The Port Huron Statement On The 2006 NFL Season
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by user Thefeed
It came to me watching the latest report of Terrell Owens missing a practice, getting fined and starting the media circus all over again. Like the voice from above in “Field of Dreams” or tiny, infant baby Jesus in his golden diapers coming to me in a dream:
"Life does not start and stop at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit!"
It wasn’t the first time “The Big Lebowski” perfectly summed up one of life’s situations and it won’t be the last, surprising if only because of the seeming simplicity of the film’s plot. A bowler loses his rug. That’s what it’s all about, the adventures and difficulties that the Dude encounters trying to replace a rug, that I think we can all agree, really tied the room together. Nihilists, fascist police chiefs, pornographers and runaway dirt farmers complicate the picture, there’s a little romance thrown in and even a dream sequence or two but all just add to the gaping chasm on the Dude’s living room floor.
On the surface, anyway. After you’ve watched the movie six or seven hundred times it becomes clear that there’s a lot more at play. Somewhere in the zoo of pederasts and video artists everything begins making sense. Everything is interconnected at levels far beyond the naked eye and just as Larry Sellers can get in between Autobahn’s quest for financial security, so can we divine answers about the upcoming NFL situation. The above quote is just the first of many that I’ve encountered and that I will now, with great apologies to Bill Simmons, share with you today and tomorrow in The Feed's Exclusive NFL Preview, brought to you by the In-And-Out Burger on Radford.
"Mr. Lebowski is prepared to make a generous offer to you to act as courier, once we get instructions for the money.' "Why me, man?" “He believes the culprits might be the very people who, uh, soiled your rug, and you are in a unique position to confirm or disconfirm that suspicion.” “He thinks the carpet pissers did this?”
Just as the Big Lebowski stepped into a steaming pile of shit when he married Bunny La Joya, a.k.a. Fawn Knutson of Moorehead, Minnesota, Zygi Wilf has bitten off more than he could chew a little further south in the state. Last season saw the trade of Randy Moss, the sex boat scandal, Daunte Culpepper’s injury and eventual departure and head coach Mike Tice’s dismissal. Wilf then went and made a bad situation worse by bringing in Koren Robinson to improve the receiving corps and signing Steve Hutchinson to an outrageous seven year/$49 million contract to play left guard. Robinson is already released following an embarrassing arrest for leading police on a drunken car chase after swearing he was sober after earlier substance abuse problems. Hutchinson is still around and will be a strong player but the Vikings could have and should have made better use of their money. The only nod to a lackluster defense was using their first pick on linebacker Chad Greenway, but he’ll miss the season with a torn ACL, leaving a third tier defense pretty well unchanged. With five playoff teams in their first seven games, the defense will get picked on a lot early and Chester Taylor isn’t the guy to take pressure off Brad Johnson. Perhaps Wilf is pulling a Big Lebowski-style fast one and new coach Brad Childress is just a ringer.
“Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.”
In honor of new Jet running back Kevan Barlow’s parting shot at Mike Nolan, this quote goes to the San Francisco 49ers. It’s not easy to figure out what Nolan’s up to out at Candlestick Park as the Niners prepare for their second season with him at the helm. The jury is still out, though thumbs seem poised in the down position, on Alex Smith, the team used the sixth overall pick on a tight end and added past-their-prime vets Larry Allen and Walt Harris to round out a pretty unsavory cast of characters. Vernon Davis may well be the next member of the Gates-Shockey-Gonzalez triumvirate and he was a safe, sexy pick in April but it’s the easy way out for a team that doesn’t give off the vibe of a team with a plan and a blueprint for the future. Say what you want about the Bill Walsh offense, at least it’s an ethos.
“Regrettably, it's true, standards have fallen in adult entertainment. It's video, Dude. Now that we're competing with the amateurs, we can't afford to invest that little extra in story, production value, feeling. People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone…” “On you, maybe.”
Brett Favre flogged himself back into camp and back into uniform for another go-round on the NFL carousel but the bloom is far gone from his rose. Two or three seasons ago he was universally “the quarterback who was past it but who you didn’t want to face in a game” and then moved to “the quarterback who struggles but when the chips are down, he’s my guy” to “even Muhammed Ali knew it was time to quit.” It’s not fun watching Favre throw three interceptions each week, it’s not fun watching guys like Robert Ferguson drop his passes and it’s not fun to watch the hand-wringing that accompanies him until his inevitable decision to return for another season. Sports Illustrated’s preview features the following quote about Favre – “He’s still good, just a little inconsistent. But he’s still got the arm and he’s a tough guy at heart.”
He’s not inconsistent, he’s consistently erratic. Every week he loads up his strong arm and flings the ball hither and yon with little clue where it’s ending up because he has crappy receivers, a crappy line and no running game backing him up. Why does it matter how hard he throws the ball when it’s the other team catching it? Favre is a Hall-of-Famer and was a top-tier NFL quarterback but he isn’t one any more and the Packers aren’t going to be a good team.
“Uh. Yeah, uh. Me and, uh, the driver. I'm not handling the money, driving the car and talking on the phone all at the same time.”
Reggie Bush is going to have a really great NFL career. He’s forgotten moves that others could never have learned to begin with, has a bright, winning personality and a world of success waiting for him. It just might not come all at once. He’s playing for a rebuilding team in a rebuilding town in a pretty stacked division but like it says above, he’s not doing it all alone. Drew Brees was a smart pickup for new coach Sean Payton’s offense and the team isn’t taking a quick fix approach to healing both the wounded roster and fractured relationship with the home city caused by irascible owner Tom Benson. Bush and Brees show that the team is serious about getting better but the offensive line and entire defense are works in progress that probably won’t start bearing fruit for a year or two. Just don’t blame it all on Reggie when the struggles start and let him grow into the player we all want him to be.
“Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don't draw shit, Lebowski. Now we got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off. Do I make myself clear?”
Mike Vanderjagt missed the wrong kick at the wrong time in Indianapolis and the ligature marks were still fresh on Peyton Manning’s neck when the kicker found himself ditched on the side of the road by the Colts. Now, the season’s just a week away and Vanderjagt’s missing preseason kicks with Dallas who, as you might know, is coached by a guy who regards kickers the same way the reactionary police chief of Malibu regards the Dude.
“You thought that Bunny had been kidnapped and you were fuckin' glad, man. You could use it as an excuse to make some money disappear. You'd just met me... You human paraquat! You figured 'Oh, here's a loser. A deadbeat, someone the square community won't give a shit about.”
The Dude’s moment of truth could double for Donovan McNabb’s. That moment, more than a year ago now, when they realized that everything Terrell Owens did and everything Terrell Owens said was fugazy. McNabb lobbied for Owens, welcomed him to his team and provided him with the tools for a remarkable 2005 season, before finding out he was being used for a sap months later. Owens’s sad, pathetic little show undermined any chance that the Eagles had last season and when McNabb and the defense went down to injury it was almost a sweet reprieve from going through the motions of a prematurely lost season. The Eagles seem to be headed in the right direction in building things back up, the most recent positive move being the acquisition of receiver Donte Stallworth from the Saints, and they still have McNabb, a fierce competitor who is burning to prove Owens wrong.
“Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass?”
Ah, Matt Millen’s Detroit Lions. Karmic retribution for something though I know not what. Joey Harrington is gone, Charles Rogers and Mike Williams are headed out the door (it’s gotta feel great to be a Lion fan watching Eddie Drummond and Corey Bradford play wideout while two top-10 picks jerk themselves on the sideline) and the team is trying to start all over again. So who does Millen pick as the new coach? Rod Marinelli, who spent most of his first press conference in a four-point stance, a throwback to the leather helmet era who just might have a harder time getting the slugs Millen’s acquired to play for him than buddy-buddy Steve Mariucci. And then they hired the dislikable Mike Martz to run the offense. Martz, who knows something about assfucking from his time with St. Louis, takes over the offense and has worked wonders with players of less stature than Jon Kitna and Kevin Jones could be an interesting weapon in Martz’s system. The Lions are in an unusual spot of starting with a whole new coaching staff and quarterback but under almost as much pressure to win right away. That’s not the fairest of situations for a NFL team but, well, that’s what happens when you…
“So what do you do Lebowski?” “Who the fuck are you, man?” “Oh, just a friend of Maudie’s” “Yeah? The friend with the cleft asshole? What do you do?” “Oh, nothing much.”
Could there have been a more awkward first meeting in NFL camps this summer than the one between Kurt Warner and Matt Leinart? Warner is a former arena leaguer and grocery stockboy who scrapped his way into the NFL, got a chance because someone else got hurt, lost his mojo, bounced from the Rams to the Giants to the Cardinals trying to get it back and all the while keeping his stiff Christian upper lip and going home to his, shall we say, not Super Bowl MVP-worthy wife. Leinart, on the other hand, went to one of the biggest football factories in American education, won a Heisman and a National Title, was drafted in the Top 10 and held out for more money yet finding the time to both knock up his college sweetie and pay booty calls on Paris Hilton.
“Look, just stay away from my fucking lady friend.” “Hey, I'm not messing with your special lady.” “She's not my special lady, she's my fucking lady friend. I'm just helping her conceive.”
Speaking of uncomfortable relationships, there’s no shakier coach-quarterback combo than the one down Atlanta way. Michael Vick was supposed to change the position and the game of football, play Neo to the Matrix if you’re so inclined, but Jim Mora Jr. seems bent on running the low-risk, short-passing West Coast offense with a quarterback who needs to be athletic and explosive to be successful. And it’s not like the team is going out of its way to pick up players suited to their style. The trade for Ashley Lelie brings in a receiver good at going deep and lacking the toughness for going over the middle, i.e. a player about as well-suited for his role as Adrien Grenier is for those that involve acting. No one seems to know just what to do with Vick, due at least in part to his inability to work within the confines of any offense not just Mora’s, and that makes it damned hard for the team to regain the championship game they were in just two years ago.
And since we are already talking about the fine scene with Jon Polito as the Dude’s brother shamus, Da Fino,
“Let me tell ya something - I dig your work. Playing one side against the other, in bed with everybody - just fabulous stuff.”
Keyshawn Johnson sashayed his way off another team right into the waiting arms of an even better team for even more money, for the THIRD time in his career. Never has Johnson even been considered on the level of an Owens or Marvin Harrison and yet he goes from team to team, making more enemies than friends and then finding himself in a rosy patch at the end of the day. He’ll catch a lot of possession balls from Jake Delhomme with Steve Smith on the other side and create some space for DeShaun Foster or DeAngelo Williams to create a running attack in Carolina after a so-so season in Dallas last year.
“Oh, no I did, but I spent most of my time occupying various administration buildings... smoking a lot of thai stick... breaking into the ROTC... and bowling. To tell you the truth Brandt, I don't remember most of it.”
The St. Louis Rams went 6-10 last season but other than Mike Martz’s health problems and feud with Kyle Turley, to tell you the truth, I don’t remember much of it. They seem to be pretty decent offensively. Steven Jackson established himself as a starting tailback last year, you could do worse than Marc Bulger and the receiving corps remain solidly staffed by Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce and Kevin Curtis. New coach Scott Linehan has a strong reputation building offenses in Miami and Minnesota which is another plus as is a schedule that features just six games against 2005 playoff teams. If the defense comes up with something memorable this could be one in the 2006 NFC.
“Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing... I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this fucking strumpet... “ “I don't see any connection to Vietnam, Walter.” “Well, there isn't a literal connection, Dude.” “Walter, face it, there isn't any connection.”
The second act of Joe Gibbs’s Redskin coaching career isn’t going quite so swimmingly as his first tenure. Back then Gibbs plugged in player after player (Theisman, Schroeder, Williams, Rypien and Riggins, Rogers, Timmy Smith) with no drop-off in production. Today he’s stuck with Mark Brunell at quarterback and staring at a very long season if Clinton Portis doesn’t recover fully from a preseason shoulder injury. They made the playoffs with Brunell last year which is quite a mark in Gibbs’s favor since Brunell is incapable of throwing a decent pass, which makes you wonder why the rich fuck that runs the team went on a buying binge of wide receivers. The defense should be killer even without Lavar Arrington, the division is tough but the Skins get the Vikings and Texans in the first three weeks to balance road tests at Dallas and the Giants. The late slate looks a bit easier so if the Skins can start quickly they could be a factor down the stretch.
“I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars.” “Ah hahahahaha! Wonderful woman. We're all, we're all very fond of her. Very free-spirited.” “Brandt can't watch, though, or he has to pay a hundred.” “Ah haha. That's marvelous. “ “Uh, I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.”
Just reminds me of Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.
“Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug, uh, regimen to keep my mind, you know, uh, limber.”
Your 2006 trendy pick for NFC Super Bowl representative, the Carolina Panthers have much to like. Jake Delhomme has been a steady, productive quarterback, Johnson and Smith make a dangerous wideout pair and the defense can attack as well as any in the league. They are also the team that’s dragged the NFL into baseball’s steroid mess thanks to a South Carolina doctor who provided performance enhancers to several players on the 2003 championship team. None of the players are still with the Panthers, but if Congress and the league start snooping around it is likely that John Fox will be part of the investigation which could distract from the matters on hand.
“Obviously you’re not a golfer.”
A cakewalk of a schedule makes a 14-2 record a real possibility, the defense is coming off a year that ended with them rated second overall in the NFL and the team has a bitter defeat in the playoffs to use as motivation for the coming year. So why am I not more excited about the Bears? Rex Grossman is reason 1A, Brian Griese is reason 1B and Kyle Orton is reason 1C. These are not three men who know how that inflated oblong pigskin is best used.
“He helps administer the charities now, and I give him a reasonable allowance. He has no money of his own. I know how he likes to present himself; Father's weakness is vanity. Hence the slut.”
There comes a point where you have to look at Bill Parcells and wonder what the hell the point of this comeback with the Cowboys was all about. His resume needs no burnishing and his heart certainly doesn’t need the stress of having T.O. (the slut in this parable) in your life so at some level it’s just gotta be a vanity thing for the Tuna. Maybe Bill Belichick’s success, maybe even Herman Edwards’s relative success with the Jets with players he drafted was what caused him to feel the need to re-enter the fray with the Joker paying his bills but it’s really just been a lot of scrambling around to be an average team at the end of the day. All the pieces seem to be in place for the Cowboys to make a big run this season; the lingering rumors of Tony Romo’s ascent to the quarterback job,however, mixed with the likelihood of future Tuna-T.O. face-offs make it hard to back this team with any kind of confidence. I mean, can you imagine what T.O. would do to Romo? He’s thrown Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb under the nearest bus and Romo doesn’t have half the accomplishments of even Garcia. Bad vibes oozing out of Big D.
“Fucking Arthur Digby Sellers wrote 156 episodes, Dude. Bulk of the series. Not exactly a lightweight. And yet his son is a fucking dunce.”
Poor Eli Manning. He of the more accomplished father and brother and possessor of the most hang-dog expression this side of Joe Lieberman has the weight of New York’s football hopes on his shaky shoulders. He spit the bit down the stretch and was awful in the playoffs and, with the Jets at something less than contender status; all eyes will be on the third-year man. He gets to open with a Sunday nighter against his brother who figures to put a big number up against the questionable Giant secondary. Eli’s gotta hang some crooked figures of his own to keep the fans and media at bay and live up to the legacy of the good men who died at Bitter Creek.
“Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!”
I think it may be sometime this Thursday that Mike Holmgren lets go of his anger toward the officiating staff from the Seahawks’ Super Bowl loss. It remains to be seen if Holmgren’s drum banging will serve as a gelling motivator for the defending NFC champs or if the team will take the customary post-championship step back. Matt Hasselbeck, Shaun Alexander, Lofa Tatupu and most of the other stars are back from last year though standout lineman Steve Hutchinson took off for the Vikings. All the pieces are in place for the ‘Hawks to remain a strong team but history says that something – an injury to Alexander maybe? – will stand in the way of their making it back to the big dance.
“I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up.” “Yeah well, ya know, that's just, like uh, your opinion, man.” “Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger till it goes "click".”
It’s time to throw down the gauntlet and tell you that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the pick here for the NFC champion. Chris Simms made some big strides over the second half of last season and has clearly won the favor of Jon Gruden. David Boston is winning raves in his latest comeback attempt, a career-saving season from the matchup nightmare would give Simms another weapon to go with Joey Galloway and open more room for Cadillac Williams to roam. The defense is aging but ridiculously talented and loaded with big game experience. They will be primed for a last run and armed with an impressive offense, the Bucs will prevail over all the above teams. But, that’s just, like, my opinion.
Date
Tue 09/05/06, 7:57 am EST
