Tottenham Hotspur Traveling Ambulance at Wolves (preview)

The tattered remnants of the Spurs squad take on Wolves tomorrow at the Lane. So far it looks like the following will be out:

Van Der Vaart
Modric
King
Gomes
Defoe
Dawson

Wolves lost to the Cottagers last week but faced accusations of playing dirty after they broke the leg of Fulham striker Bobby Zemora. It would be just Spurs luck to see someone knocked out of this game in a similar way.

Not much of a preview, but I'm a bit out of the swing of things on footy with all the american football starting up, not to mention that my knowledge of the depth of Spurs and the EPL is still pretty slight. Here's a much better preview) of the match over at Yankee Yiddos.

My prediction: Spurs 2 - 1 Wolves

Spurs draw, Mini-Scrap Heap

Spurs drew with Werder Bremen 2-2. They look great for most of the first half, scoring 2 goals, one off Crouch's giant head from a beautiful ball from Van Der Vaart (via Jenas). The other goal was an own goal (that I missed) but apparently Crouch was very much involved in that one too. Then Culdcini let a soft goal through right before the half, and WB quickly scored again after the half. Spurs hung on for the next half hour to escape with a point. I'll take it for a road game, but you'd love to see them come out with 3 points after starting the game 2-0. Injuries have really bit the team - Phil points out on YY (in a much more informed recap post) that the injury list now consists of Defoe, Gomes, Dawson, Modric, Van Der Vaart, Woodgate, and Bentley, all of whom could be starting if they were healthy. Hopefully Spurs heal up as the league goes on, or they'll be ground down by their grueling schedule.

Speaking of injuries, as expected Packers DE Justin Harrell tore his ACL and will be out for the season. The even bigger news is that starting RB Ryan Grant is out for the season with an ankle injury. As I detailed in my preview last week, I don't think this is a huge loss as I'm optimistic about Brandon Jackson (especially his pass-catching ability), and I think Grant is a mediocre back. However, their depth isn't that great, as Jackson and FB John Kuhn are the only other backs on the roster. They signed former ASU running back Dmitri Nance to add to their depth but no one seems to know much about him right now, and he should take some time to learn the system, as he was previously on Atlanta's practice squad. Brandon over at APC speculates that the Packers could go after retreads like Willie Parker or former Packer Ahman Green, but I don't really see either of those happening.

Some great news out of Madison is that David Gilreath is already walking, only a day after the horrific head injury that sent him to the hospital on Saturday. Petroykus even speculates that he could be back on Saturday, though I would be *shocked* if he even puts pads on. Hopefully White gets more opportunities to run some kicks back (and learned a lesson about holding on to the football last week).

I need to stop criticizing players on these teams. In the past 2 weeks I've mentioned how I think Gilreath and Grant are overrated and should lose time to their backups and they've suffered serious injuries.

Mini-preview: Spurs at Werder Bremen (Champions League Group Stage)

I'm not qualified to comment much on this match, so I invite you to check out the excellent Yankee Yiddos preview instead. This is Mercurial Outfielder from ACB's new footy blog and it looks like it will be great.

Harry is expected to deploy a 4-5-1, though the personnel in it is still up for question. With Defoe out Crouch (ugh) is the likely lone striker, which will mean lots of balls lamely lofted towards his giant head. It sounds like Modric is a game-time decision (I think he doesn't play).

My prediction: Spurs lose 2-0. Too many injuries and general poor play of late. I'd love for them to surprise me though.

Crappy journalism

Gene Wojciechowski on yesterday's game:

On fourth-and-1 at the Packers' 42, Vick was stuffed like cheesesteak into a roll. Green Bay got the ball and Aaron Rodgers genuflected three times before the clock ran out. The Packers left with a 27-20 win, but it wasn't anything Rodgers is going to put on his Facebook page.

This has the trifecta of crappy journalism in my book - first a lousy and unnecessary simile related to one of the teams. Seriously, do you think a cheesesteak reference will show that you're hip with Philly? Followed by the unnecessary use of 'genuflected' when 'kneeled' would have worked just fine. This just feels like a smug insertion for the author to show that he's smarter than the average fan. Finally, a reference to Facebook to show that you're hip with the new-fangled social media.

Packers win 27-20

This was a snoozer early on, then got tense in the 4th quarter when the opposing offense suddenly woke up in the hands of a notorious dog murder. The Packers o-line looked shaky early but managed to adjust to the opponent's (admittedly, good) pass rush as the game went on. There were many injuries in this game, most notably opposing QB Kevin Kolb. For the Packers, the casualties inclued:

• DE Justin Harrell (knee)- could be out for the season
• RB Ryan Grant (ankle) - was in a walking cast and unable to return. I would not expect him back next week
• DE Cullen Jenkins (hand) - he broke his hand but isn't likely to miss any time. He'll just wear a club cast for the rest of the season
• FS Nick Collins was banged up late in the game but seems to be okay. Losing him would be a big blow since the Packers are already down half their starting defensive backfield with Bigby and Harris out

I would worry a bit about the defensive meltdown in the second half, but I think a big part of it was the fact that the team prepped for Kolb and not the notorious dog killer, who is a completely different QB. It seemed like Capers was asleep at the switch, not leaving anyone to keep an eye him on those big runs.

Despite their impressive comeback, the opponents managed to shoot themselves in the foot several times. They had 10 penalties for 80 yards, and the NDK threw and incomplete pass late in the 4th quarter when he had enough open field to run in for the game-tying TD. I'll take the win on the road.

Game MVP: Clay Matthews. He was all over the field today, terrorizing the opposing QBs (he's the one who knocked out Kolb). Woodson had a great game too, just missing out on a pick and being a big part of a fumble recovery.
Game LVP: Rodgers didn't have a great game, and I have no clue who the hell his second pick was supposed to go to. He threw a near-certain Pick 6 that the defender somehow dropped.

Next week, the Packers play LEEEEEEE Evans and the lowly Bills at Lambeau.

Preview: Green Bay (0-0) at Team that Shall Not be Acknowledged (0-0)

Editor-in-viceroy's note: don't take me for any sort of objective analyst or football insider at all (i.e. I can't read a defense, for one).

Green Bay takes on another football team (who disappeared off my radar as long as they have a certain someone on the roster) today. I don't know what to make of them. They have a new QB that everyone seems to be falling over to hype (Kolb), and I don't know anything about McCoy, their starting RB. Kolb could be good, I don't know, but I don't really trust a rookie QB in his first season. Even Aaron Rodgers, who is easily one of the top 5 QBs in the league right now, struggled in his first year. That said, Kolb probably still is an upgrade on the Shadow of Donovan McNabb (aside: sorry Redskins fans. He's not McNabb anymore). Though for what it's worth Kolb did put up decent numbers last year when McNabb was injured (300+ yards, 2 TDs in each of his 2 starts).

Kolb will test a passing defense that was pretty good last season, but is missing Atari Bigby and the overrated Al Harris. Tramon Williams grew on me last year, up until the Cards playoff game when he was burned approximately 572 times by the Cardsd receivers. I like Nick Collins but he and Woodson aren't enough to lock the passing game down.

Speaking of Woodson...


Packers players to watch:

Jermichael Finley, TE
He emerged as Rodgers favorite target late last year and generates a TON of mismatches. I think he's going to have a huge year, and it won't be a fluke.

Brandon Jackson, RB
I've never been a fan of Ryan Grant - I was floored in one of my fantasy drafts today when Grant was a high-round pick (avg on Yahoo is pick 23). He doesn't exactly suck, but he's about as forgettable as it gets. Jackson seems to be getting an increased role this year as the third-down back and I hope he impresses enough to get more playing time. He was fairly disappointing after the Packers drafted him but to his credit has been slowly improving since then.

UPDATE: I forgot to include a prediction.

27-21 Green Bay

TDs by Driver, Finley, and Grant.

Wisconsin 27 - 14 San Jose St.

This was a classic UW preseason game, and is also dashing my (already small) optimism that UW will have a shot at a 1-loss season and a BCS bowl. Once again they dominated the stats but generally looked flat. I've seen this many times before in the preseason - where they dominate the other team but make a bunch of stupid mistakes (White's fumble into the endzone, turning it over on downs inside the 5, Tolzein's pick). I missed some of the second have but was less whelmed than I was last week, when UW played a slightly better opponent.

This kind of stuff comes back and burns you in the Big Ten season. I have no doubt that UW can and will hang with teams like Iowa, OSU, etc. (and play largely mistake-free football), but where they will get into trouble are the medium to lesser teams like Northwestern and MSU. This kind of thing just shows a lack of focus and they'll get burned when they play a half-decent squad. My biggest issue with the program over the years is its tendency to sleep on lesser teams, and I see no reason not to believe it's different this year.

Clay and Tolzien both had big games, though my lack of understanding of QB rating shows through when I goggle at Tolzein's numbers. He was a (seemingly) predestrian 15 for 22 with a TD and an INT, which somehow translates to a 147 QB rating? Clay got a much bigger share of the carries today, and rushed for 137 yards (6 yds/carry) and 2 TDs, which I like to see.

Keeping my fingers crossed for Gilreath, who has a concussion after a nasty, nasty collision on a punt return. No word yet on how he's doing - media reports say he was NOT moving when they took him off the field, despite some of the announcers' initial reports.

The biggest news so far today is JMU beating Virginia Tech. Holy crap. I'm going to be rooting against VT (and Oregon State) the rest of the year so we don't see BSU in the National Championship game. I'm currently rooting for (ugh) OSU in this game vs Miami. They're still the most likely (though not by much) B10 team to make the championship game. PSU-Bama should be a great game tonight, but I think Bama wins by double digits. I'd feel differently if PSU's freshman QB had a few more games under his belt.