12 comments It's Time For Cupcake Talk With Gregg Easterbrook

Sadly, I think Gregg Easterbrook and I have one thing in common. We like to beat the same idea in the ground over and over until the audience is tired of hearing it. This week Gregg talks about the college football "cupcake" schedule in his NFC non-preview. It's a non-preview because Gregg doesn't really preview anything, but regurgitates numbers has learned in his studies of each team.

I will continue to try and not nit-pick Gregg again this week in order to avoid losing my points in a wall of text that meanders and I am not going to be putting italics around the word "cupcake" every time I talk about what Gregg wrote. I am too lazy to do this.

At last, real football returns. College football kicks off Thursday -- and that means cupcake games.

Guess what? Good college football teams sometimes play bad college football teams. Alert the media immediately!

Defending BCS champ Alabama opens by hosting San Jose State, which was 2-10 last season, including a 62-7 loss.

That was a 62-7 loss to USC if I am not wrong. I am not looking it up, that's how confident I am that I am not wrong. USC wasn't very good last year so naturally this is going to be a blowout. If only Alabama played a tough conference schedule...

lower-division Florida A&M plays at Miami -- there isn't even a pretense here that the Rattlers, who lost 48-16 at Miami in 2009, are anything other than a hired pushover because this isn't a home-and-home; Miami never plays at A&M.

Because if Florida A&M didn't have to travel seven and a half hours to get to Coral Gables and play the Hurricanes on the road they would have a chance to win the game, right? At least these teams play in the same state. Some Florida A&M fans are bound to make the trip to see their team play.

The University of Tennessee opens by hosting Tennessee-Martin, which last season had a losing record in Division I-AA -- which the NCAA now insists on calling the FCS, perhaps for Football Cupcake Subdivision.

Maryland, which last year suffered the vengeance of the cupcakes -- losing at home to Middle Tennessee and going to overtime to squeak past lower-division James Madison -- this year hosts Division I-AA Morgan State.

Way for Gregg to try and ruin his point here. He says FCS stands for Football Cupcake Subdivision and then uses an example of a Division-I team losing to a FCS team last year to talk about that same Division-I team scheduling another FCS team as an easy win. So these teams are cupcakes and easy to beat, except when they aren't.

Wisconsin has San Jose State at home, then two weeks later hosts Austin Peay,

San Jose State is playing Wisconsin and Alabama in the same week? That is some tough scheduling. Why doesn't Gregg ever ask why these cupcake teams schedule games against difficult opponents? It's not like Wisconsin and Alabama force San Jose State to play these games against them, so San Jose State has to benefit in some way from the game...I wish I could think of the way they benefit, other than money of course.

North Carolina hosts Division I-AA William & Mary.

After playing LSU the first week of the season at a neutral site. Here is another example of Gregg misleading his readers. UNC does have William & Mary on their schedule, but he leaves off the fact they are playing a ranked team, LSU, at a neutral site in the first week of the season.

(Which just happens to be the same time as my wedding reception. Don't think my groomsmen that are all UNC fans don't suspect I planned this.)

Cupcake schools are paid nice fees -- $500,000 or more -- to come to football factories and get clobbered.

So don't cry for them.

A cupcake on the sked also ups the likelihood of enough W's to become bowl-eligible.

Actually, it may not help them. Some teams don't count as wins towards bowl eligibility, specifically wins against more than one FCS team.

It would be tempting to say Wisconsin has this year's phoniest cupcake-enhanced sked, but that distinction goes to Clemson: The Tigers open by hosting North Texas, which is on a 5-31 streak, then the next week host Division I-AA Presbyterian, which finished 0-11 in 2009, including a 34-point defeat by Elon. Here is Clemson's schedule -- that's the real schedule, not a spoof.

The Tigers play 5 ranked teams and four of those ranked teams they play on the road. That doesn't include a tough game against South Carolina. So it isn't that easy of a schedule.

This year, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona and Nebraska are among big programs that play seven games at home, five on the road. Florida has seven home games, four away and a "neutral" site game against Georgia. The "neutral" site is Jacksonville -- so in effect, Florida plays eight at home, four away.

It is a home game for the Gators because Georgia fans don't own cars and can't drive to the game? Since it is a neutral site game, I am assuming Georgia fans will have a chance to get tickets to the game and can a large contingent of fans there.

Texas has seven home games, three away games and two neutral-site contests, though the Longhorns' "neutral" site game against Oklahoma is being played in Dallas.

I'm pretty sure Oklahoma fans are planning on making the trip down there and making it a more even crowd. I guess a person would have to watch this game over the years to actually know this.

Auburn gets the nod for phoniest overall schedule in college football. The Tigers don't beat around the bush about it; they simply play eight at home, four away.

How interesting that Clemson got Gregg's award for phoniest cupcake schedule and Auburn got the award for phoniest overall schedule and they play each other this year. Two football powerhouses are playing each other and Gregg has both accused them of having the cupcakeist of all schedules. I'm not sure if Gregg realizes this.

More's the pity for cupcake San Jose State, which not only is a cupcake but plays seven away games.

I wonder who held a gun to their head and forced them to do this? Really, Gregg should be criticizing San Jose State for chasing money by playing big name teams in games they have no chance of winning while depriving their home fans and students of getting to see the team play at home much. I am sure if Gregg wasn't so busy feeling pity for them he would have thought about how San Jose State essentially takes money over home games.

TMQ suggests Division II become the You Haven't Heard of Our School Subdivision and Division III become the Football Players Actually Go to Class Subdivision.

I have always enjoyed how Gregg assumes Division III football teams consist of football players who care about their academics, when in reality they are more likely less talented football players who still don't give a shit about going to class.

Regularly, Tuesday Morning Quarterback warns that there is no law of nature that says the NFL must remain so popular. If an 18-game schedule gluts the market with meaningless games, people will start to tune pro football out.

I don't know if people will start tuning pro football out, but I think there is a better chance injuries may end up causing the NFL to eventually not want to continue an 18 game schedule. That's just a lot of punishment on player's bodies. I find it interesting the NFL is VERY concerned about player and officials safety, yet they want the players and officials to play more games each year than they currently do.

So the NFL cares about concussions in the NFL and they care about player's bodies being mangled after they retire, but not as much as they care about an 18 game schedule.

Already glamour teams such as the Giants and Jets, not just the Jaguars, are having trouble selling tickets,

Are they having trouble selling tickets?

If there is any trouble with the Giants and Jets getting tickets sold to their home games it may be because of the cost of the ticket, not due to a reduction in fan interest.

and the latest Forbes ranking suggests the value of NFL franchises is undergoing its first decline.

Which may or may not have to do with the economy. Gregg may have a point about the NFL thinking they can do whatever they want and it will help the league make more money. I don't know if this is exactly true.

The NFL should stick with 16 regular-season games, a formula that works, while reducing preseason games to two. That represents a price cut of 10 percent for season-ticket holders, who, in this situation, would pay for nine home games rather than the current 10.

This would also represent lost revenue due to 10% less football games. The odds teams would then raise ticket prices due to having less games at home and the need for that revenue now would become higher. So when the supply of games get cut off, the price will rise.

Eliminating two of the four preseason games, and thereby reducing an NFL season-ticket package from 10 games to nine, ought to restore the supply-demand equilibrium.

If the preseason schedule got reduced, I would bet $100 the price of season tickets and single game tickets would then increase. Fans would pay more for a single game so teams could recoup the lack of revenue from the "lost" one home game.

Sure, owners want to maximize revenue. But they're all already wealthy -- they should be content to be wealthy and selling a successful product.

Their team is a business though. If the fans are going to continue to pay for the preseason games and tickets are still sold out, then why would they cut revenue by reducing the preseason by two games? Sure, the fans want less preseason games, but they have also shown they are willing to pay for the current amount of preseason games, which is four.

Here is TMQ's NFC preview:

It's not even really a preview. It's recitation of things Gregg has learned about each team.

In the 2008 season, Arizona was "pass wacky" personified, finishing last in rushing, yet reached the Super Bowl and held the lead with two minutes remaining. That seemed to cause Cardinals coaches to view "let's throw" as the answer to all possible questions.

Who would think if a team did something that led to success they would continue doing it? Why use the advantage of having a great receiving corp and a borderline Hall of Fame quarterback to throw the ball?

From the point of the 31-10 lead, Cardinals coaches called 16 passes and six rushes. Incomplete passes kept stopping the clock and keeping the Packers in the contest: After reaching a 31-10 edge, had the Cactus Wrens done nothing but run up the middle for no gain, the Pack's comeback might not have happened.

Just last week Gregg was talking about how the teams that made the Super Bowl weren't the best teams in running the ball and he indicated that good teams don't necessarily need to run the ball well in the NFL anymore. So naturally, Gregg advocates teams throw the ball unless in retrospect they should have run the ball more.

If the Cardinals had run the ball with Beanie Wells and Tim Hightower against the Packers, Gregg would have asked why they didn't throw the ball with their high-powered offense. Gregg only criticizes the Cardinals because throwing the ball didn't work, otherwise he would have no problem with the Cardinals not running the ball.

Don't let the Arena League-style uniforms deceive you: The Falcons play a fairly traditional style of offense, pounding the ball and then play-faking. Defense is the weakness.

Gregg just leaves it at that. No further explaining or examples of how the defense is the weakness. It's just the weakness of the Falcons and we will move on.

Will Moore keep Jimmy Clausen on the bench? Can a rush-oriented offense (two 1,000-yard-plus backs in 2009, and more rushing plays than passing plays) make the playoffs in the pass-wacky NFL?

Because there is only one way to win a game in the NFL?

Look away on Panthers' kicking plays. The Cats gave up four blocked kicks in 2009 and finished last on Rick Gosselin's influential special-teams ranking.

If this were a real NFL preview it would mention the Panthers fired their special teams coach and overhauled the special teams in response to the crappy performance last year.

Peppers rivals Albert Haynesworth in the hype-to-performance metric. In his career, Peppers has averaged 39 tackles and 10 sacks a year -- good, but hardly outstanding,

Tackles for defensive ends is a somewhat misleading statistic at times, but Peppers has always underwhelmed me in some ways, though I think averaging 10 sacks a year is somewhat outstanding.

especially given that Carolina gave him the green light to use inside moves to boost his sack total.

I have no idea what the fuck this means and have never heard about this. Of course I only watched him play for 8 years and Gregg has probably seen 8 games Peppers has played. Carolina never game him the green light to use inside moves to boost his sack total. The coaching staff never tried to boost Peppers' sack total over winning a game. The only reason he would use inside moves (is this considered cheating by Gregg?) is on a stunt or as a strategy to sack the quarterback. Silly me thinks any way a team can sack the quarterback they should probably try to go for it (within reason).

Inside moves mean abandoning contain; Bruce Smith once said any defensive end who uses an inside move more than twice a game isn't doing his job.

And again, apparently there is only one way to play defense in the world of Gregg. I'd love to hear Gregg explain how the years when Peppers has more sacks he also has more tackles. I would think logically if Peppers is breaking containment and using inside moves he would also have fewer tackles because the offense would take advantage of his absence on the outside and run the ball there. It doesn't seem like he uses that many inside moves to get to the quarterback. Plus, even if he did Peppers is fast enough to catch a few quarterbacks.

Tennessee was not broken up to see Haynesworth go, and the Cats were not broken up to see Peppers depart.

This is a valid point. Give Gregg a gold star.

Near the end of "The Expendables," Sylvester Stallone is shot at point-blank range, drops to the ground moaning -- and a few minutes later is totally fine. In the recent series finale of "24," Jack Bauer is stabbed in the stomach and bleeding profusely, then shot through the shoulder at close range -- and an hour or so later, beats up a huge strong guy, then runs away to escape the country, showing no effects from blood loss or wounds.

Here comes this week's contribution to "Look at how fake all these television shows are." It's entertainment, it is not supposed to be realistic.

In the season finale of the new FX series "Justified," the anti-hero, Boyd Crowder, is shot at close range with a sniper rifle

I watch this show and he wasn't shot at close range. The guy had a sniper rifle for a reason and that is because it was not a shot at a close range from what I can remember.

In "Die Hard 4," Justin Long is shot at close range, and 30 minutes later by the movie's chronology is completely normal -- and Long plays a meek, timorous person.

Maybe his meekness covers up for the fact he is really a huge badass and can take a bullet?

(In the egregiously overrated "The Dark Knight," the Joker stabs a huge muscular thug with a pencil and the guy dies in two seconds. Stallone is lucky he was only shot, not attacked with a pencil!)

He stabbed him in the head! Sharp pointy objects should not be put into someone's head. It is not like The Joker stabbed a guy in the chest, but he stabbed him in the freaking head.

In the season finale, Givens kills two bad guys, then casually leaves the scene without telling anyone where he's going. Also in the season finale, Givens goes to a meeting with four hard-core murderers accompanied only by a convicted felon, to whom he gives a gun. Givens wouldn't remain a U.S. marshal long if he did either thing.

Maybe the convicted felon wouldn't tell anyone he was given a gun. It's not like the he was planning on going back to the police station and hanging out with the marshals after the shoot-out. He left the scene in a car.

TMQ likes Wade Phillips -- you gotta like a Texas coach named "Wade Phillips." But Phillips is 1-5 in the postseason, with a long-established habit of losing focus after Christmas.

Much like the "San Diego lifestyle" involves the Chargers players trying to go to the beach when the weather is the worst, trying to get Wade Phillips to do anything productive after Christmas is just impossible.

Kickoff specialists are proliferating around the NFL -- because a touchback is music to the defensive coordinator's ears. David Buehler of Dallas led the NFL in touchbacks last season with 29; the Cowboys spent a fifth-round draft choice on him, just for kickoffs. Thomas Morstead of New Orleans, also acquired using a fifth-round draft choice, had 27 touchbacks and one of the season's best plays, the onside kick to open the second half of the Super Bowl.

Morstead may be a kickoff specialist now, but he was also drafted to be the Saints punter for last year.

What's up with the recent Sports Illustrated college football issue covers that distorted the bodies of players? Here, the Ohio State player in the center looks about 2 feet tall but has an adult-size head. The Boise State player in the center has hobbitlike proportions, too.

Those players are bending down and leaning forward. That makes a person look small in photographs. I can't believe I am talking about this. So Morstead wasn't originally a kick-off specialist.

The Giants' defensive line, key to the Super Bowl victory over New England, struggled last season, and it wasn't only the continued injury problems of Osi Umenyiora.

It was the injuries of the other defensive players along the defensive line that hurt the Giants as well.

Dave Crowder of Centreville, Va., writes, "On August 22nd, I was shopping in my local Giant supermarket. Passing the beer cooler, I noticed Samuel Adams Octoberfest and Leinenkugel Oktoberfest were in stock -- alongside the summer brews. Autumn seasonal beers appearing a full month before the calendar start of autumn, and next to summer seasonal beers? What season is it, anyway?"

I can't believe beer companies have the balls to not adhere strictly to the calendar when stocking beers on a shelf. I guess Sam Adams should just destroy their stock of summer brews and lose a ton of money so they can adhere more closely to the calendar? It's not like people would drink a summer brew in September would they? That would horrific!

In 2009, Minnesota was 9-0 at home and 4-5 on the road. You can't be a great team with a losing road record.

Obviously, if a team has a losing record on the road that means they have lost at least 5 games. So it really isn't that bold to say a team that goes 11-5 isn't a great team.

Recently, the Saints were sued by the IRS for paying no taxes on an annual $8.5 "inducement payment" the team receives from the state of Louisiana. Saints owner Tom Benson claims the money is "capital," not income. If this were true, any person or corporation doing business with government could claim income is "capital" and thus tax-free. Louisiana also pays the Saints $3.8 million a year to lease office space that Benson owns in New Orleans -- because the New Orleans office market in glutted, this is essentially a gift to Benson. And Louisiana has been using $85 million in federal stimulus money for yet another renovation of the Superdome.

I don't like Gregg Easterbrook understands. The Saints turned around the entire state of Louisiana and helped the crippled walk again and the blind see. Let's not talk about things like income tax evasion or using federal stimulus money that may be better served somewhere else, but let's focus on how gutsy and crazy that Sean Payton is. Did you hear what he did to the bottle of wine Jerry Jones requested at a restaurant. It was hilarious!

Overall in 2009, Philadelphia was a major disappointment, and the result was a purge -- at least there wasn't a show trial! The Nesharim traded or waived starters Shawn Andrews, Sheldon Brown, Chris Clemons, Chris Gocong, Darren Howard, Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and Will Witherspoon, acquiring in exchange Nate Allen, Riley Cooper, Alex Hall and Darryl Tapp, plus a middle-round choice in the 2011 draft. That's substantial turnover. But perhaps justified: Philadelphia has looked listless and stale in the past two seasons.

So let's recap real quickly: The Browns roster turnover was a bad thing according to Gregg, even though the Browns have been awful the past couple of seasons. The Eagles roster turnover was a smart thing for them to do, even though they have been successful over the past few seasons. Good teams should turnover their roster, bad teams should keep the roster as is.

But Philadelphia defenders simply didn't play well enough, allowing 337 points versus 289 allowed in 2008.

The Eagles allowed three more points in 2009 than in 2008. Three points. Maybe that is a bigger deal than I seem to believe it is.

Why did the Rams choose Sam Bradford over Ndamukong Suh? Obviously, quarterback is the most important position in football, but I think the other factor is that Bradford looks like a quarterback should: He's tall and handsome. Of the four most-desired quarterback prospects in the 2010 draft, the two who are tall and handsome, Bradford and Tim Tebow, went in the first round; the one who is tall but a tad goofy-looking, Jimmy Clausen, went in the second round; and the one who is handsome but not tall, Colt McCoy, lasted till the third round. If you're going to draft someone first overall and give him $50 million guaranteed, you want a guy who's tall and handsome!

(Bengoodfella starts chugging hand sanitizer)

Don't discount the Crabtree curse. Under Mike Singletary, San Francisco is 8-5 without Michael Crabtree and 5-7 with him. So why do we keep hearing from the sportsyak world that Crabtree is ultra-awesome? In 2009, Crabtree spend a lot of time pointing at himself, not much time blocking.

Crabtree's numbers last year projected to be 70 catches for 909 yards and three touchdowns. Those aren't bad numbers for a rookie. Crabtree's poor blocking didn't hurt Frank Gore. He ran for 1120 yards despite missing almost three entire games.

Raheem "Hey Mom, I Got My Learner's Permit" Morris -- who had never been a head coach at any level, including high school, before taking over the Bucs -- fired his offensive and defensive coordinators in his first few months on the job.

Normally Gregg Easterbrook advocates teams hiring coaches that aren't re-treads or coached in the NFL. Morris coached at Cornell and Hofstra. This is exactly the type of coach that Gregg Easterbrook has wanted to see hired in the NFL in the past.

Albert Haynesworth has been paid $32 million so far by the Redskins for complaining, skipping camps, complaining and then complaining. He is owed another $9 million in guarantees, which is why no team will trade for him. For that $32 million, last season he made 29 tackles, or $1.1 million per tackle. Redskins linebacker London Fletcher last season was paid $2.2 million and made 142 tackles, or $15,493 per tackle. Haynesworth, a bad influence, is being paid 71 times as much per tackle as Fletcher, a good influence.

I did some research and it doesn't appear that Haynesworth got $32 million in one calendar year, so this statistic is off. Not to mention a defensive tackle and a linebacker have completely different, separate, not the same responsibilities so comparing them by how many tackles they made is an unfair comparison. This just shows how little Gregg understands about football when he tries to compare tackles from a linebacker and a defensive tackle.

Next week: Still America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions.

Perfect timing. I will be out of town. I hate the haiku predictions.