Tonight: Rams +3 over Niners

Hey, remember that time Sam Bradford was a #1 overall pick?

Tough one tonight.  I literally went back and forth about 5 times.  San Fran has looked downright terrible the past two weeks.  Kaepernick looks like a rookie QB, which shouldn't be shocking given that tonight will be just his 11th NFL regular season start.  I may or may not have just benched him in fantasy for Terrelle Pryor.  The Rams, on the other hand, looked putrid last week against Dallas in a game I thought they'd compete in.

In any event, make it easy on yourself: it's two 1-2 teams in a divisional match-up, except the home team's getting a field goal instead of giving it.  Plus, the line moved toward St. Louis, so the smart money's on the Rams.  So is my pick.

THE PICK: Niners 21, Rams 19

Facebook.com/BackupQuarterbackBlog
Twitter.com/TheBackupQB

Week 9 Preview and Picks

Cam Newton's Panthers have as many wins as he has fingers up,
but that's likely to change in the second half of the season

Our new layout and avatar lasted all of a week.  Last week, we looked at the best- and worst-case scenarios for newly-appointed Chiefs starting QB Brady Quinn, whose picture adorned the side of this blog and served as our Twitter avatar.  Quinn’s line in his start against Oakland?  2-for-4 for 1 yard, 1 interception, and 1 head injury.  Yikes.  Matt Cassel returns to the starting lineup tonight, and Brady Quinn returns to the top of the webpage (albeit with a friend whose wardrobe we detailed here).

As we hit the midpoint of the 2012 NFL season, we look at teams who have deviated significantly from their early season performance.  More than a few have started out either hot or cold and currently resemble a far different team than they did in weeks 1-3.  A deeper dive after the jump.

Assessing Ron Jaworski's QB Rankings

Jaws released his ranking of the NFL's top 30 quarterbacks last month

ESPN analyst and former Eagles QB Ron Jaworski completed his much-hyped list of the NFL's top 30 quarterbacks last month when he named Aaron Rodgers the top QB in football.

Jaws based his a lot of his opinion on the "eye test," or what he saw in a player from watching film.  This is totally appropraite given Jaws' background as an NFL QB, as he's well-positioned to assess a player's technique or prowess in a particular aspect of football (playing against the rush, checking down, throwing the deep ball, etc.).  Nonetheless, we thought it might be interesting to compare his rankings to the weighted AV ratings we've been using in our team previews.  As a reminder, those ratings are based on on the yearly AV metric from our friends at Pro Football Reference, using the following formula:

2009 AV + 2 x 2010 AV + 3 x 2011 AV

You can see the two rankings side-by-side after the jump.

The New Coach Bump? A look at the chances of success for the 7 new Head Coaches

Will any of this year's new head coaches enjoy the success Coach Boone did in his first season?

Hope springs anew in 7 NFL cities this fall.  Fans in Jacksonville, Kansas City, Miami, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Indianapolis are convinced that their new coach is the one to lead them to a Lombardi Trophy or, at the very least, that he has to be better than that clown they just fired.  But are these new coaches any more likely to see success than their predecessors?

After the jump, a look at how the 65 first-year head coaches since 2002 have fared in their first season, and what it means for the 7 teams who made coaching changes for this season.