TMQ: Gregg and I Agree On Something Edition

When I read TMQ this week, I was shocked by what I found. No, I wasn't shocked that Gregg took the time to second guess the facts in another science fiction movie, but I was shocked that I actually agreed with him on a couple issues. More on that in a minute. First, Gregg has some thoughts on this quarterback that plays for the Pack---I mean the Jet---I mean the Vikings (this year). Has anyone ever heard of this guy? Brent Favre I think is his name.

Wow, Favre sure looked good Monday night -- he proved emphatically that he can still play. That across-his-body throw for a touchdown at the Green Bay goal line was an athletic move that most recent first-round quarterbacks can't make.

This is the standard all quarterbacks should be held to when determing whether they are any good or not...what can a recent first-round quarterback do? When it comes to meeting that standard nearly every quarterback in the NFL and possibly some in the CFL or any other independent league, and I am including wherever the hell Quincy Carter is currently located, could meet the standard that JaMarcus Russell has set. In fact, I believe Greg Paulus could step into the QB position at Oakland and do a better job than Russell is currently doing. I think we may need a higher standard for quarterback play than Gregg's "what a recent first-round quarterback can do" standard.

In addition to throwing the ball well, Favre spied the open man all night -- determining the correct receiver is the least-appreciated skill of great quarterbacks.

I didn't come here to nitpick fight today, but I would actually argue that determing the correct receiver is the most-appreciated skill of great quarterbacks. Great quarterbacks don't throw that many interceptions (except Favre, he is excluded just because he is excluded) and interceptions generally tend to happen when the wrong receiver has the ball thrown to him and he is covered. Great quarterbacks see the entire field and therefore easily choose the "right" receiver. I think you get my point.

Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers performed well too, throwing for more yards than Favre, despite standing behind a shaky, porous line.

Rodgers' team was also down for a good portion of the game and he HAD to throw the ball to try and catch up so that should explain him passing for more yardage than Favre. Of course the Packers did do a decent job of shutting down Adrian Peterson so Favre had to throw the ball, which leads me to the difference in the two quarterbacks performance being the offensive line and therefore I am more impressed with Rodgers (there is a shock).

Something was unseemly about Favre's obsession with giving the shaft to the team, and the city, that loved him for 16 years.

(Cue "Twilight Zone" music) I agree with Gregg. Favre insisted this was just another game, which was of course another lie, because after the game he said he was as nervous as he has ever been for a football game. Seriously, when Brett Favre tells the truth, I want to be the first to know.

In winter 2008, Green Bay's management calculated the Packers would have better long-term prospects by committing to Rodgers than by keeping Favre an extra season or two, and trading Rodgers -- which would likely have happened, because at that point Rodgers was ready to run a team. Maybe Green Bay's management erred, but its position was hardly unreasonable.

Holy crap. Thank you, I am glad someone at ESPN understands this.

Favre could have simply walked away from Green Bay, saying, "OK, if that's the way you want it." Instead he became obsessed with shafting a team and city that loved him.

But now he won't be loved in Green Bay -- doesn't that count for something? Twenty years hence he won't be going back for nostalgic reunions. Isn't whether people truly admire you -- as opposed to hyping you on television -- important in life?

The fans in Green Bay are going to eventually forgive and forget, so Favre doesn't really have to worry about that so much. Favre also probably doesn't care if people truly admire him, he only cares about whether his ego gets it's fix or not. He wanted to prove to the Packers he was still a great quarterback and he feels like he has done that now. Favre had a great night last night and there was really little doubt he would, but his offensive line kept him completely untouched for most of the night so he essentially did what he was supposed to. It was weird to me the Packers could stop Peterson fairly well but they couldn't get to Favre at all when he was dropping back to pass. Seems to me the "pass rush" part of their new 3-4 needs some work.

In other football news, going for it on fourth down continues to rise in NFL popularity: Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, Minnesota, New England, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Washington were among the teams that converted key fourth-down attempts this week when they could have kicked, and then went on to victory.

In related news, Gregg has absolutely no proof going for it on fourth down has actually increased in popularity this year. If he does, he doesn't share that proof.

Of course, going for it doesn't always work; Denver was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 try, though the "challenging players to win" mindset that going for it on fourth down instills seemed to help the Broncos down the stretch.

How about this much better example...The Ravens went for it on fourth down in their own territory around the 40 yard line and New England stuffed them. I thought the Football Gods would support this move? Doesn't fortune favor the bold? Needless to say, the Ravens would go on to lose the game (See, I can do the usually-false assumption that "going for it on fourth down is connected to the end result of the game" thing too).

Denver's fourth-down play was too straightforward, just a dive from a jumbo set. Doing just a dive or a QB sneak gives the defense a chance -- misdirection plays seem to work better on fourth-and-short, because defenders are cranked to go straight ahead.

Yes, misdirections plays always seem to work best on fourth-and-short because if a team only has less than three feet to get a first down, you will want to make getting that yardage as complicated as possible. Maybe a team should run a good ol' fashion reverse or something like a flea flicker on fourth down. That would really confuse the defense.

I don't get why a team would want to run a complicated misdirection play and give the defense a chance to penetrate the offensive line and tackle the ball carrier for a loss. You obviously don't want to do something useless on fourth down but overcomplicating getting one yard could lead to a team not getting that one yard.

New England's fourth-and-1 play was a quick-hitter to the upback, while Tom Brady and Fred Taylor sprinted out left, faking the flip-action that sometimes produces long gainers on fourth-and-1.

I understand the misdirection involved on this play, but this play was also a basic dive up the middle, which Gregg previously said shouldn't work because defenders are queued up to go charging straight ahead. Again, I get the misdirection but if players are already charged up to up the middle they may not fall for the misdirection. Again, football is not science. When "A" happens "B" does not always follow "C."

In fact, certain defensive players will have certain responsibilities in a situation like this. I don't think Gregg realizes this. On a fourth-and-short in a simple 4-3 defense, the Mike linebacker may be responsible for charging up the middle to stuff the run while the strong/weak side LB may have to pay attention to where the ball goes in order to pursue it on their respective sides of the field. So it may all boil down to the offensive line's push regardless of what misdirection happens or doesn't happen. Just a thought...

When Pittsburgh went on fourth-and-1 from its own 30, two guys who lined up left shifted to the right, then one went in motion back left before a successful quarterback sneak; again, this drew the defenders' eyes out of the middle.

This is not misdirection, this is putting a man in motion. I highly doubt the defensive line was paying attention to the man in motion and it's really amazing that Gregg knows exactly where the defenders' eyes were looking on this play. He must have a 260 inch television that can zoom in on a player's eyes and see which way they are looking.

My guess is the man in motion had maybe 10% to do with the Steelers picking up this first down and what had 90% to do with it was the push the Steelers offensive line got and the fact there was a 6-foot-5-inch 240 pound quarterback behind that push.

And in other football news, why is Denver playing so well while Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis and Tampa are cover-your-eyes awful?

Because Kansas City, Cleveland, and St. Louis were awful last year too, while Buffalo and Tampa Bay just aren't as good as the Broncos? I am sure Gregg has a more convoluted and less football oriented answer for us.

See below.

I guess we will have to wait for our answer. (Update from me proofreading this column before posting it...we never get the reason. We get statistics saying how bad Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and St. Louis are playing, but I don't think statistics describing how bad they are playing explains why those teams are not playing very well.)

The Steelers showed a rare formation, with four receivers left and one right. Since "trips" is slang for triple, let's call this the "quirk" for quadruple.

Or you could call it "quads" which is what it is actually called.

In trick-play sets in which a lot of people are on one side and only one player is on the opposite, the ball usually ends up going to the lonely guy. This is what the San Diego defenders assumed. Pittsburgh played to this by pump-faking to the lone guy right; the safety jumped that way; a quirk receiver faked a hitch screen to draw the other safety up; Ben Roethlisberger then threw deep to Mike Wallace on the outside left for 35 yards. Sweet.

Here is something that especially irritates me about TMQ. Gregg Easterbrook thinks NFL teams make these assumptions when designing plays and trying to figure out what play a team is going to run. He thinks the defensive team thinks things like, "they may go to a seldom used player here on the goal line," and "when there is one receiver on one side of the field and four on the other side of the field, usually the lone guy gets the ball." This isn't true.

He believes the offensive team designs plays specifically because the defensive team is thinking about these assumptions when this couldn't be further from the truth. The Steelers had probably noticed that the safeties for the Chargers were being drawn in on pump fakes from earlier in the game and wanted to isolate the safeties on either side of the field by flooding the field on one side. They may have also noticed that Mike Wallace had a good matchup when they went quads and wanted to see if they could hit long pass to him after they had drawn the safeties in. Maybe that didn't happen, but I would bet I am a lot closer to the truth than Easterbrook thinking this play was called because of the assumption "the lone guy on the right side opposite the quads usually gets the ball."

Sour Play of the Week No. 2: Trailing Houston 20-6, Oakland had a first down at its own 1-yard line. The Raiders came out in a power formation, hoping to rush for a couple of yards of breathing room; tailback Justin Fargas was tackled 5 yards deep in the end zone for a safety.

Sounds to me like they should have run some misdirection here. That ALWAYS works.

Reader Mary Charles writes, "As an accounting student at Binghamton University, I went to the school's job fair in hopes of finding a summer 2010 internship. The event was held on September 16, 2009. Summer of 2009 ended six days later, on September 22."

I don't get this. Maybe I am dumb. I stared at this sentence for two minutes and kept re-reading it. She was hoping to find a Summer 2010 internship, so why does it matter when Summer of 2009 ended? I don't get the problem here. I may just be stupid or need to be clued in.

In addition to having a bad outing, Green Bay's offensive line committed a mistake that is understandable in high school, but hard to fathom in the pros. Often, Colledge's initial block on Allen was fine -- he'd engage the defensive end and push him back. Then Colledge simply would stop and look around to see what was happening on the play, while Allen recovered, or jumped up if knocked down, and went after Rodgers.

I didn't watch too much of the game (Thanks ESPN/ABC/blanket media coverage of Brett Favre, you took away my will to watch sports for a night), but I find it incredibly hard to believe Colledge blocked Allen once and then just stood there. Most likely he blocked Allen once and then Allen used his superior pass rushing skills to get by Colledge and it may have just looked like Colledge stood there but really he was no match for Allen superior passing rushing skills.

(Read that last sentence in the voice of Napoleon Dynamite...it sounds like something he would say.)

If you doubt that the shotgun spread has taken over football, doubt no more. Facing a third-and-2, Minnesota went with a shotgun spread, despite having the league's best running back. On the game's decisive snap, facing fourth-and-goal at the Minnesota 1, Green Bay went with a shotgun spread, empty backfield, five wide. Everything might have been different had Donald Lee not dropped that fourth-and-goal pass.

I had some doubts the shotgun spread was taking over football, but now that Gregg has provided a mere two examples to me of when the shotgun spread is used on the goal line, I completely believe it! This is clearly evidence the shotgun spread is taking over NFL football. I bet the NFL running back goes the way of the fullback soon just based simply on this information from two plays in one football game Gregg has just provided to me.

At the endgame, Green Bay faced a tactical dilemma TMQ thinks most coaches play wrongly. Down 30-20, facing a fourth-and-6 on the Minnesota 14 with one minute remaining, Green Bay kicked a field goal, then tried an onside kick. NFL coaches in this situation almost always take the field goal, then the onside kick.

I think this is the right call. You go for the field goal there because you are going to have to get a touchdown, why waste an extra 30 seconds trying to get the touchdown when you can save time on the clock and get a field goal? I don't really see the point in wasting time trying to score a touchdown when you have to recover an onside kick and score again anyway. Don't you want there to be as much time on the clock as possible in case you recover the onside kick? A rational person goes for the field goal here first.

The Packers' chance of converting a fourth-and-6 and getting the touchdown from close range was greater than their chance of kicking a field goal and then scoring a touchdown from long range.

But here is the difference, we have to take each play one at a time. The fourth-and-6 is the first problem the team faces and there is a 90% chance the field goal kicker is able to hit the field goal and there is NOT a 90% chance the Packers will convert on fourth-and-6. Throw in the fact the field goal saves time on the clock, which also gives the team more time to score a touchdown from long range. So the field goal is the smart decision here. How much good is the touchdown going to be when a team recovers an onside kick with 18 seconds left and no timeouts on their own 40 yard line? They will probably have to throw a Hail Mary anyway in that situation.

Score the touchdown first, and if you recover the onside kick you're only 20 yards from the field goal attempt. TMQ thinks coaches almost always take the field goal in this situation because what they're really doing is playing to make the final score closer.

The clock is your enemy in this situation. The entire game depends on the onside kick anyway, so if your team recovers the onside kick you will want as much time on the clock as possible to get in field goal range. A smart team wants to get to the onside kick with as much time on the clock as possible. A completed pass when there are no timeouts left usually will take 10-15 seconds minimum for the next snap, so if you go for the touchdown there is a chance you can only get a play or two off before having to go for a Hail Mary/field goal, so the middle of the field is out of play in that situation.

If you have 50 seconds to one minute left on the clock because you went for the touchdown with no timeouts, you can still use the middle of field on one play if necessary, which at the end of a game is a part of the field where you can gain good yardage because the defense tends to give up the middle more at that point. It sounds counterintuitive initially but I think going for the field goal first makes more sense here. The touchdown first really simplifies things but trying to convert a fourth-and-six against the Vikings defense would be hard for the Packers to do, so the field goal should come first...especially when faced with a fourth-and-six.

Coaches don't care about how close games are, they care about wins and losses. They aren't judged by how close they make the games, but by how many games they win.

Fortune Favors the Bold! No. 2: After the Redskins failed on fourth-down tries -- when they could have kicked -- in three straight games, Jim "Dan Snyder Hasn't Fired Me Quite Just Yet" Zorn still went for it on fourth-and-2 from the City of Tampa 36. For your faith you will be rewarded, spoke the football gods!

Fortune does not favor the bold in this case. Jim Zorn is 1 for 4 over the last three games in going for it on fourth down, that isn't a really good case for going for it on fourth down, which is something Gregg thinks everytime should do...all the time. This is a good example of how even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while. Zorn went for it on fourth down enough to where he got it right once.

Jeff Fisher didn't just bench Young last season, Fisher got mad at Young for struggling and for admitting that he had bouts of depression, something manly men aren't supposed to admit. Now Young is a bad-vibes presence in the Tennessee locker room, and it is Fisher's job to fix that -- Fisher is the grown-up in this situation.

It wasn't that manly men weren't supposed to admit they struggled with depression, it was also the fact that Vince Young kept saying to others was going to commit suicide or wanted to quit football all together. It's kind of hard for a team to get behind a quarterback that doesn't seem to want to be there 100%.

Also, Vince Young is a grown-up in this situation also. He isn't a child anymore, so fixing the situation isn't completely Jeff Fisher's responsibility.

With the Titans at 0-4, logical coaching would say: Put in Young and shake things up. Fisher seems determined to maintain that the quarterback is not the problem, which is the same thing as Fisher saying, "My decision about the quarterback is not the problem." All that matters is how Tennessee might escape from this slump. Put in Young and shake things up.

At least with Kerry Collins at quarterback the Titans have some semblance of a passing game. If Vince Young was behind center throwing the ball (or looking like he is trying to fling shit from his hand, which is what his throwing motion looks like), the Titans may end up with Nate Washington and Kenny Britt wanting to commit suicide or quit the team before the end of the year. Tennessee's problems are defensive problems because they are running the ball well and throwing the ball as well as Kerry Collins can, so I agree with Jeff Fisher a quarterback change isn't really the answer right now.

Pittsburgh did open the game throwing, but that was game-planning for San Diego's bungling secondary. The Chargers are 18th in passing yards allowed per game, despite fielding three defensive backs drafted in the first round and a second-rounder.

Again, Gregg's simple look at everything doesn't completely explain the situation. Passing yards per game are not always the secondary's fault, especially if there is no pass rush. It doesn't matter how many first round picks are in the secondary if there is no pass rusher who can get to the quarterback. If you give the quarterback all day to complete a pass the secondary is going to look bad, but it may not be completely the secondary's fault. I can't believe Gregg doesn't get this.

Why did Charles Woodson and Al Harris look bad last night against the Vikings? Is it because they suck or is it because the Packers could get no pass rush on Favre and he had all day to find an open receiver? I think we know the answer to this simple question.

The Chargers have 6 total sacks this year. Could that have an effect on how well the secondary is able to cover receivers? I think so.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Giants leading 14-3, winless Kansas City punted on fourth-and-4 from midfield at the two-minute warning of the first half. That's not going to change a losing psychology!

I agree with this. If you are the Chiefs and are still within striking distance of the Giants you need to take every chance you can get to score more points.

Let's hear some "Star Trek" whining about how the science fiction movie is not realistic...

A single password taken from Captain Pike via mind control is used by the Romulans to shut down Earth's defenses, including all Federation starships, rendering the planet totally helpless. In Battlestar Galactica, a single code shuts down the defenses of all 12 Kobol worlds, rendering these planets helpless. Military organizations do not have single passwords that completely shut down all their weapons!

I can't believe the inaccuracies that are contained in a science fiction movie about how intergalatic military organizations design their planet defenses. If there is anything a person should expect in a movie about space travel, technology that is light years (no pun intended) from what the military can create now, and humans at war with aliens (who all speak English by the way) is a little bit of realism.

Inside the mega-enormous Romulan battlecruiser are open areas with thousand-foot drops. Cavernous spaces seem improbable aboard starships; in vessel design, space is always at a premium. At any rate, the open areas with thousand-foot drops are crossed by narrow footbridges that lack guardrails. If for some reason your mega-enormous starship really needed internal areas with places where you could fall to your death, why would you span them with footbridges that lack guardrails?

I don't know, but I guess guardrails seem like a good idea. Why can't Gregg just enjoy a movie and not analyze it to death?

I am sure Gregg also wonders where the bathrooms for the crew members are located. Since there is usually one female crew member does she get her own bathroom? It wouldn't make sense logistically but I am sure she would appreciate the privacy. These are the things I would wonder about if I was trying to kill space in a football column or second guess movies that are supposed to be entertaining and not fact based.

There are more examples of his "Star Trek" complaints but I don't know if I have the energy to wonder why Gregg expects movies to be ultra-realistic.

Who are Andra Davis, Ronald Fields, Mario Haggan, Ryan McBean and Kenny Peterson? Starters for that defense. All were cut by somebody -- Cleveland, San Francisco, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Green Bay. Of course, you know Brian Dawkins, let go by Philadelphia, is also on this defense. Starter Renaldo Hill has been cut three times, by Arizona, Oakland and Miami; starter Andre' Goodman has been cut twice, by Detroit and Miami. That's eight of 11 defensive starters unwanted by another NFL club.

Not all were unwanted by their previous teams. Many of these players did not play well at their previous NFL stops, so they weren't unwanted they just stunk for the amount of money they were making. In the case of Brian Dawkins, the Eagles wanted him back, but they knew he would require more money than they were willing to pay. How Easterbrook understands the logic behind why the Packers got rid of Brett Favre for Aaron Rodgers but he can't get why the Eagles got rid of Brian Dawkins for younger safeties is beyond me.

Here is what he said about Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre previously in this column:

Years from now, Rodgers could still be winning games for the Packers, which probably wouldn't have happened had Favre stayed.

The same principle applies to Philadelphia and Brian Dawkins, except they thought Quentin Demps was the key to replace Dawkins when it was really Major Harris. Either way, it's the same principle of replacing 1-2 years of good production from a declining player for 8-10 years of production from a younger player.

Knox, from Division II Abilene Christian, and the Colts' Pierre Garcon, from Division III Mount Union, are running circles around Division I players who were drafted much higher. Against Seattle, Garcon had a 35-yard catch -- the third consecutive game this low-drafted small-college gentleman has made a big play against high-drafted football-factory types.

Gregg has this obsession with players who weren't taken in the early rounds of the NFL draft. I don't know if he is specifically comparing Garcon and Knox to wide receivers taken much higher in the draft, because there are D-I players taken high in the draft who are outperforming these guys, or if he is talking about D-I players on the defense these players are running circles around. Either way, he takes any chance he can get to point out when small school players do well and ignores pretty much every example of a high draft pick doing well.

For example the quarterbacks that throw the ball to Knox and Garcon, Jay Cutler and Peyton Manning, were 1st round draft picks. If I had the time and energy I would look at every team in the NFL and how many high draft picks play and play well for these teams. Players from small schools like Knox and Garcon who do well in the NFL are the exception, not the rule. It's not like small college football players can't excel in the NFL.

It does seem ridiculous for high schools to be flying around to games, even as, if happened here, a private party (Paragon Marketing) paid all costs (Lakeland is a public school). But this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a high school. Colleges that schedule long-distance travel all the time are a bigger concern.

So Gregg thinks it is fine for a high school to play a football game halfway across the nation because that is a once in a lifetime experience but he doesn't think it is fine for a college football team to do the exact same thing? Logic would actually dictate this is backwards. Keeping high school kids at home to learn so they don't fall behind on school work seems a bit more important to me than grown up college kids falling behind. It may just be me.

Not only did multiple Cowboys defenders miss Brandon Marshall on the 51-yard zigzag scamper that won the game with two minutes remaining at Denver, other Cowboys didn't even try to chase the runner. Marshall cut back across the field twice; if more Cowboys had hustled to chase the play, Marshall would have run out of room. Linebacker Bradie James switched from running to jogging when Marshall was still at the Dallas 10. Dallas Cowboys, you are guilty of the single worst play of the season -- so far.

I am all for hustle, but at the 10 yard line Bradie James was not going to catch Brandon Marshall. The Cowboys should have hustled more possibly but I think this play was more of an example of bad tackling by a team than necessarily a lack of hustle. They wouldn't have had to hustle if they had tackled well.

Covering TMQ is slowly hurting my brain less and less. I think I am becoming numb to it.

-Here are my playoffs picks and I may have more in depth thoughts tomorrow:

National League

Colorado v. Philadelphia: 3-1 Phillies

St. Louis v. LA Dodgers: 3-1 St. Louis

St. Louis v. Philadelphia: 4-2 Phillies

American League

Minnesota v. New York Yankees: 3-0 Yankees (My gut says it will be 3-1 or 3-2 Yankees because I think Burnett is going to bomb in Game 2. The Yankees should have gone with Pettitte in Game 2 and Game 5 in my opinion.)

Boston v. LA Angels: 3-1

Boston v. New York Yankees: 4-3 Boston

World Series

Boston v. Philadelphia: 4-2 Boston

I predicted they would win the World Series at the beginning of the year and I can't exactly back down on my prediction now.