TMQ: Cheerleaders and Hidden Plays

Everyone remember to make your Fantasy Football picks for the College Pick ‘Em and also set your lineups for the NFL Fantasy League.

I noticed on Bill Simmons’ Twitter the other day he wrote the following about his upcoming book:

TBOB excerpt: Meeting Isiah by a topless pool in Vegas (from my favorite chapter, "The Secret"). http://bit.ly/2uWBtV

He calls his new book “The Book of Basketball” by the initials TBOB. Do you know what else can go by TBOB? The Bottom of the Barrel, which is this here blog…when he wrote that I thought for a split second he was talking about this blog. I am an idiot.

Where is the only place you can get a non-football expert’s opinion on everything that happened in the NFL over the past week, including second guessing coach’s decisions and using an elementary knowledge of the game of football to explain what happened? Everyone knows the answer to that question is TMQ, the brainchild of Gregg Easterbrook.

Before we get to this week’s TMQ, if you so choose, read a few of the comments that have been made on Gregg’s latest masterpiece. In this comments you get to see horrible punctuation, a questionable grasp of the English language, and pro-TMQ and anti-TMQ people debating TMQ. Those who are fans of TMQ say in response to those against the existence of TMQ that it is an entertaining column and if you don’t like it, don’t read it. It’s a compelling argument, if not elementary, but I personally don’t question whether TMQ is entertaining for those that read it, I question the misconceptions, the second guessing, and overall inaccuracies that tend to be located in the weekly column. That’s what I will focus on today.

When 2009 began, Fisher was coming off a season in which he led Tennessee to a 13-3 record and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. His seemed the most secure coaching position in football, except perhaps for Urban Meyer at the University of Florida and John Gagliardi at Saint John's of Minnesota. Now Fisher is likely to conclude 2009 fired –

I don’t know if Fisher’s coaching position with the Titans seemed like the most secure position in football really last year. That may be a little bit of hyperbole…at least as long as Joe Paterno, Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick are alive.

I would love to know how Gregg knows that Jeff Fisher is likely to be fired after this year. I haven’t really heard too much talk either way on this issue, which is what makes me wonder why Gregg believes this to be true. Jeff Fisher seems to have the backing of the Tennessee management and he has been there for 16 years. I don’t know if we can just assume after a horrible year (assuming the Titans continue to play the way they have played so far) he is going to be fired. If he does get fired, the odds of him being snatched up quickly are high in my opinion.
New England showed four-wide formations and ran everything in its playbook; Tennessee mostly used a conventional "pro set" and only basic plays.

This is one major reason why I don’t like Gregg Easterbrook’s columns for ESPN. He takes a 59-0 blowout and the only strategic reason he can explain why it occurred is because Tennessee used a “pro set” and basic plays while New England used a four wide receiver formation…as if this explains perfectly well why New England scored 59 points and Tennessee scored 0 points.

First off, it was snowing so it is a bit surprising New England was able to throw the ball as effectively as they did and Tennessee has a good running game and Kerry Collins is their quarterback, so running a pro set may not be a bad idea in difficult weather conditions. I am sure the Titans didn’t really want Collins slinging the ball around in the snow. Regardless, the score can’t just be explained away by the offensive sets each team was running in my mind.

Suddenly the Titans rival the Rams and Bucs for the title of the league's worst team. Practically all NFL predictors had the Titans in the playoffs, if not in the Super Bowl.

Yes, practically all NFL predictors had the Titans in the playoffs…if you include “all” as 12 of 16 “predictors” at ESPN.com and a big zero of the “predictors” had the Titans in the Super Bowl. So while “practically all” may not be a huge exaggeration, there was not a single soul, at least at ESPN.com, who thought the Titans would be in the Super Bowl. Gregg is exaggerating here…or at least mistaking what he wants to believe from reality. The Titans were supposed to have a good team, but they weren’t predicted to be one of the better teams in the NFL overall.

In cultural news, with the big-budget movie "2012" opening soon, Sony is avidly promoting how cool it would be if the entire Earth was destroyed. Why does a major corporation think this would be really cool?

To generate excitement and promote the movie, that’s why Sony is promoting the movie that way. It’s not like when “Jurassic Park” came out in theaters the movie executives who decided on whether to make the movie got together and thought:

(Movie executive #1) “Wouldn’t it be freaking awesome if dinosaurs could be replicated and then there was a whole island of dinosaurs that got let out of their cages and ate a bunch of people?”

(Movie executive #2) “That would be great! Holy shit, here is a script that promotes the death of man to dinosaurs on a deserted island. Let’s promote our idea that men should be killed by dinosaurs through making this movie!”

(Movie executive #1) “I wonder if Steven Spielberg wants to watch man get exterminated by dinosaurs as well? I bet so! Let’s call him and ask if he wants to direct a movie to further our devious ploy to exterminate man using replicated animals that went extinct millions of years ago.”

This didn’t happen. Instead the executives got together and said, “let’s promote the movie by generating excitement about dinosaurs,” so they did. It’s marketing for the movie “2012,” not a devious ploy to prepare mankind for the end of Earth, while secretly hoping it occurs.

Stats of the Week No. 10: Eddie Royal of Denver and Darren Sproles of San Diego combined for more kick-return yardage (461) Monday night than the total offensive yardage of either team.

What an interesting stat. Wasn’t it just last week when Gregg Easterbrook commented that a punt block is as sure to happen as a punt return for touchdown? Hmmm…I wonder if he still feels that way after this game? I would ask if he believes himself to be wrong, but he feels he has the right to change his mind about anything football-related from week-to-week without acknowledging he is changing his mind.

Cheerleader of the Week: Danielle of the Arizona Cardinals, who is studying sports broadcasting and, according to her team bio, "hopes one day to make it to ESPN."

For a guy who was worried about the exploitation of NFL cheerleaders, Gregg sure isn’t afraid of putting a picture of Danielle in her cleavage-heavy outfit beside this group of sentences. It’s not fine to put NFL cheerleaders in a commercial without compensation, but copying and pasting pictures into his column and semi-mocking them with the biography that appears on the team web site is perfectly fine in Gregg’s world.

New Orleans went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Giants' 2-yard line, and got a touchdown. Later New Orleans went for it and fourth-and-goal from the Giants' 1-yard line and was stuffed -- but that's OK, the Giants fumbled two plays later!

Obviously the Giants fumbled because the Saints had gone for it on fourth down a few plays earlier. The football Gods rewarded the Saints for being bold by causing the Giants to fumble the ball. This is what happened because football is not decided by athletic skill, but by mythical gods who reward/punish a team based on a subjective set of rules the gods believe the teams should follow.

Brees spent most of the day under center, going against the recent shotgun-spread trend, and many of his completions weren't flashy calls, just perfectly executed slants and curls -- the kind of patterns New England used extensively in its scoring-record year.

New England was the only team in 2007 that used slants and curls.

Slants and curls basically cannot be stopped so long as the passes are accurate and the blocking is good.

Really? I am pretty sure even with an accurate pass and good blocking a 10 yard curl could be stopped if the cornerback is playing zone defense and is only 2 yards away from the receiver when he curls. If it is just a simple 10 yard curl and the corner is two yards ahead of the receiver in a zone, the ball would pretty much go right to that corner (I wish I could draw this because I see what I am talking about in my head and it makes sense to me).

Also, zone blitzes where a defense end/linebacker drops back in a zone can easily stop slants from being completed no matter how good the throw is. I love it when Gregg tries to just simplify the hell out of football when it can’t be done.

In the game, the Browns used kick-return star Josh Cribbs -- a TMQ favorite because he went undrafted -- as a Wildcat quarterback. Though Cribbs played quarterback in college, his first NFL pass clanged to the ground incomplete; his second was intercepted. That may be the end of Cribbs' Wildcat career.

Cribbs has actually thrown 7 NFL passes in his career so this wasn’t his first NFL pass that clanged to the ground. Seriously, there needs to be research done before Gregg just starts typing words he hopes are true. Since only 1 of Cribbs’ 5 previous passes have been completed and he got to throw the ball twice on Sunday, I think it is safe to say his Wildcat career may not be over…especially since you don’t HAVE to throw the ball out of the Wildcat.

With 1:36 remaining in Tampa, Bucs linebacker Adam Hayward made a routine tackle -- then he leapt up wildly celebrating, pounding himself on the chest as though his team had just won the Super Bowl.

When he made this tackle it was currently a tie game. It was an over-celebration but it’s not like the Bucs were down by three touchdowns or anything. Also, Mr. “The NFL is exploiting the cheerleaders” has a picture of a Tampa Bay cheerleader beside this passage. It’s one thing to show a picture when you are talking about the cheerleaders for a team, but to run a picture when there is no cheerleading mentioned seems a bit like exploiting the cheerleader for the purpose of his audience’s enjoyment of the column…even though it is hard for many people to enjoy TMQ regardless if there are cheerleader pictures or not.

Sweet 'N' Sour Play: With Minnesota leading 7-0 with the ball at the Baltimore 4-yard line, the Ravens blitzed seven and Brett Favre hit Bernard Berrian on the slant for a touchdown; that was sweet. Minnesota had two receivers right, and one left; Baltimore had only one safety, owing to the mega-blitz. The safety went to the left, where there was one receiver, rather than to the right, where there were two -- touchdown from the right slot. That was sour.

Again, as I explained last week when I was covering TMQ, a defense has defensive schemes they run and the players, especially safeties, don’t have free reign generally to just run around the secondary in the direction they choose. The defense play called possibly required the safety in this situation to give help to the corner on the side of the field with one receiver. Maybe it was a poorly designed defensive play, but there are assignments in the NFL defensive players have on each play and I would think someone who writes about the NFL should know this.

Later, Atlanta faced a third-and-goal on the Chicago 10-yard line with nine seconds remaining in the first half, and the Falcons holding a timeout. Atlanta showed "double slot," two split receivers on each side, with Gonzalez in the slot left; a running back went in motion right, to draw the defense that way; Gonzalez caught a pass for a touchdown. That was sweet. Once again, Chicago seemed surprised by a tight end split wide. Gonzalez was covered by middle linebacker Nick Roach; the Bears did not have a dime defense on the field, though it was totally obvious the pass would go to the end zone!

Regardless if it was obvious the pass would go to the end zone, maybe Chicago did not want to take the chance the Falcons would throw a short pass to White or Gonzalez and have a bunch of cornerbacks on the field attempting to tackle these players. Remember, linebackers are generally better tacklers than cornerbacks, so if a Falcons receiver catches a short pass someone has to tackle the player to prevent him from reaching the end zone. Of course in the middle of his second guessing, Gregg has no time for theories that may explain what he is bitching about and why it could have possibly made sense to not go in a dime defense here.

(A short gain would accomplish nothing, since Atlanta would simply call its timeout and attempt a field goal.)

Gregg is just blindly assuming the Bears are able to tackle the Falcons player and the Falcons player doesn’t score a touchdown regardless. Since Atlanta had a timeout left over, there was also a chance the Falcons could have tried a draw or screen pass to the running back, which would have yet again been another clusterfuck for the Bears if they are in a dime defense because they have fewer linebackers on the field.

Gregg can’t just assume the Falcons player would have been tackled if the Bears were playing a dime defense. It was a gamble/judgment call the Bears made and lost. Should they have gone to a dime package? Maybe, but then they leave themselves open for the Falcons to succeed with another play.

Reader Matt Mulry reports these are the games that aired in Greensboro, N.C., on Sunday afternoon: Chiefs at Redskins, Panthers at Bucs, Titans at Patriots. Combined records at kickoff, 7-22. It is hard to believe Piedmont viewers wanted to concentrate exclusively on such fare -- wouldn't fast-paced look-ins at other games be more enticing?

Actually no, I would not want to see fast paced look-ins at other games in Greensboro, NC. I am located less than 90 miles away from a team playing in the Panthers-Bucs game and I want to see that entire freaking game interrupted as much as possible. Does it suck the area didn’t get any other good football games? Yeah it did suck, but the area also has a TON of Redskins fans and many Titans fans, so these games made sense for the networks to show.

I would not have wanted the Panthers game to be interrupted though for look-ins more often than already happens. I don’t care how many live look-ins are shown when the Panthers are not playing and I am watching the game, but generally when they are playing the occasional live look-in is fine, but I don’t want to see another football game every time a team reaches the Red Zone.

If the Red Zone Channel catches on nationally, it seems inevitable that viewership for regular network Sunday daylight broadcasts will go down.

Gregg goes on and on about the good parts of the Red Zone channel but also seems to forget you can’t get this channel if you don’t have DirectTV (I am pretty sure of this, this is the indication I have gotten). So a person would have to buy DirectTV and then pay extra for the Red Zone channel. Unless something dramatic happens with local cable provider’s ability to provide service to consumers, I don’t see the Red Zone Channel getting overly popular, regardless whether it should be popular or not.

Eddie Royal was never touched on his 93-yard kickoff return touchdown or his 71-yard punt return touchdown. Obviously, that's good blocking.

A punt was returned for a touchdown? I don’t believe it! Isn’t that the rarest thing in the NFL, like almost as rare as a punt block?

All Orton does is win games.

Don’t forget he also grows neck-beards.

Hidden Play of the Week: Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives. Jersey/B leading 13-6 in the fourth quarter, the Jets intercepted Harvard graduate Ryan Fitzpatrick in Buffalo. But Lito Sheppard was called for illegal contact; Bills first down. Four snaps later, Fitzpatrick threw a touchdown strike to Lee Evans, and they were hoisting their sherry glasses in toasts in Cambridge.

I am pretty sure even though this play did not make the highlight reel the fact the Jets had gotten an interception in the 4th quarter of a 7 point game was important and not really hidden. The interception was called back because of a penalty, which doesn’t make this a hidden play at all in my book. This is actually a very important play, especially considering the Bills tied the game 4 snaps later.

I wonder if Easterbrook knows that 95% of all plays in a football game do not make the highlight reels and that highlight reels don’t dictate what plays in a game were important and which plays were not important? So when he says a play was “hidden” because it didn’t make the highlight reels it doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot. He probably doesn’t realize this.

Combined record of the teams that fired their offensive coordinators on the eve of the season (Bills, Bucs and Chiefs): 3-15.

Are these team’s bad records a result of having a crappy team or a result of firing their offensive coordinators? A lesser man might think the firing of the offensive coordinator for each of these teams was a result of an organization not completely knowing what it is doing and the fact the organization doesn’t know what it is doing is why the teams have crappy records. I guess a smart man (like Easterbrook) would not realize this and just infer the teams stink because they fired their offensive coordinators.

Carolina and Pittsburgh won after going for it on fourth-and-short situations in which most NFL coaches would kick.

Those teams won exactly because they had gone for it on fourth down at some point in the game. It had nothing to do with what happened over the course of the rest of the game…it was all because they went for it on fourth down.

TMQ even liked Detroit going for it on fourth-and-1 when trailing Green Bay by 14-0. Though the attempt failed, and the lowly Lions were pounded, aggressive tactics eventually will reverse Detroit's losing psychology.

I love this excuse! So even though fortune did not favor the bold here, EVENTUALLY the Detroit Lions will be a good team because of this fourth-and-1 attempt. It may take 20 years, but Detroit will change their losing psychology and it will all be because they went for it on fourth down in October 2009. Gregg attributes going for it on fourth down in October 2009 to the turnaround of the Lions in September 2012…and he actually believes he is not borderline insane for this making sense to him.

Look, EVENTUALLY the Lions will turn it around, but it’s a crock of shit to leave it open ended like this. So anytime the Lions get to be a better team, whether it be next year or four years from now Gregg will be able to point to how he was right about going for it on fourth down and this change in aggressiveness is what turned the franchise around. How can anyone like this type of writing?

Now, Jim "Dan Snyder Hasn't Fired Me Quite Just Yet" Zorn finds his play-calling authority removed by the team's general manager, and handed to a "consultant" (that's what the Redskins are calling him!) the GM just hired. In what sense are you head coach if the front office tells you that you're not allowed to call plays?

You are a head coach just like pretty much any other head coach in the league who hires an offensive coordinator to call all the offensive plays. If Jim Zorn is not allowed to be a part of the game-planning for the game, then yes, he is not really a head coach in any sense. Many teams let their offensive coordinators call the plays around the game-plan that is built for the game and this still makes the head coach a head coach.

Meanwhile, Kansas City coach Todd Haley got a bucket of Gatorade dumped on his head for a win that made the Chiefs 1-5. If the Chiefs reach 2-5, perhaps Haley will float on a cloud directly to heaven.

He won his first NFL game as a head coach. Are you really going to criticize him for celebrating this achievement? Regardless of how bad the team is or who they beat to get the victory, this is still an achievement of sorts for Todd Haley. Is it pathetic to do this? Maybe, but it was his first NFL victory as a head coach.

The most recent palindrome day was Oct. 2, 2001 -- 10022001, and things were pretty crummy then, 9/11 having just occurred. The prior palindrome date was August 31, 1380 -- 08311380, and the entire 14th century was fairly crummy. (Historian Barbara Tuchman's great book "A Distant Mirror" basically concerns how crummy the 14th century was.)

This is way off topic of football, but really? We are going to prove this palindrome theory correct because there were some crummy times during a CENTURY when one of the palindromes predicts there to be crummy times? Isn’t that a pretty long time to try and prove anything? I would imagine you could take any date and go forward and backward one month to some event that occurred which was crummy. This proves nothing to me.

Even if space aliens do not contact us until they have studied our languages -- aliens actually might speak perfect English, just like on "Star Trek" -- we may still have no idea what they are talking about, simply because their societies and ways of thinking will be so different.

Does Gregg know how the English language was derived? What are the odds the exact same derivation happened on another planet and that planet’s beings made contact with Earth? The odds are smaller than one in a million in my mind.

As noted by reader Kevin Lasota of Rochester, N.Y., Oakland came into Sunday with the NFL's second-worst rush defense statistically; yet taking into account sacks and scrambles, Philadelphia coaches called 54 passes and 12 rushes. The Eagles never trailed by more than seven, so this wasn't owing to big-deficit desperation. Why barely even try to rush against a weak rush defense?

Because Andy Reid is passionately in love with passing the football or doesn’t believe in “tactics” to win a football game? This is one second-guessing that Gregg Easterbrook and reader Kevin have gotten right.

Minnesota leading 14-0 with 12 seconds remaining in the first half, Baltimore on the Vikings' 12, Joe Flacco threw a short checkdown pass to his tailback in the center of the field; the Nevermores then called timeout and kicked a field goal. With that little time left, and already in close field goal range, the pass must go into the end zone:

This is a very picky problem Gregg has here with Joe Flacco’s actions. Maybe Flacco should have thrown into the end zone, but he checked down to a receiver who he hoped would get in the end zone AND also get the Ravens closer for a field goal at the same time. There was absolutely no way Joe Flacco could have known the Ravens were going to lose the game by 2 points because he can’t tell the damn future. For all Flacco knew he would try to throw the ball out of the end zone here and have the ball intercepted, which would cause the Ravens to not score in the first half.

Remember, the Ravens hadn’t scored yet and they were just looking to get on the board at this point. Not knowing the eventual outcome of the game and looking at this play shows you it wasn’t a huge mental error by Flacco. Of course Gregg has the benefit of hindsight, which allows him to criticize Flacco unfairly in my opinion.

Minnesota went to conservative runs up the middle, content to accept a field goal. But that meant Baltimore would have one more chance -- and using its two timeouts and the two-minute warning, the Ravens got the ball back at 1:49, needing only a field goal to win. As Minnesota ran into the line, content to settle for a field goal, the home crowd booed loudly, and the home crowd was right! Baltimore missed its 44-yard attempt on the final snap -- only good luck bailed out the Vikings' suspect tactics.

How come the Vikings didn’t lose the game? Fortune favors the bold and all of that, so they should have lost this game because of this conservative play call. What happened to the Football Gods here Gregg????????

Gerard Mitchell of London writes, "I've just been handed a sheet at work with the Christmas Lunch Menu on it, from which I pick a main course. The lunch is on December 18th, today is October 14th. Should I start planning all my meals two months in advance?"

Maybe Gerard’s employer has to order a lot of food and wants to ensure that they get their order in so everyone can eat lunch. You don’t have to plan all your meals in advance but I would imagine there are not just 2 people eating lunch that day, but a much larger group. Good lord, quit with this Christmas Creep shit. Restaurants get busy around Christmas time, especially places that cater, so maybe they require orders to be in early.

I know it sounds strange for a guy who spends some of his day nitpicking sportswriters to say, “quit nitpicking this stuff,” but quit nitpicking this little stuff and start to think about why you would need to order ahead of time before writing Gregg Easterbrook about this completely explainable observation.

Adventures in Officiating: Running back Steve Slaton of Houston lined up wide and took a hitch screen 38 yards for a touchdown, the second time this season that play has produced a touchdown for the Moo Cows. But offensive linemen Chris Myers and Kasey Studdard were 5 yards downfield when Slaton caught the pass; flags should have flown.

Holy shit! The officials missed a call! This must be the first time ever this has occurred? Why wasn’t there a palindrome to predict this epic occurrence?

Don McKinney of Apex, N.C., notes, "Type 'Drudge Report' into Google and this is what you get: 'DRUDGE REPORT 2010©.' Perhaps this means we are reading news from the future!"

Obviously the Drudge Report has a 2010 copyright date. This isn’t a huge mystery worthy of being published. Why don’t people ask me stupid questions like this? I would love to do a mailbag of me responding to stupid questions.

Last week's column detailed how the "explosion of scoring" in Division I football traces to blowout wins by football factories over cupcake schools, inflating averages; when power teams face each other, scoring remains at or below historic norms. What better example than Saturday's Texas-Oklahoma game. Texas came in averaging 47.2 points per game, a figure inflated by a gimmick schedule that included a 64-7 win over UTEP; Oklahoma came in averaging 35.2 points per game, a figure inflated by a gimmick schedule that included a 64-0 win over Division I-AA Idaho State; the Texas-Oklahoma final score was 16-13.

I knew this would come up. I watched the game and just knew Gregg Easterbrook would bring this up.

Not only is scoring not up when teams of equal caliber face each other, pass wacky is no guarantee of scoring, either.

It’s not only that scoring is not up when teams of equal caliber face each other. It is also that scoring is not up when DEFENSES of equal caliber play each other. I am not going to get repeating myself, but simply because one team is better than another team doesn’t make the lesser team a “cupcake.” It’s just not true. Is scoring really that far down when teams of equal caliber play each other?

How about the 34-27 USC-Notre Dame game, the 34-30 Kansas-Colorado game, the 28-23 Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game, or the 45-26 Cal-UCLA game this weekend? Those scores were either above or not too far below each team’s season averages. I didn’t cherry pick either, there were other games played this weekend where scoring by each team wasn’t that much lower than their season average as well.

Did Gregg Easterbrook just write that Oklahoma had a gimmick schedule? They played a neutral site game against Top 20 team BYU and played a road game against Top 10 team Miami. That is not a gimmick schedule, but yet his idiotic readers are going to believe what he is saying is true and follow what he says, just like good little lemmings. Sure, there are teams that aren’t that great on the schedule but Oklahoma has played a ranked team this season just as often as they have played an unranked team.

Numerous readers, including Penelope Allan of Madison, Wis., noted that the evil Romulan strands Spock on what's called "a planet near Vulcan" so that he can suffer psychologically when he watches Vulcan destroyed: "The scene shows Spock staring up at a gigantic planet exploding in the sky. From Earth, other nearby planets appear as tiny dots of light. For Vulcan to appear enormous in the sky, Spock would have had to be on Vulcan's moon." Vulcan's moon has standard 1G Earthlike gravity and an oxygen atmosphere -- that's some moon! Plus the moon is totally unaffected by the planet that it orbits disappearing into a black hole.

(bengoodfella shaking his head sadly)

A couple paragraphs below this paragraph, Gregg posts another picture of cheerleaders. This time it is New England’s cheerleaders. Who is exploiting the cheerleaders in the NFL again? Is it the guy who shows pictures of cheerleaders in his column every week or the NFL who runs quick shots of cheerleaders in the background of television commercials?

I think I will leave you now with that thought.