiAgainst per 60 is consistent with what we have seen in years past. Now, if you wanted to troubleshoot the issue further, you’d probably focus on why the team isn’t generating enough offensively as opposed to why they concede so many shots against – the former is a new issue, the latter has been an issue since Paul MacLean took over in October of 2011. Ultimately, though, it’s a combination of the two that ended in his firing. It’s probably worth noting that, unlike many head coaching firings, there are a considerable number of arguments to be made in support of Paul MacLean. To start, MacLean was dealt a team with the league’s smallest payroll. The money Ottawa did spend included extensions for two aging-out veterans in Chris Phillips and Milan Michalek, and a three-year extension for a fifth-round defenseman who, at the time of the deal, had logged 21 NHL games. The team also bet on two young defensemen in Jared Cowen and Patrick Wiercioch, neither of whom have lived up to expectations. Paul MacLean didn’t simply forget how to coach, and his teams historically have been above average at 5-on-5. Can the significant drop-off solely be attributed to his coaching style, or is it possible that a newfound talent drag has been the impetus behind Ottawa’s demise? The front office is betting that MacLean was the issue – they’ve consistently defended the talent on their roster, and clearly they believe his style was depressing the collective performance of the team. Only time will tell if that’s an accurate assessment. 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