TMQ: There Is No Such Thing As Football Gods

Today, Gregg Easterbrook bases his TMQ on the Football Gods punishing the Patriots and rewarding the Saints. Obviously this is a wonderful template for a horrible TMQ. There are no such things as Football Gods, I believe this so sincerely I will quit capitalizing it. Maybe there is such a thing as karma, but football gods are completely fictional and Gregg Easterbrook sounds slightly insane talking about them. Enough introduction, let's just get to the disaster---I mean the column.

Mortal, didst thou doubt the existence of the football gods? Didst thou lack faith?

So apparently Gregg Easterbrook has such a high opinion of himself that he thinks he is the conduit for the football gods or he is a football minister. Either way, there is no such thing as football gods and if there is then Easterbrook is going to football gods Hell for impersonating a minister.

A week ago, the Patriots led the Jets 31-17 with 30 seconds remaining in the game. Bill Belichick had his starters still on the field; Tom Brady threw deep to Randy Moss -- Belichick was desperately trying to run up the score in order to taunt the Jets organization. The football gods exact vengeance for this sort of thing. Monday night in New Orleans, the Patriots were punished.

The football gods must not have cared that the Jets beat the Patriots the first time they played and then proceeded to talk major amounts of shit after that game. The Jets had a beat-down coming because they are trying the "we'll talk a good game and then try to back it up on the field" strategy. Sometimes this confidence backfires. It's called competition and the entire purpose of an NFL team is to win games. If you want teams to quit scoring on you, pull your guys off the field and put the backups in the game. The Jets did not do this. As long as the Jets are trying to score points, the Patriots should be able to as well.

The football gods are also a creative force: They brought us the 2009 New Orleans Saints. Has there ever been a team more fun to watch?

The 2007 Patriots, the 2000 Ravens (yes, I like defense), the early 2000's Rams, etc...and I could go on and on. The Saints are exciting, but there have been more exciting/as exciting teams in the NFL before they came along this year. The Saints were pretty fun to watch last year too, they just didn't win as many games.

Many athletes talk about having fun when they play but appear grim on the field -- the Saints look as though they are, in fact, having fun. Fun is good!

As I said one sentence ago, the Saints were just as fun to watch last year, they just did not win games, so fewer people talked about them. When a team is 11-0, it is really freaking easy to have fun. No matter what anyone says in the world of sports there is a super duper special equation sportswriters can't seem to remember. It relates to whether football players (or athletes in general) have fun on the field or not. Here it is:

Bad team chemistry + winning = Fun
Good team chemistry + losing = No Fun
Bad team chemistry + losing = No Fun
Good team chemistry + winning = Fun
Team fun to watch + winning= Fun
Team boring to watch + winning = Fun
Team boring to watch + losing = No Fun
Team fun to watch + losing = No Fun

OR:

Winning = Team having fun
Losing = Team not having fun

The Patriots appear to be experiencing wrenching angst as they perform.

They experienced this last night because they got their ass kicked. Hence they lost, which means they didn't have fun.

(Perhaps it's accumulated guilt from all those ethical shortcuts.)

Meanwhile the Saints are a team that is full of saints (no pun intended) and players who have never taken a shortcut, outside of the two players who (wink, wink) did not know they used a substance banned by the NFL. Other than that, the Saints are the team sent by God to win the Super Bowl and rid the league of cheaters like the Patriots. That's Gregg's view and I find it to be extremely stupid.

I kicked off this season by declaring on "The Brian Kenny Show" that I liked the Colts and Saints to meet in the Super Bowl. This prediction is faring so well, it's almost spooky.

The two best teams this time last year? Tennessee Titans and New York Giants. Combined they had zero playoff wins. That's why they play a full season in the NFL. Gregg shouldn't feel too good about his prediction quite yet.

As USC was trying to hang onto its lead against Texas -- sorry, I meant as Arizona tried to hang onto its lead against Tennessee -- Vince Young staged one of the great outhouse-to-penthouse moments in sports annals: an 18-play, 99-yard drive consisting of 17 Young passes and one Young scramble, leading to the winning touchdown on fourth-and-goal on the last snap.

"One of the great outhouse-to-penthouse moments in sports annals?" Are we sure Gregg isn't overstating this just a little bit...or a hell of a lot?

How about Matt Leinart not knowing until a few hours before kick-off that he was starting and then almost leading the Cardinals to a road win against the hottest team in the NFL. Why aren't we talking about that as a great moment in sports annals? Probably because the Cardinals lost and that's no fun to talk about compared to a player who won the game in dramatic fashion, which goes back to my equation:

Winning = Fun
Losing = No Fun

TMQ noted last week that Young's victories will raise Tebow's draft status, since Young is the NFL player most similar to Tebow.

I am getting a little irritated with all the Tim Tebow talk and how Vince Young is going to help Tebow go higher in the NFL Draft. All of these single-minded media members seem to believe that Tebow is the only quarterback who is going to benefit from Young doing well. Obviously I give Easterbrook a pass (sort of) because he is too stupid to actually know more than one college quarterback who can throw and run. Easterbrook barely knows a whole lot in-depth about the NFL, and he writes a long column about the NFL every week, so I wouldn't expect him to be up-to-date on any good college players other than Tim Tebow.

Don't we think that Young's performance is also helping Jake Locker and Dan LeFevour and their prospects to get taken highly in the NFL Draft? Everything is Tebow, Tebow, Tebow, Tebow in the world and it gets old. Both Locker and LeFevour are effective passing/running quarterbacks. I wouldn't expect Gregg to know any other quarterback considered to be second tier that currently plays college football, but sportswriters only referencing Tim Tebow annoys me.

Purists haven't seen Tebow perform in the pocket, and think big guys who look more like tight ends than quarterbacks can't win consistently in the NFL. Suddenly a big guy who looks more like a tight end than a quarterback is on a 9-0 tear in the NFL.

Eh, Vince Young is a little light for a tight end in the NFL these days at 233 pounds. Again, I would not expect Gregg Easterbrook to know this because he probably doesn't know how much tight ends in the NFL weigh. I have very low expectations for what Gregg Easterbrook should and should not know. That doesn't mean he doesn't disappoint me every single week with his lack of in-depth football knowledge.

If Young keeps winning, Tebow could rocket up to the top five picks in the 2010 draft. Tim -- send Vince a case of champagne!

The top 5 picks in the NFL Draft? That "could" happen but I don't know if he will even be one of the top 5 quarterbacks taken in the draft, especially if Jake Locker and Clausen jump into the draft. The 2010 draft is pretty loaded on defense (Suh, McCoy, Berry, Mays) I think it is going to be tough for Tebow to go in the Top 5 of the draft no matter how well Vince Young performs the rest of the year.

Stats of the Week No. 8: (Bonus college stat) Against Texas, Texas A&M gained 532 yards and lost. Against Montana, South Dakota State scored 48 points and lost.

Whatever happened to the idea that when two teams who have similar talent levels play each other there is not a lot of scoring? Doesn't Gregg love this theory? Rest assured, the next time there is an example of this Gregg will be the absolute first to point it out. In the meantime, he will skip over any examples where this theory is not right.

Stats of the Week No. 9: In the five games since Vince Young took over as starting quarterback, Chris Johnson has 800 yards rushing.

Let's re-write this sentence in Easterbrookian language:

In the past five games, Chris Johnson has over 800 yards rushing. Needless to say, the Titans and Vince Young are 5-0 in that stretch.

Sweet Unknowns of the Week: As Houston kicked a field goal to take a 17-0 lead over Indianapolis, Spenser, my 14-year-old, pronounced of the Texans, "They're doomed." And yea, verily, it came to pass.

As Jake Delhomme trotted on the field after the kick-off Sunday I saw he was still the quarterback for Carolina and pronounced, "We're doomed," and it came to pass. That makes me a fucking genius. Now, I am going to be like Gregg and leave out the other 100 times I made doomsday proclamations and was completely wrong.

Considering the Colts came back from 10 points (I think, it may have been more, but my point is that they have come back against the Texans before) down in Houston last year with 3 minutes to play and Peyton Manning is still the quarterback for the Colts this wasn't exactly a Nostradamus-type prediction.

With Bob Sanders and Marlin Jackson out for the season, and Dwight Freeney missing the contest with an injury, the Colts' defense started no one drafted higher than the third round.

Amazing. The fact the Colts have cheaper, lowly drafted players on defense could be because the Colts offense has most of the payroll tied up in expensive 1st round draft picks like Manning, Addai, Brown, Wayne, and Clark. All of whom are productive, good players.

Big plays were made by Colts defensive starters Gary Brackett, Daniel Muir, Melvin Bullitt and Jacob Lacey, all of whom were undrafted free agents. Pierre Garçon, out of Division III Mount Union, caught a touchdown pass.

Has anyone else noticed that Gregg Easterbrook uses the exact same examples every single week of great players who were lowly drafted or undrafted? Every single week he uses players on the Colts and he names the exact same players every week. Somehow this is supposed to convince everyone that undrafted free agents are the best players in the NFL. Gregg may be more convincing if he actually found other players on other teams who were undrafted and played well and didn't use the same examples week after week.

Robert Mathis, a low draft pick out of Division I-AA Alabama A&M, not only stripped Matt Schaub of the ball to set up the game-icing touchdown, he did so while being held by the Moo Cows' offensive line.

Robert Mathis has been widely known as a great defensive end in the NFL for a couple of years now. It's a bit too late into his career to be playing the "he was lowly drafted and therefore is an underdog" card as related to him.

I don't know what's in the water in Indiana, but it seems to turn unknowns into football players.

Yes, because all these undrafted Colts players didn't know how to play football until they got to Indianapolis. I bet that is exactly the case.

With the game tied at 7, Baltimore's Mark Clayton simply ran past Pittsburgh cornerback William Gay for a 54-yard reception; a touchdown and a 14-7 Ravens halftime lead followed. Not only did Gay ignore his man; and not only was Gay making the high school mistake of looking into the backfield trying to guess the play, rather than covering his man;

Or Gay was playing zone defense and wasn't responsible for covering Clayton out of his "zone" and was hoping the safety was providing him help over the top. (Speaking of safeties, notice the Steelers lost again without Troy Polamalu?) If Gregg is going to write an NFL-related football column every week, he may as well familiarize himself with the NFL in regard to the different defensive schemes that are run so he does not sound like a total idiot.

The sad part is that there are people reading his TMQ who think, "hell yeah, that happens all the time" because these people let Gregg think for them and don't care to know that cornerbacks don't ALWAYS play man defense and are sometimes responsible for "zones" on defense...which means Gay may not have been responsible for this reception. I am not a football genius but before criticizing a football player, at least try to understand if that football player was responsible for the mistake or not.

there was 2:47 remaining until intermission, making a deep pass attempt likely.

I have no idea why a deep pass is more likely when there is less than 3 minutes remaining before halftime. It doesn't make sense. You would think a team would try and have a drive that ends right before halftime, as not to give the other team the ball back, so they would not be afraid to run the ball and throw intermediate pass patterns. I don't see how a deep pass is more likely than anything else in this situation since there is plenty of time left on the clock to do pretty much anything offensively.

Note: Football enthusiasts stopped following Redman's name after he was let go by the Ravens, Patriots and Titans, then entered exile with the Arena League Austin Wranglers. Redman now has 19 touchdown passes versus 10 interceptions in his NFL career, and will be a free agent in a few months.

I am glad Gregg knows exactly what football enthusiasts were following at all times. There is nothing more irritating than a sportswriter who claims to know what everyone was thinking about or following. If Redman is going to be a free agent then who wouldn't want a 32 year old QB with a career passer rating of 80.6 (actually not horrible, but not great) who needs 7 chances to throw a game winning touchdown pass? I fail to completely see how Redman having a good game against the Buccaneers will make him a valuable free agent.

(Actually, I wouldn't mind if he was the QB for my favorite team this year, but that bar is set so low now I would take pretty much anyone at this point)

The three top-performing quarterbacks this season -- Drew Brees, Brett Favre and Peyton Manning -- simply aren't getting hit, and all quarterbacks suddenly become more talented when the blocking is good.

Yet for some reason it is the quarterbacks who always get the credit for playing well, when in fact, the protection the quarterback receives allows him to be as great as he is.

Bear in mind, in his first couple seasons, Brees wasn't very accurate -- San Diego showed him the door after he threw 53 interceptions with the Chargers. Rather than get discouraged, Brees kept working to improve, and he now delivers the ball with near-perfect accuracy

Let's see how wrong Gregg Easterbrook is in making this statement. Brees completion percentage each season with the Chargers:

2001: 55.6%
2002: 60.8%
2003: 57.6%
2004: 65.5%
2005: 64.6%

That's seems like was pretty accurate with the Chargers. As far as his interception totals, the 53 interceptions was over 5 seasons and he had a TD:INT ratio of 80:53. Basically Brees has always been a fairly accurate quarterback but he has stepped it up since he was signed by the Saints.

Also, "showing him the door" is not at all how the Chargers treated Brees. He declined a contract offer from the Chargers and chose to become a free agent. The Chargers didn't raise their offer because they had Philip Rivers. It's as simple as that.

You got the feeling the defensive game plan included instructions to Wilhite to blitz the first time he saw an empty backfield.

I am sure that is exactly what the Patriots coaching staff told Wilhite to do. The first time he sees an empty backfield, no matter the defensive play call, Wilhite should blitz. I really doubt players on the Patriots defense are given that much leeway. Who cares if he was in man coverage with no safety over the top, if he sees an empty backfield he should blitz...that's not exactly what the Patriots wanted Wilhite to do. They wanted him to run the defensive play that was called.

This blitz was probably called by the coaching staff.

When a defensive back blitzes, the quarterback is supposed to throw to the side the blitz came from, which will be undermanned. The response can't work any better! Pats safety Brandon Meriweather was totally out of position,

Well obviously, since Wilhite was given permission to free-lance like this with an empty backfield according to Gregg Easterbrook.

Over on the New England side of the ball, the Patriots scored a touchdown on a fourth-and-1 rush from the New Orleans 4-yard line with an unusual blocking scheme

The Patriots went for it on fourth down? Fortune favors the bold! How come the Patriots didn't win the game then? Don't Gregg's theories ALWAYS work?

Belichick went for it -- New Orleans blitzed and cornerback Mike McKenzie broke up the quick out to Randy Moss, reading the play so well he seemed confident a quick out was coming.

Gregg Easterbrook fails to talk about how blitzing never works here...probably because the blitz actually worked. Everyone knows Gregg probably said, "Game over" when the Saints blitzed, but he won't mention that since the game didn't happen that way.

New England holds four second-round draft choices in 2010 and two first-round choices in 2011 -- maybe the Patriots should have focused more on reinforcing their 2009 roster, as opposed to stockpiling future picks.

I hate second guessing like this. Next year (or around draft time), Gregg Easterbrook will be complimenting the Patriots for having so many 2nd round draft picks, but he questions it now because they lost a game. As I have said over the past couple weeks, I hate second guessing where the person making the second guess changes his/her opinion based on the outcome.

Gregg then starts naming the football gods. I wish I was kidding.

Belicheat: god of stolen signals. Said to guard the underworld; this is best not spoken of.

It's just pure comedy gold.

Mini and Micro: twin sisters of great beauty, goddesses of cheerleading. They wear string bikinis rather than robes.

It's so sad to see Gregg Easterbrook exploiting the NFL cheerleaders by showing their pictures in his TMQ and not compensating them. Now he is mocking them with horrible "goddess" nicknames.

sorry, Arizona leading Tennessee -- the Cardinals ran a double safety blitz. "Hey, Tennessee might win," yours truly said while observing the mega-blitz begin: 10-yard completion to Kenny Britt. Tennessee facing third-and-5 on the Arizona 26 with 28 seconds remaining, Arizona coaches again called the double safety blitz. "Hey, Tennessee is going to win," yours truly said -- and behold, a 17-yard completion to Jared Cook. Had the defending NFC champion simply resisted the urge to big-blitz on the final Flaming Thumbtacks' drive, Arizona likely would have jogged up the tunnel victorious.

It's really likely the Cardinals would have won the game. This is based on absolutely no evidence this statement is true, which is the only kind of statement Gregg Easterbrook likes to make. I do know the one thing you don't want to do to (for?) Vince Young is to give him plenty of time in the pocket to make a decision. Gregg completely ignores the fact Young is great at scrambling and the Cardinals smartly decided to make him throw the ball to win the game instead of giving him a chance to use his legs to win the game. They lost the game, but I can't argue completely with the strategy of trying to rush Young into making a decision and trying to keep him in the pocket throwing the ball.

the Broncos came into their Thanksgiving game trying to throw down the middle. In the first quarter, it didn't work. Rather than panic -- TMQ's immutable Law of Composure holds, "Don't Panic, There Will Be Plenty of Time for That Later" -- Denver continued trying to throw down the middle. The result, on third-and-8 from the Jersey/A 17 early in the fourth quarter, was a down-the-middle touchdown pass to Brandon Stokley, securing a safe 23-6 lead.

As usual, Gregg doesn't explain the fact the Broncos were winning 16-6 before this touchdown pass was thrown...but of course this was the most important pass of the game because it proves some stupid theory TMQ has.

TMQ noted that Jersey/A is on a five-year run of rarely using high choices on blockers and asked, "Who's going to man the trenches?" On Thanksgiving night, the trenches weren't manned well.

I thought high draft choices were not good football players and undrafted players were the better players? I guess that rule is only true when Gregg wants it to be true so he can be right. When Gregg can't be proven right about how good lowly drafted players are then high draft choices are wonderful.

And great line play at Minnesota isn't just from brand-name athletes such as Kevin Williams and Steve Hutchinson. The undrafted Artis Hicks had a perfect pull block on Percy Harvin's 35-yard rush that set Minnesota's early tone against the Bears.

You mean Artis Hicks had one good block AND he was undrafted? That must mean he is the greatest player in the history of the NFL or at least better than many highly drafted and highly paid players who play the same position as him.

From earlier in the column:

(Pats wide receiver Wes Welker, who is 5-foot-9, was assigned several times to block middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma and did so very well.)

On Sunday at St. Louis, the Rams reached the Seahawks' 1 and lined up with speed receiver Donnie Avery wide right. Avery came in motion back toward formation and stopped in the fullback position; St. Louis ran a play-fake, and he ran back into the right flat, uncovered, for a touchdown. Attention Seattle defense: the 5-11, 183-pound Avery is not going to lead block!

Apparently Gregg doesn't think Donnie Avery who is 5-foot-11-inches will be the lead blocker but he finds it perfectly normal to have 5-foot-9-inch Wes Welker blocking a linebacker. The lesson? Pretty much any good wide receiver can block fairly well and defenses can't just assume that receiver isn't going to be a blocker on a given play.

Gregg is unable to learn this lesson, so he believes in the black and white rule that if a wide receiver lines up in the fullback position then it will automatically be a passing play. There is no need to even follow the running back, who by the way is Steven Jackson who also happens to be one of the best running backs in the NFL, just don't fall for the play fake EVER.

Buffalo's Fred Jackson, undrafted out of Division III Coe College -- an academics-oriented school with high admissions standards -- caught a pass or ran seven times, plus took a Wildcat snap, on a 75-yard touchdown drive against Miami that ended with a Jackson touchdown. Jackson has driven high-first-round-drafted, megabucks tailback Marshawn Lynch to the bench.

Gregg is absolutely lying here. I have Fred Jackson on a fantasy team. Marshawn Lynch missed the first 4 games of the season and at Game 5 of the NFL season Fred Jackson was benched in favor of Marshawn Lynch. The only reason Jackson played more this past Sunday is because Lynch had an injured shoulder...otherwise Fred Jackson would still be a backup or at least be sharing carries with Lynch. I can understand how a sportswriter giving his opinion can be wrong, but Gregg Easterbrook is just outright lying here. As soon as Lynch gets healthy, Jackson will probably be 2nd string again.

Bumbling former coach Dick "Cheerio, Chaps" Jauron thought Lynch should start because he was a high draft choice. Temporary Interim Provisional Coach Perry Fewell thinks Jackson should start because he performs.

Jauron started Fred Jackson and used him extensively for the first 4 games of this season. Lynch was going to start on Sunday for the new head coach if he did not have an injury. Another lie. Lynch and Jackson had the same amount of carries the week before under Fewell against the Jaguars.

In the game, Buffalo scored four touchdowns -- two from the undrafted Division III Jackson, one from undrafted Ryan Fitzpatrick of Division I-AA Harvard and one from thrice-waived Terrell Owens of Division I-AA Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Owens was never waived for his performance on the field, he was waived for his attitude and off-the-field and on-the-field distractions. Gregg can write such misleading sentences at times.

Mike McLaughlin of Spokane, Wash., writes, "This wasn't an isolated incident. When LSU played at Washington early this season, Miles had a Louisiana state trooper as his security. Not only is Seattle not in Louisiana, it's so far west it wasn't even part of the Louisiana Purchase!"

It wasn't even part of the Louisiana Purchase! Holy shit, doesn't Les Miles know the NCAA rule that he shouldn't take state troopers on an away game trip that is outside the boundaries of a 200 year old land purchase agreement by the United States? I think it's in the NCAA Rules and Regulations book.

I've proposed the Crabtree Curse and the Kern Kurse.

And we won't hear anything about the Crabtree Curse, because the 49ers won. Apparently the curse just took a week off and will be back next week...or when the 49ers lose again. Rest assured, we will hear about the curse at that point because Gregg picks and chooses when he brings up the Crabtree Curse.

Finally, Tracy Kennett of Wood River, Ill., provides this YouTube clip of 17 points scored in the final 47 seconds of a high school football game -- including a game-winning 80-yard touchdown pass on the last snap of the contest.

More reasoning why the Patriots were throwing deep against the Jets late in the game a few weeks ago.

Here's another indicator of the absurdity of college football. Reader Cliff Pannella of Atlanta notes that while trailing Florida 30-0, Florida State kicked a field goal from the Florida 3-yard line, abandoning any attempt to win but keeping a shutout off the Seminoles' record. How do we know avoiding a shutout was Bobby Bowden's motive? He said so!

I don't know why it is so absurd for a football team to try and score points late in a game to make the score closer. Would giving up and just walking off the field be much more preferable? This type criticism doesn't make any sense. Should Florida State have just tried not to score and down the ball? They tried to score to make the game closer, I really don't see a problem with that.

How long until Notre Dame wishes Weis were back and the Fighting Irish were, like this season, taking highly ranked teams down to the wire in exciting games?

I would say it will be either "never" or "negative 3 weeks" before the Fighting Irish wish they were average like they were this year.

Next Week: Chad Ochocinco demands his own personal football god.

There are no football gods.

Well that's one more week of TMQ and one more week of another black stain on modern sports journalism.