Tonight, the NFL Season kicks off with their annual thursday night game, which is usually sloppy and poorly paid, much like the thursday night games later in the season. But I digress...its time for some weekly predictions...

           Redskins over the Giants: The Giants have lost a lot, including most of their pass rush and I like the Redskins this year, although I never thought I'd ever see Jim Zorn as a head coach of any team. The Redskins have always had a solid physical defense and now they have an offensive system that won't be as conservative as Gibbs and Al Saunders system the last couple years. The Giants will struggle early in the season and get their act together later, I don't forecast a terrible season for them, just not an exceptional one.

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Today the sports media is utterly baffled by USC's defeat at the hands of the Oregon State Beavers. This is surprising, no doubt, and the media is chalking it up to USC not being ready to play. They were ready, I think, but ready in a different way, I think the energy level was there, but they weren't ready for a battle. They were eager to go in, blow this team that can't even handle Stanford out and go back home. Oregon State parlayed the emotion of a desperate and hungry team into a 21 point lead. What people fail to realize is that in their own stadium, when they are ready and confident, Oregon State is very good. This has been the case for almost ten years. They play physical, and fast, and downhill. USC just got beat.

 I'm not convinced Mark Sanchez is a good quarterback. He is wild, but not wild in the wild gunslinger mold, but wild in the Mike McMahon mold. Once it became apparent that USC would have to win by throwing every down, I was sure the game was over. He isn't a grip it and rip it quarterback. He's a seven step drop off  of a play action pass and hit the Z on a deep post on a cover two zone cause the safety bit kind of quarterback. If he calmed down, stayed in the pocket, he'd be a trent dilfer. His arm will not win you games, they can't put too much on this kid.

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Okay, so I was wrong about the Skins, Jim Zorn's ultra simplistic west coast offense is catching on and maybe that defensive strategy isn't as bad as I thought. Then again, every D Coordinator has a good game every now and then(See Steve Sidwell's demolition of Michael Vick game plan in 2002). The Skins have the right personnel to deal with the Cowboys, physical, big, strong corners that excel in man coverage. In their previous scheme, due to all the blitzing and crowding the line, they were often left on an island with very little help. Now, with timely blitz schemes, they are getting help from linebackers and safeties that they didn't have before.  The Cowboys game plan wasn't the best, but the Skins did a good job of disrupting their rhythm. Regardless, Jason Witten is the best patch catching tight end in years, and yes he's better than Tony Gonzalez.

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