Photograph by Neal 
by John Hirschauer
It's Week 16, and we know just as much about how the playoff bracket will take shape as we did three weeks ago. The intricate tie-breaking standards of the NFL will take an odd center stage as teams grapple for seeding.

Game of the Week:
Cardinals at Seahawks (Sunday 4:05 ET)- Carson Palmer- high ankle issues and all- and Arizona will play Seattle much, much tougher than many fans think. If Arizona was in the AFC, the nationwide perception of their talent level would certainly be different. All this being said, I don't see Seattle losing this game at home.
Seattle 22 - Arizona 17

Three Noteworthy Games:
Saints at Panthers (Sunday 1:00 ET)-  A compelling game on multiple fronts. Look for Cam and the Panthers to jump out to an early lead to try to prove they belong among the NFL's elite.
Carolina 35- New Orleans 32

Patriots at Ravens (Sunday  4:25 ET)-  Baltimore has been riding high the last few weeks and Justin Tucker's leg moved them to 8-6 last Monday in Detroit. New England got upset by Miami, making it oddly plausible, albeit not likely, that the Pats don't qualify for the postseason. I don't see that coming to fruition, even with Brady's shelled out recieving corps.
New Enland 27- Baltimore 17

Steelers at Packers(Sunday 4:25 ET)-  This is one of the most intriguing games of the week. Rodgers, ruled out, will be on the sidelines once again with Flynn under center for the Pack, up against a Pittsburgh team that is going to come to play. Tomlin teams never stop grinding.
Pittsburgh 31-Green Bay 26

 The Rest:

Dolphins 23- Bills 20

Browns 31- Jets 16

Bengals 45- Vikings 27

Cowboys 28- Washington 27

Broncos 37- Texans 14

Cheifs 31- Colts 21

Titans 24- Jaguars 18

Buccaneers 17- Rams 13

Lions 35- Giants 24

Chargers 47- Raiders 32

Eagles 27- Bears 20

49ers 34- Falcons 19

Photo taken by Raziel45 and edited by Moe Epsilon
by John Hirschauer
Week 15 has come and gone and we only have two weeks left before 20 teams will be preparing for the draft instead of football. The NFL's 15th week provided plenty of surprising games, with the most shocking one perhaps being  St. Louis stunning the Saints to the tune of a 27-16 victory. St. Louis (6-8) has played a surprisingly competitive brand of football, even with Kellen Clemens directing the offense, and has figured to be one of those teams that year in and year out field incredibly competitive mediocre teams.

Here are your Week 15 Top 12 QBs:
1. Peyton Manning- He continues to play at a historically elite level. Despite the loss to San Diego, Peyton's quarterbacking with his asininely talented reciveing corps is unmatched in the NFL right now.
2.Drew Brees- Brees executes that quick-strike New Orleans offense as well as almost anyone has ever ran other similar West-Coast schemes.
3. Phillip Rivers- Such a shame it's unlikely Rivers' career season will be rewarded with a playoff appearance.
4. Russel Wilson- Wilson's maturation has been remarkable to watch. His poise in the pocket and willingness to allow the play to develop without taking too many sacks continues to show flashes of just how good Wilson will be two years from now.
5. Aaron Rodgers- He's placed this low because of his injury; it may be difficult for him to come back 100% with this Packer team that's lost a lot of moxie, regardless of the win handed to them by the football IQ-deficient Cowboys. Then again, Rodgers; 50% is probably still good enough to crack the top 4 or 5 and maybe even enough to propel Green Bay to the playoffs.. 
6. Tom Brady- Brady's career-long ability to highlight the strengths of his slot recievers is one of the reasons New England can adapt so well to the loss of key players. Deep threats and star linebackers will come and go, but the eight yard slant is a staple of Brady's game that translates to virtually any supporting cast.
7. Cam Newton- It was crucial for Newton and Co. to bounce back with a strong performance against the Jets.
8. Matt Ryan- Matt Ryan has proven throughout the duration of his career that he is a stout quarterback that protects the football. A five or six win season does little, from my perspective, to change that perception, especially with a season-ending injury to Julio Jones.
9. Nick Foles- Foles has played some impressive football this season. His seven touchdown outburst is only a window into the good decision maker Foles is. That being said, this week's performance against a very weak Vikings secondary is a bit concerning.
10. Andrew Luck- When Andrew Luck played his first game as an Indianapolis Colt last season, it was clear from the first snap his maturity, professionalism and overall cognizance of the offense. Year Two, up to this point, has been more of the same. But how much growth has there been from the already impressive rookie season?
11. Tony Romo- No player in the National Football League is as polarizing Romo. It always seems there are confounding variables to his "collapses"- this week, it was Garret's ridiculous play calling. Dallas could have gone three runs and out every time from the five minute mark of the third quarter and won the game. No doubt Romo is maddeningly frustrating, but he's not getting a lot of help from some other areas.
12. Ben Roethlisberger- Usually one of the first things to go, Big Ben has not lost his propensity to extend the play with age. A marvelous showing against a top-tier Bengals defense warrants a top 12 bid for Roethlisberger.
        

Photo by AlbertHerring
By John Hirschauer

As the NFL season dwindles down to the playoffs, the
surprisingly intriguing race for the AFC’s sixth seed is a mess of mediocre teams who hardly deserve to be deemed playoff contenders but nonetheless find themselves grappling for a playoff berth with just three weeks left in the
season.
As it stands now, Baltimore (7-6) holds the tiebreaker over Miami (7-6) due to a head to head 23-20 road victory back in Week 5. San Diego (7-7) pulled off a stunner in Denver on Thursday that gave Chargers fans a glimpse of the potential of the Jekyll and Hyde-like Bolts with Rivers playing the way he has this season and Keenan Allen developing into the mold of other young receivers like AJ Green with his great possession ability. Unfortunately for San Diego, their 4-6 conference record and head to head loss against Miami will likely keep Rivers and Co. from crashing this year’s playoff picture. The
New York Jets (6-7), while defensively stout and able to make teams one dimensional, don’t have enough fire power offensively to win their three remaining games against difficult and scrappy opponents (at Carolina, Cleveland, at Miami) to give themselves an opportunity to meaningfully scoreboard watch. Tennessee (5-8) remains inconspicuously in the mix, but its difficult to see the dominoes falling for the Titans, who have played with a surprisingly high level of moxie for the majority of this season.

In all likelihood, this is really a three horse race, with Baltimore, Miami and San Diego being the only three of the five teams who possess the records and talent required to push for the sixth seed. However, due to those aforementioned tie breaker failings of San Diego, it will be increasingly difficult for the Chargers to overcome a 4-6 conference record, even if they do end up winning out (Oakland, Kansas City) as Miami’s 6-3 conference record and head to head victory (coupled with the Ravens’ 6-4 conference record) stack the odds against San Diego.  Baltimore’s unrelentingly difficult closing schedule (at Detroit, New England, at Cincinnati) could allow the Dolphins to grasp the sixth seed.

The real lesson here, however, is that it’s difficult to sell any of these middling franchises as contenders.

Photo by Katidid213
by John Hirschauer
The issue of calling a team the Redskins runs much deeper
than “overly PC left wing shenanigans”. It lies moreover in the public’s double
standards and a great misrepresentation of who is justifiably
offended.

There is no collective societal doubt about the degrading and inappropriate nature of utilizing the “N-word” in reference to African-Americans. Then why can’t we respect similar sentiments from the Native American community? 

By its very nature, “redskin” is an archaic and antiquated term. David Plotz of Slate notes that “redskin” is “extremely tacky and dated—like an old aunt who still talks about ‘colored people’ or limps her wrist to suggest someone’s gay”. Like “oriental” and “negro”, “redskin” has entered the realm of vernacular irrelevance and bears the connotations of the era in which it was created. “Negro” carries with it the atrocities of slavery, something that is universally lamented as a crime against humanity.  Why doesn't “redskin”, a term coined during the mass exodus and genocide of Native Americans, carry the same uneasiness and apprehension?

The inconvenient truth in the matter is that “redskin” is no different than “negro”. The reason it is not treated as such is our nation-wide irreverence for the cries of American Indians. The collective outrage of blacks and Natives are equally
justified and vindicated, yet those of African-Americans tend to carry much greater weight in a national forum. This is a combination of the perhaps more vile past of white treatment of blacks, but also points to a greater unawareness
of atrocities committed to the Indian people.

Something that rightfully clouds public opinion on this issue is people with little or no Indian background claiming great reprieve over the Redskins name. They have little connection to their minute Native heritage but for the sake of taking offense cry foul to feel important or wronged. These people are entitled to arguments and opinions, but more in a theoretical or academic context than claims of personal offense.

The Oneida Indian tribe, however, who just spoke to the NFL, is an entirely different entity. These people live on a reservation and follow traditional Native culture. They are not pettily crying foul just to garner attention. They should have complete control over how they are represented, because for all intents and purposes, they are the mascot.

They are the rallying cry, the logo, and the helmet. If they feel they are being misrepresented or are victims of epithelial portrayal, should not the source of the imagery be the highest authority on such an issue? 

But wait, what about the Cowboys and the Fighting Irish?

Unfortunately, mirroring those names to Redskins compares apples to oranges. Used correctly, “Seminoles”, “Indians” and even “Chiefs” can be fine. It is not so much the concept of human mascots, but the epithelial nature of “Redskins” that makes the name offensive. A perhaps larger question: have cowboys ever been forced from their homeland, taken on a vicious “trail of tears” through the snow to slowly die of starvation? It is because of the tender past with Natives that we rightfully treat our depictions of them more carefully.

The Redskins employ a slur as their team name, and we cannot and should not belittle the cries of true Natives who are offended and degraded by our use of a sobriquet as a team nickname. Removing the Redskins name would be a step toward equal treatment of all racism, not just the slander directed at the African-American community.

Photo:Chris J. Nelson, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Brooks_Foster.jpg/300px-Brooks_Foster.jpg
by John Hirschauer
Why is the NFL so insistent on protecting the
pass?

Callously hailed by some fans as the “National Flag Football League”, the rules of professional football have encouraged the forward pass to the degree that passing has approached “dominant strategy” status in the game theory circle. Why?

I assume to the masses it’s clear: quarterbacks are the shoulders that carry the supposed nationwide yearning for inflated scoring that Roger Goodell works so assiduously to protect. 
 
But, as a few fans pause to ask, at what cost?

I find it precarious to assume that the overwhelming majority of the population desires a flag football like environment that encourages passing so much that games are simply an unabated shootout. That type of thinking eliminates so many crucial tenants of what it means to play American gridiron football. Frankly, it eliminates much of the chess match that is professional football.

Football is a sport best played with an arsenal of various potent and competent weapons at your disposal. However, when the game is reduced to pure passing, a game strategy so encouraged by the league, the amount of strategy teams employ is dwindled down. Know the route tree, mix in a screen or draw to keep the defense honest and take shots down the field. "Establishing" the run has diminished in effectiveness, given that even if a team can’t run the football an inch, the rules allow even the most pass-heavy defensive sets to be torched. The game is now a personnel game: how fast is your receiver? How quick is your pass rushing specialist? Scheme holds little relative weight in the outcome of a defensive possession. It’s as if the defense is flipping a weighted coin.

Football has become a compromised game, a virtual shell of its roots that promoted physicality, potency in the run and
pass game and clichéd smash mouth attacks. For better or for worse, the physicality aspects of the sport have been reduced to what happens between the members of opposing lines. The skill positions, when not blocking, receive little contact other than the seemingly inconsequential tackle. Running the football seems more of an antiquity than a viable strategy. Is this the sport, or is this evolutionary product of a game merely comparable to football, stained
with foundational compromises of the game?

  
There is certainly another side to this coin. These decisions were not made in a vacuum; the devastating effects of professional football from concussions on the brain can be debilitating if not regulated. Look no further than Brett Favre,
who has shown amnesiac symptoms as a 40-something. It seems that any work environment should seek to promote the general health and well-being of its employees. But is football a different animal?

 It’s difficult to say. By engaging in the multimillion dollar profession of football, players should proverbially get what they sign up for. On the other hand, these players are people. Should anyone, regardless of income, have to grow old with various physical and mental ailments that prevent them from engaging with their children?

The NFL has to find some way to balance these polarized ideals. And I think the ultimate answer may come across as blasphemous, but no more profane than the brand of football purported by today’s NFL.

The defensive team should be allowed a 12th player while maintaining many of the rules that propagate passing.  This will create a greater equilibrium between offense and defense and likely increase the feasibility of running as a competent strategy. It will solve many of the league’s seemingly split desires.

Like a band aid, it is an attempt to heal the wounds of professional football but is in no way the same skin of unregulated play. 

As the NFL is essentially telling its fans now, take it or leave it.