Bring on the NFL

The first NFL Sunday is almost here, It's like christmas-eve for sports fan as we get ready for the must-see TV over the next 5 months. America's top league takes over Sundays from now until early February and dominates some Mondays and Thursdays too. The season officially kicked off Thursday with the much awaited Saints-Viking matchup. The game didn't live up to the hype and neither did Brees or Favre, but it was still awesome to see football on TV and see these superstars play. Saints won as expected, but the scoring was not nearly as prolific as people expected. I was a little surprised at the Saints and Brees having trouble scoring. I am going to go ahead and give the credit to the Vikings defense. I think they are good and thats good news if you are a Vikings fan.

The Vikings offense on the other hand didn't look that great. Understandable considering Favre is just getting back into the groove and with Sidney Rice missing. Adrian Peterson had a few good runs, but Favre was clearly off on a few throws. He spoke about it in the post-game show and claimed that the game would have been different if he was not off on those throws. I would be pissed if I was a Vikings fan. He is talking about being a little off after missing all of training camp. Isn't that what practice is for? To get all of the timing and chemistry nailed down. Of course he is off and he can't use slugs like Cleveland and Detroit as training camp substitute this season since their schedule is a lot harder. But I think they are going to be fine given that defense and the fact that Favre is going to be fine eventually.

Favre's old team, the Packers are a trendy super bowl pick from the NFC this season. I am surprised, but happy about it. I have always been a fan of Aaron Rodgers and he is clearly one of the top QBs in the league today. Suddenly this era has become a golden era for quarterbacks after a few years of serious mediocrity at the position outside of a coupe of elite QBs. Now, there are more than a dozen high quality QBs with a lot of young guns like Rodgers and Rivers. I was happy to see A-Rod lead all QBs in the fantasy rankings. I don't always remember when I am wrong, but I won't forget to remind people if and when I am right. I told anybody who would listen that Rodgers will be good and same with Brees. I have liked both these guys from their college days and they had their ups and downs in the league, but they have finally arrived. Tomorrow, Rodgers and the Packers have a big start against Phily. Week 1 features a lot of good games and I am ready for all of them.

In college today, Penn state couldn't hang with Alabama and Florida state got embarrassed by Oklahoma. Miami lost to Ohio state and Georgia lost to South Carolina in the top-25. The biggest loser of the weekend didn't even play. Boise state was off after their impressive victory, but Va Tech made sure it was not that impressive anymore by promptly losing to James Madison at home. Not sure what it does to Boise state's championship aspirations, but it can't be good. In the Pac-10, my man - captain comeback Jim Harbaugh and his boys from Stanford undressed the Bruins 35-0. Thats a great start to their Pac-10 season. ASU won and the other great win for Pac-10 was with Oregon crushing Tennessee 48-13. USA barely sneaked past