What Keeps Me Awake at Night

 By TERRY LYONS, Special from http://www.digitalsportsdesk.com

NEW YORK, September 30, 2012 - As we noted in the first installment of this column last weekend, there are a lot of things that keep me awake at night, when it comes to analyzing the New England Patriots, the NFL and the 2012 season.

Here are just a few for this week, coming on the heels of the Patriots 52-28 win over the New York Jets on Sunday:

Wes Welker looked like his old safe vs. Bills (Getty)

The BALTIMORE RAVENS: The 2011 AFC title game saw New England eek-out a 23-20 victory after Ravens PK Billy Cundiff missed a FG that could’ve tied the game, you surely remember. That might sound familiar to Patriots fans who watched Steven Gostkowski miss a routine 42-yard FG which put the Patriots on the short end of a 20-18 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in week two of the NFL season.

After the NFL Network game of the week required a short turn-around for the Ravens to host the Thursday night game against the Cleveland Browns, the Ravens played “just good enough” to record a 23-16 victory. Baltimore QB Joe Flacco threw 28-for-46 and 356 yards while throwing for a TD and running for another, cementing his place among the upper echelon of current NFL quarterbacks just as running back Ray Rice stakes his claim as the single best back in the league. The Ravens’ receiving corps is now led by WR Anquan Bolden and a star-in-the-making in WR Torrey Smith – who had his breakout game of the season the same night his younger brother was killed in a motorcycle accident.

The Baltimore defense ranks 10^th in the league in points allowed but is first in interception returns for TDs. The Ravens and Houston Texans have emerged as the class of the American Football Conference and both teams are improving each week.

STEVEN GOSTKOWSKI; Although the Patriots scored 45 second-half points to annihilate the Buffalo Bills today, the first half included four drives which concluded in alternating results between fumbles and Gostowski missed FGs of 49 and 42 yards.  When the Pats ran to the locker at halftime – Gostkowski had missed his last three FG attempts, admittedly all 40+ yards but all make-able in the grand scheme of playoff contention-level NFL playoff teams.

While there is absolutely no reason to hit the panic button over three early season missed FGs, and Gostkowski has hit two FGs from 50+ yards, the missed FG vs. Arizona which cost New England an important game casts doubt on his abilities, his confidence and Coach Bill Belichick’s confidence in him.

THE IRRELEVANCE of the NEW YORK JETS: Things are only right in the sporting universe when there are healthy rivalries in the NFL’s AFC East division. Seemingly, with the New York Jets unable to manage a single point against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday, the long-term prognosis for the J-E-T-S is BAD, BAD, BAD.

New York was able to gain key divisional victories over Buffalo (48-28 in Week 1) and over Miami (23-20 in Week 4), but losses to Pittsburgh and the 49ers are more of a true barometer for how low the Jets have fallen.

The unintentional comedy meter went off when New York’s arrogant head coach, Rex Ryan, had the audacity to state that he’d leave star defensive back Darrelle Revis on the active list to allow for the possibility to utilize him should the J-E-T-S make it to the Super Bowl.  After the entire NFL industry had a Phyllis Diller belly laugh, the bitter truth became apparent as the Jets’ defense looked listless and their offense failed to register a single point. 

Ryan, a master manipulator and royal buster of asses of players, media and everyone he interacts with, tipped his hand back when the Jets starred in the HBO blockbuster “Hard Knocks” back in 2010. In that series, it became quite apparent that Revis was the heart, soul, backbone and talent behind a tough, cohesive NYJ defense.  With Revis, the Jet head coach seemed confident in his all-important defensive unit, without Revis (who was holding out during the 2010 preseason) the Jets were mere mortals. 

The goose egg laid today against the 49ers is sure to ignite the long-awaited quarterback controversy between incumbent Mark Sanchez and the ever-popular Tim Tebow, acquired in the offseason as a back-up.

Let the tabloid wars begin.

Terry Lyons pens a twice-a-week column on the NFL for Foxboro Blog, including a weekly look at “what keeps him up at night” during the NFL season. You can follow him on Twitter @DigSportsDesk

Lyons is publisher and editor-in-chief at Boston-based DigitalSportsDeskhttp://www.digitalsportsdesk.com

where he writes on football, basketball, baseball and hockey.

NFL 2012: What Keeps Me Awake at Night

By TERRY LYONS

Editor-in-Chief, DigitalSportsDesk.com

BOSTON - This is the most wonderful time of year. The NFL is in full swing with great match-ups like this Sunday’s New England Patriots versus Baltimore Ravens game and 13 other contests that dominate autumn Sundays just a day after hundreds of college football rivals battle crisp Saturdays all across the nation. Yet, as football couch potatoes watch our favorite games, we are, unfortunately, forced to watch dozens of political ads purchased with millions in campaign funds wielded by those who spends hundreds of millions to obtain a job that pays $400,000 a year and they have the brass to promise they can balance the budget.

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Over the years, a few of those TV spots have posed interesting questions about 3:00 AM phone calls to the White House and one, simply states, “What keeps me up at night?”

Well, as one who regularly chronicles the National Football League, there are a lot of things that keep me up at night, especially in the early weeks of the NFL season of 2012.

            So, what keeps me awake at night?

            THE REFS: Most obviously and importantly, the ongoing lockout of the NFL’s regular officiating staff is the most troublesome issue of the season. While Commissioner Roger Goodell rightly backed his cadre of replacement refs and even patted his organization on the back for their assumed ability to promptly sign and train the substitute staff, the truth of the matter is that the sub refs are just that; “sub-par, “ “sub-standard” and “sub-ject” to ridicule and manipulation by the shark tank mentality that is the NFL’s coaches, scouts, players, fans and media machine.

            After a preseason with plenty of leeway and barely a few real or imagined issues, then an opening weekend which went surprisingly well for the officials and the league, the tides turned when football operations scoured the scouting tapes which was coupled with the natural rise in intensity.  Like the Sox falling in Septembers past, the young NFL regular season morphed into a debacle of epic proportions this past Monday night when the officiating crew for the Denver Broncos versus Atlanta Falcons nationally television game turned  a single game into an embarrassing, unwatchable variation of what used to be referred to as professional football.

            You know you’re in big trouble when NFL lifers like Jon Gruden trashed the on-field product as though it was New Coca-Cola and former NFL referee and on-screen/third screen social media guru Mike Pereira threw his former employer under the “Jerome Bettis” with an online mea culpa to the tune of.  “There is no way to keep with your tweets. Just know I feel your frustration. This is not the NFL I worked for. Don't care whose fault it is.”

            What else keeps me up at night?

            BOUNTY-GATE: It is the story that won’t quit. Like steroids in baseball or the Spygate issue which haunted Coach Bill Belichick and the Patriots in 2007 and for seasons upon seasons, the NFL’s suspension of New Orleans saints Coach Sean Payton and his merry band of mayhem-makers who allegedly pooled huge pots of cash as reward money for leveling knock-out hits against opponents.

            Prior to the first week of football, an independent committee ruled that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did not have jurisdiction to suspend players Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Scott Fujita, and Anthony Hargrove, mainly focusing on a lack of concrete evidence in the case. While the players were immediately reinstated, the “quicker picker-upper” scandal remains in the public eye since rumors swirled in 2010 and the NFL acted in March, 2012. What is the combined after-effect for the NFL, its teams and players through the whole fiasco? Zero.

            What else keeps me awake at night?

            WES WELKER: The over-reaction to the fact that wide receiver Wes Welker has under-performed for the Patriots in the first two weeks of the 2012 regular season is as bad as the speculation that the artist formerly known as Ochocinco had a bad summer.

            The truth of the matter for Welker, QB Tom Brady and the Patriots is that there are 17 weeks to the NFL season and the increased depth of New England’s wide-outs is a massive check in the plus column, as opposed to the negative vibes coming from the fact Welker has no touchdown catches on 109 yards and eight receptions in two weeks of action. The Patriots’ acquisition of Brandon Lloyd was made to reduce the wear and tear thrust upon Welker over a long, 17+ game season.  Welker’s 13.6 yards per catch still leads the team.