Friday 11 April 2014

America's Week: 11/4

Next season's schedule is starting to come out, and a few more prospects have been getting their look in at their own pro days. In addition to that free agency is still turning up new surprises.






NFL 2014 Schedule


Don't get too excited, it's just the pre-season schedule. There are a few fascinating match up's among the pedestrian fixtures though. The full list is available here, but I'll talk through a few that I suspect could make for good viewing (or as good as you can hope for in pre-season).

Week 1 - New York Giants vs Buffalo Bills

This is the start of 2014. The Hall of Fame game, between two teams that didn't match up to their potential in the past season. This one is exciting simply for the fact that it's the first NFL game since the Super Bowl.

Week 1 - Seattle Seahawks @ Denver Broncos

What a way to start your season, with a chance to settle the debate for a second time. If Denver come out with a win, that'll put them right back in the driving seat for the AFC crown. Seattle are the team to chase, and everyone will up their game to bring the champions down.

Week 3 - Chicago Bears @ Seattle Seahawks

In reality I just want to see that big secondary of Seattle go up against those big receivers of the Bears and see who wins that battle. The rest of the game is less interesting, but purely for that positional match up, this will be a hard one to beat.

Week 4 - New York Jets @ Philadelphia Eagles

The Jets weren't great last season, but the reshuffle during free agency has me intrigued yet again. By this point in the pre-season schedule we'll have an idea of how Philadelphia (and specifically Chip Kelly) are coping with the sophomore slump. I'm also going to keep an eye on that DeSean Jackson-less offense.


Road to the Draft

The big pro day of the last week was at LSU, where the newly bionic Zach Mettenberger was throwing strikes to Odell Beckham Jr on the outside. While his workout was far from being perfect, or even top of the class, it was impressive as his return to the field after surgery mere months ago.

Kelvin Benjamin came back upon some unwelcome attention, after apparently turning down a workout session with NFL coaches due to being "too tired". Theories are now swirling around about whether or not he should have taken part in the workout, but any kind of attention like this is bad news. As such Benjamin has started sliding back down draft boards.


Alex Mack

The last bastion of big name free agency was Alex Mack, no longer. After a couple of days of rumours surrounding an offer made by Jacksonville for his services it seems that he's returning to the northern shores of Ohio. The Browns announced Friday that it will match the five-year, $42 million offer sheet the Pro Bowl center signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars.



And as always, keep up to date with the latest over on Twitter @AScotOnGridiron.