Week 1 NFL Ramblings, Anecdotes, and Conspiracies
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Before I get started I would just like to take a moment to give my best to Buffalo Bill’s and former University of Miami tight end Kevin Everett. Although the tone of this piece is not serious, there is nothing funny about what happened in Buffalo yesterday. A grim reminder of what else can happen on any given Sunday. Here is a young man who was just beginning to come into his own in his third year in the league, and now his career may be over before it has had a chance to really even get started. Football aside I wish nothing but the best to Everett and his family and hope a speedy recovery is forthcoming.
That aside, I want to say a bit about what I hope to do with this column. Let’s face it folks, when your sitting on armchair and you see this pop up you are thinking, oh great, another NFL article, this is only the 47 th one of those I have read today. The point, yes, I know the NFL is more overdone than a $2 steak. Just like the rest of you, I become violently ill if subjected to more than 5 minutes of draft combine coverage. Despite this, being the Superfan that I am I have decided to undertake an operation more difficult than finding an unopened bag of chips on the Madden Cruiser. Yes, you’ve heard me correct, I am attempting to cover the NFL in a way that it has never been covered before!!! So here’s the deal. I don’t want to write this if people don’t like it, so I need you to speak with your votes. I want you to only vote for this article if you feel that it was both informative and entertaining, and gave you something in the way of NFL coverage that you couldn’t get anywhere else. If I get 20 votes I will write this every week as long as I continue getting said 20 votes. Less than 20, I go away and you have one less NFL article to deal with every week. Here we go:
Nothing floors me more than the fact that people continue to pick the road team on opening night, yet many pundits had the Saints on Thursday. When are people going to realize this is all a huge set-up? If you take the defending Super Bowl champions, and give them their rings in front of their home crowd, and then let them play a huge prime time game in front of those same fans immediately afterward, don’t you think that team is going to be just a little fired up? Even if said team has Manning and Dungy (insert tin man joke here) this team is going to have a nearly insurmountable edge. No home team has lost yet since the NFL began using the format of opening with the defending champs at home on Thursday night in 2004. However, this is also the NFL’s way of guaranteeing that the defending champs peak on opening night, thereby avoiding repeat Super Bowl winners. Only the 2004 Patriots have gone onto win the Super Bowl after playing on opening night.
Did anyone else think that Andy Reid looked like he had gotten into his kid’s medicine cabinet before the game? From running a flea flicker on the game’s second play from scrimmage, to the atrocious special teams play, which cost them the game, the Eagles were obviously unprepared. By halfway through the third quarter Reid had already broken Mike Holmgren’s all time record for most times making a face like the guy who didn’t get his paycheck in Office Space.
Donovan McNabb provided further evidence of what we all knew already, that it takes two full years to return from an ACL tear. If I were them I would look into adding Ozzie Smith to the receiving corps with all the short hops he threw yesterday. If they didn’t get to play the Redskins twice I would say Philadelphia was headed for about a 4-12 season.
The story that spoke the loudest while doing the least was Larry Johnson’s 10 carry 43 yard effort against Houston. Something tells me that this was Kansas City’s way of saying, hmmmm…. our quarterbacks are terrible, everybody thinks we are going to suck this year anyway, and we just gave a lot of guaranteed money to a guy who had a record amount of carries last year. Maybe if we don’t give him another 400 carries he might last a couple more years until we have a chance to be good again. When the Chiefs are about 0-4 and Johnson pulls up Randy Moss style with a hammy in week 5 never to be seen again remember you heard it here first.
Was there an uglier game yesterday than Miami at Washington? When Trent Green came out without his helmet for the opening coin flip he looked as if he had aged since last season at about an equivalent rate to the amount Ben Stiller has aged from Meet the Fockers to his The Heartbreak Kid previews. I know you have seen these commercials, the guy looks like he about two years away from living in Kevin James’ basement. Anyway, this game fittingly enough included the most spectacular meaningless play ever. At the end of regulation Washington’s Jason Campbell heaved a 65 year hail mary overthrowing his intended receiver Antwan Randel El by at least ten yards. Instead of letting the ball drop to the ground Miami’s Jason Taylor batted the ball right back into the hands of Randel El who was just barely reaching the 5 yard line by this point. He was crushed out of bounds at the one and the game went on to overtime.
While most of the east coast was in the middle of their booze snooze before dinner and the night game the NFL quietly reached a new all-time low in terms of quarterback play. When Tampa Bay’s Luke McCown took over for Jeff Garcia at Seattle, while Josh McCown was quarterbacking for the Raider’s in Oakland, for the first time in NFL history 33% of the quarterbacks playing in the Sunday afternoon slate of games were named McCown! Three afternoon games, equals six quarterbacks, two are named McCown you do the math. To make matters worse one of the other quarterbacks playing during this same period was Rex Grossman. Now, with the exception of Lovie Smith I have been one of Grossman’s staunches advocates over the years. However, after watching him literally shit his pants, drop the ball, and kick it across the field at the sight of an oncoming Shawne Merriman yesterday, it’s just getting harder and harder to say anything good about the guy. Not coincidentally all three lost further illustrating the importance of quarterback play in the NFL.
As of the end of Sunday Night’s Dallas victory over the Giants one thing became spotlessly clear to in the words of Dennis Green, “be what we thought it was.” Tiki Barber’s retirement, ahem, charade to force the Giants into getting rid of Tom Coughlin. After, starting tailback Brandon Jacob’s unfortunate injury, John Madden’s politicking for his co-worker’s return to the Giants was nothing short of shameful.
Then, on the post game show, Barber taking full advantage of his former teammate’s injury essentially used his highly paid national television job to taunt Giants ownership. Going on and on about how injury prone the team has been and while never mentioning the name all but blaming every injury that the Giants have ever had on Coughlin. A not so slick salesman, with a smirk that said it all, “if you want me back on the field, get rid of Coughlin.” Classy!
The problem is, even if you do get rid of Coughlin, Barber has already thrown his quarterback under the bus too. Is there a more dysfunctional franchise in all of sports right now? Wellington Mara must be turning over in his grave.
A shout goes out to the guy in my fantasy league who traded Tony Romo and Lee Evans to another guy for Matt Leinart and Mark Clayton. Hope that one works out for you.
Pacman Update: I know, I know, you are like here he goes talking about Pacman Jones, but wait, I am here to give props to Pacman. Football would be a lot less entertaining without him. First of all, there aren’t enough football players named after video game characters. I think that Leonard Davis should be known as Donkey Kong since he is big and clumsy and Devin Hester should be known as Sonic the Hedgehog because of his similar moves and hairstyle.
Secondly, if you know me you know I despise reality TV more than just about anything. It’s right up there with George Bush and Global Warming on my list of favorite things. However, if you made a reality show about Pacman I might actually watch it. You know why, because they wouldn’t have to ham it up Real World style, you could literally just follow this guy around for a day and film it and it would be cutting edge. This guy gets himself into more sticky situations than Nancy Botwin.
Third, he gave me the idea for the greatest team name in fantasy football history, “Pacman’s Entourage . ”
Fourth, last night he won the TNA wrestling tag team championship without even having to step into the ring except to pin a guy who was already knocked unconscious. AND HIS REGULAR ENTOURAGE WASN’T EVEN THERE!!! You know things are in a sorry state when there is actually a sport that improves its image by hiring Pacman Jones.
Fifth, and finally, he is one hell of a football player. He is one of the top cornerbacks and return men in the league, and despite winning against Jacksonville yesterday, the Titans will sorely miss him this year.
Stay tuned next week for why Michael Vick isn’t such a bad guy after all, and why Terrell Owens should be president (seriously).
Chris Brown (running-back) vs. Chris Brown (singer)
At one of my fantasy football drafts a buddy of mine and me got into a disagreement over who would have a better year out of Chris Brown the Tennessee Titans running-back or Chris Brown, the singer of such hits as, “Run It,” which of course lead to this piece.
Chris Brown – (running-back) – Brown gashed Jacksonville’s defense for an astounding 9.2 yards per carry on Sunday gaining 175 yards on 19 carries in the 13-10 win.
Chris Brown - (singer) – Brown doesn’t have a single in the Billboard top 50 nor does he have an album in the top 100. The release date on his new album has recently been pushed back from Oct. 30 to Nov. 6. Also, he was forced to change the title of the album from Graduation to Exclusive due to Kanye West naming his new album, due in stores this Tuesday, Graduation.
This week’s edge – In about as big of a barn burner as Oregon vs Michigan, Chris Brown the running-back takes week 1.
Finally, we get to our last conspiracy theory of the week with the late Monday Night Match-Up between the Cardinals in the 49ers.
If you look back to 2002 when the NFL expanded to 32 teams and realigned one of the real losers in the realignment was none other than the then Arizona State University Cardinals who now represent the University of Phoenix and play in Glendale. Cardinal’s owner Bill Bidwell was one of the few owners in the league who opposed the realignment because he would lose his yearly game against the Cowboys. Somehow he had managed to convince his fans that they were rivals.
Despite his protests the realignment had to happen because it made too much sense not to. I can foresee a scenario where in the backrooms of the NFL Offices then Commissioner Paul Tagliabue may have sat down with Bidwell (a long time and extremely loyal to the league owner) and promised him that if he agreed to the realignment the league would help him create a new rivalry with San Francisco. (Remember everyone still wanted to be like the Cowboys and 49ers back then)
It may not be a smoking gun yet, but I have my evidence. There have been some pretty strange games between the 49ers and Cardinals and odd plays and circumstances over the last few years. Take 2004 for instance. The 49ers went 2-14 that year, and both wins came against Arizona. Both games had a final score of 31-28, and both in overtime.
In, 2005 there was the infamous random Sunday night game played in Mexico City between two horrendous teams. (Inexplicably, the Cardinals seem to have a huge following in Mexico City. Either that or they give away mass quantities of Cardinals t-shirts at Mexico City clothing drives my money is on the latter). On a night that I mostly remember because I had Neil Rackers on my fantasy team. The 49ers rumbled, fumbled, and stumbled their way to a 31-14 defeat in front of 100,000 plus crimson clad Mexico Citians (is that what their called?). The Cardinals mostly just looked shocked that there were actually fans wearing their team colors and cheering for them, most of the team had never experienced this before. Looking back that may be one of the most questionable games ever along with that Atlanta at New Orleans fix fest week 3 of last year.
That of course brings us to last year when the Cardinals played their first ever game at University of Phoenix Stadium week 1 against none other than the 49ers. Now let’s set the scene here. A city has just built a $400 million stadium for a team that has made the playoffs twice since 1947, and considers their defining moment to be a first round playoff win over a fading Cowboys team in 1998. Translation, if the Cardinals lose this game several players are probably getting shot walking out to their car.
Conveniently, San Francisco spots Arizona a 21-7 first quarter lead.
(It was even mentioned that the Cardinals had requested to have San Francisco as their opening opponent. You see, college teams get to do that sort of thing. Too bad they didn’t do so good in selecting their home coming game opponent where the Chicago Bears were not only named king, but Dennis Green was gracious enough to “crown their asses.”)
Of course these are the Cardinals, and they almost blew that lead. They ended up squeaking out a 34-27 victory, but I seem to remember the game ending on the sort of play like when you are playing your little brother on a video game. Then you step out on the one yard line when time runs out because you know you’ve got to let him win once in awhile or he will quit playing.
Now you see the evidence mounting which brings us back to tonight, and payback time. To have a good rivalry both teams have to trade back and forth winning big games, even if those big games are contrived big games. Tonight, of course is no such exception. Unless, you live in San Francisco or Arizona, or play fantasy football this game is an afterthought to Baltimore and Cincinnati. Hell, half the east coast will be asleep by the 10:15 ET start. It’s also, the perfect time for a good fix.
Look at it this way, you’re San Francisco, you’re rebuilding, you throw a meaningless Mexico City game and last season’s opener at Arizona and your payoff comes tonight. You have finally gotten your team back to a point of respectability and now it is time to open up a can of whoop ass in front of your home fans opening Monday night. (Now we have our motive)
That’s why the smart gambler will have his money on San Francisco tonight. You can have your 3.5 points. I will take my conspiracy theory all day long. I also expect a big day for all of Frank Gore’s fantasy owners. I think the shoulder injury was more of an excuse to get him rest than anything. Speaking of Gore, that brings us to our final thought of the day.
“Has anyone else ever wondered if the University of Miami received illegal contributions from the Chinese during the CLINTON Portis/Frank GORE campaign?”
