Don Banks' Snap Judgments Might Be Too Snappy For Their Own Good

From Don Banks' latest Snap Judgments column:

Does anybody handle the whole Week 17 to-play-or-not-to-play issue better than New England? Every year, the Patriots play it pretty straight, like their playoff hopes are on the line, even when they're not. Even Wes Welker's season-ending knee injury last year in Houston didn't prompt a major change of philosophy this time around (although Welker was held out on Sunday at home against Miami).

Wes Welker's injury in week 17 of 2010 didn't alter New England's philosphy at all, except in their decision NOT TO PLAY WES WELKER IN WEEK 17 OF 2011.

Don Banks needs to spend a few more minutes thinking out his Snap Judgments

From Don Banks latest Snap Judgments column, comes this:

If we're talking about strictly the most valuable player in the league, how can you argue that anyone means more to his team than Matt Cassel does to the Chiefs?

Anyone who knows how to say the "Phillip Rivers," "Tom Brady," or "Peyton Manning"* instantly has a better argument than any Cassel for MVP advocates.

For serious, Matt Cassel is, by just about any metric, a marginally above average quarterback. At best, he's the third most valuable component on his own team's offense behind Jamal Charles and Dwayne Bowe. Meanwhile, Rivers, Brady, and Manning are far and away the most important players on their team's offense and are better than Cassel in every metric.

*I don't necessarily think those should be the top 3 finishers in the MVP vote; those guys are both in the same conference as Cassel and obviously more valuable at his position than him.

We saw what [The Chiefs] were without [Cassel] last week at San Diego, when Kansas City produced just 67 yards of offense in a 31-0 loss.

Brody Croyle is awful, but there's no way that the dropoff between Cassel and Croyle is as profound as the gulf of talent between Rivers, Brady, Manning, and their respective backups.

But in Sunday's 27-13 Chiefs' win at St. Louis, Cassel helped keep his club in first place in the AFC West, throwing for 184 yards and a touchdown

With numbers like that, they might as well just rename the MVP award: "The Matt Cassel Award for Best QB EVAR!!"

With Cassel back, the Rams (6-8) couldn't just key on the Kansas City running game like San Diego did.

The Rams stink. The Chargers don't.

The result was the Chiefs (9-5) rumbled for 210 yards rushing, with Jamaal Charles leading the way with 126 yards and a touchdown on just 11 carries.

MVP = Most Valuable Player-who-hands-the-ball-off-on-nearly-every-play

Snap Cognitive Dissonance With Don Banks

From this week's Snap Judgments column:

If you've seen one Jets game this season, you've seen them all. Not to repeat myself from last Sunday's Snaps, but the resilient Jets are going to find a way to win, no matter how long the game lasts...It must be torture for New York fans to sit through these three-hour high-wire acts every Sunday, but I don't know how you can possibly take exception with the results.

Bah, whatever. The Football Outsiders say that the Jets luck unit leads the league in wins, which I tend to agree with. But I also agree with Don Banks that a win's a win and all that. However, a few paragraphs later, Banks has this to say:

The Ravens wound up making it look like a comfortable win, but if you watched Baltimore's 37-13 conquest of out-manned Carolina, you know better. The Panthers, with the very lightly experienced Brian St. Pierre at quarterback, were within seven points (at 20-13) until late in the third quarter. Baltimore really doesn't close the deal very well this season...

So let's recap:

The Jets, who have needed the last few minutes of regulation or overtime to put away the sub-.500 Dolphins, Vikings, Broncos, Lions, Browns, and Texans, are a thrilling team whose results you can't argue with.

Conversely, the Ravens, who blew out the Dolphins and Broncos, don't close games out very well and therefore, their wins can be easily discounted.

Note: Yes, I'm a Ravens fan. No, I don't think the Ravens are objectively better than the Jets. In fact, I think the Jets would probably win a rematch if they played tomorrow. I just think it's a little ridiculous that Banks and a lot of other media folk are falling over themselves to congratulate the Jets for racking up come from behind wins against teams with losing records.

Snap Hyperbole with Don Banks

From Don Banks Snap Judgments column:

Indy entered the game 15-1 against division rival Houston from 2002 on; and until the Texans manned up and handled the Colts, they were going to forever seem like the expansion club that couldn't quite shed that label.

With the rate of turnover in the NFL, I don't really know how much, if at all, the Texans players care about this sort of thing. However, it's certainly a very happy day for Texans fans who have suffered through the lop-sided rivalry, so I'm all for giving this victory a little more prosey prose. However, Banks had to then go and make it all seem absurd and contrived with this needless histrionic description:

In a very real sense, this was Houston's Super Bowl.

In a very real sense, the Texans and their fans would not be satisfied finishing 1-15.
In a very real sense, the Texans and their fans would prefer to go 0-2 against the Colts and win the Super Bowl than go 2-0 and not win the Super Bowl.
In a very real sense, this was not Houston's Super Bowl.