TMQ: At Least It Isn't a Bunch of Haikus This Week

I am very glad I skipped the haiku TMQ from last week. I didn't even read it. I find it to be more terrible than what Gregg normally writes in TMQ so if I am not writing about it, I avoid it completely. I am trying to be less nitpicky of Gregg and TMQ (even though they are the same thing/person), so I don't lose my point that Gregg Easterbrook sucks. Apparently, when I write 10,000 words about how Easterbrook sucks it has less impact than when I write 5,000 about how he sucks. So I am not being overly nitpicky, but it's not easy.

As a new season opens, all seems in order in the NFL. The Steelers won at home; the Lions lost on the road.

Well, the Lions really won, but actually lost. I know that doesn't make sense, but they got a moral victory of sorts.

The Saints look seriously great;

No, they didn't look great. They won and that's all that matters in the end though.

I still suck at writing and wish to be fired

Ok, I made that one up.

Tony Romo looks confused.

"Why are all my receivers running the wrong routes?"

"Is Roy Williams STILL on the team? Why didn't we trade Roy Williams and keep Patrick Crayton?"

"Why is Alex Barron holding Brian Orakpo again?"

"Seriously, why aren't my receivers running the right routes?"

The Giants played ugly but won, and Michael Vick is even dancing through tacklers again. Yes, all is as it should be in the NFL.

What's that -- the Texans defeated the Colts? Can this be?

Curveball alert!

Grab the tuna cans and shotgun shells and head for the hills! The end of days approaches!

If the end of days is really approaching, why would grabbing shotgun shells be required? Is there a gun fight I haven't heard about during the end of days?

The Book of Revelation predicts that a beast with seven heads and 10 horns, four horsemen on colored horses and a Houston series win over Indianapolis will be the signs of the approaching Last Judgment.

Apparently Gregg believes he will kill this beast with a shotgun when the end of days approaches. I am surprised Gregg doesn't go on a five paragraph rant about how a beast with seven heads, ten horns, and colored horses isn't realistic at all and the Bible isn't realistic either.

"Give us a little realism Bible. Come on. I can accept four horsemen, but colored horses? Where will they get the spray paint to color the horses? If they mate these horses where do they find multi-colored horses to mate with? I don't see red and blue horses just hanging around fields. Why won't the seven headed and ten horned beast accidentally attack the horsemen? Are we supposed to just assume they all speak the same language and know not to attack the horsemen? If a beast with seven heads and ten horns takes over Earth, what are the odds it will know to not eat the four horsemen? It's not like they all speak the same language. Besides, whatever continent the horsemen get on, they will have to stay there unless the colored horses can float over the ocean. This is so unrealistic!"

A 231-yard day for unknown, undrafted tailback Arian Foster surely helped. Never heard of Foster?

Nope, I have heard of him. He was a great running back for a season at Tennessee and for some reason wasn't drafted. He is also the greatest free agent find in the history of the NFL and a top-three pick according to Peter King, who took time out of constantly praising Wes Welker to notice the fast black guy running the ball for the Texans.

Had he left school as a junior, he might have been a heralded draft choice. Instead, he returned for his senior year in order to graduate, lost his starting job to Montario Hardesty and wasn't drafted.

Hardesty was a guy who I thought would be good this year for the Browns if he hadn't blown out his ACL for the 15th time in his life.

The biggest factor in the Texans' victory was a surprise game plan.

Change the name of the team to the Florida Texans because we all know from his experience in college Peyton Manning can't beat Florida?

(Ba-dum-boom)

Last season, Houston led the league in passing but was 30th in rushing. Indianapolis clearly expected a pass-wacky Houston offense and prepared for the same. Instead, adjusting for sacks and kneel-downs, Houston coaches called 39 rushes and 18 passes.

I am sure this pass/rush disparity had nothing to do with the fact the Texans were incredibly successful running the ball and were ahead for the entire game. Why throw the ball if you are ahead and running successfully?

Wasn't it two weeks ago that Gregg Easterbrook said rushing the ball is not a way to win a Super Bowl in the new pass-wacky NFL? So you can't win a Super Bowl rushing a lot, but you can beat a Super Bowl team by rushing a lot? I hate Gregg's contradictions.

As for my Super Bowl pick, annually Tuesday Morning Quarterback forecasts that the team goin' to Disney World will be one that did not appear on "Monday Night Football." This has happened three times in the past 11 years.

We all know the teams chosen for MNF has nothing to do with ratings and has everything to do with that team's overall skill level. So naturally there is a tie-in with which teams appear on MNF and which teams should appear in the Super Bowl. ESPN only chooses the best teams to be on MNF, regardless of ratings.

(end sarcasm)

I will be true to my school and predict that someone from the non-MNF group will win the Super Bowl.

Yet, he will not reveal the actual team he thinks will go to the Super Bowl. That's not really a prediction to pick one team out of seven teams and say they will be in the Super Bowl. That's a cop-out for a prediction.

My alternate-uniform Super Bowl pick -- from observing the television football touts I've learned that it helps to make several mutually exclusive predictions -- is Colts versus Packers.

Gregg has two Super Bowl picks, naturally, who doesn't have two Super Bowl picks every year? I personally have 10 picks.

I have my real pick (Chargers-Packers), my dream pick (Panthers-Browns), my New York pick (Giants-Jets), my California pick (San Diego-San Francisco), my nightmare pick (Minnesota-Indianapolis), my Missouri pick (Kansas City-St. Louis), my "will anyone watch the game" pick (Jacksonville-Carolina), my after Week 1 pick (New Orleans-New England), my Peter King orgasm pick (New England-Minnesota), and my Texas pick (Houston-Dallas).

So Gregg seems to believe a team that doesn't appear on MNF will appear in the Super Bowl, he just isn't going to actually back that belief with a prediction that reflects it.

In other NFL news, one week is in the books -- why not open the Pro Bowl balloting? Last fall, the league opened voting for Pro Bowl slots in mid-October, when about a third of the season had been played. Might as well cut out the middleman and choose the Pro Bowl roster following the first game. Makes as much sense as choosing in October.

I think Pro Bowl voting is done too early, but voting after one game doesn't make as much sense as choosing in October (rubs head and wonders why he reads TMQ every week).

At 9:01 p.m. ET last Thursday -- a mere half-hour into the 2010 NFL season -- the first Preposterous Punt boomed. The Vikings punted on fourth-and-3 from midfield, against the highest-scoring team in the league. Needless to say, they went on to lose. Minnesota averaged a spectacular 6.3 yards per offensive snap in 2009 -- why was Brad Childress afraid to try for 3 yards?

Because he didn't want to give the highest-scoring team in the NFL the ball on the 50 yard line if his team couldn't get three yards and wanted to pin them deep and hope his defense could stop them?

Stat of the Week No. 4: Stretching back to last season, Dallas has one touchdown in its past two games.

Seriously? Not only does Gregg stretch back 8 months to last season for this statistic, but he only uses a sample size of two games to do so.

Sweet Play of the Week No. 2: Oakland holding a 3-0 lead, Tennessee had first-and-10 on its 44. The Flaming Thumbtacks lined up in double slots. Vince Young play-faked and bootlegged right; from the left, Justin Gage came to the right behind the Tennessee offensive line, while Nate Washington ran a deep cross. Usually on a bootleg, the intended receiver is directly in front of the quarterback.

This isn't true. There are bootlegs with multiple receivers and the intended receiver isn't always right in front of the quarterback.

Since Gage was running directly in front of Young, to the safeties, it looked as though the play was drawn up for a 10-yard gain to Gage. The safeties bit.

You are a safety for Oakland and you see Vince Young play fake to Chris Johnson and then run right. Of these three things, why would you have come in more and let a player get behind you?

1. You bit on the play fake to the best running back in the NFL, Chris Johnson, and thought he had the ball. You intend to try to tackle him before he runs too far down the field.

2. You see Vince Young running and would like to prevent him from running for a touchdown.

3. You assume because the ball usually goes to the short receiver on a bootleg, you will just ignore the receiver currently going deep and passing you on his way to the end zone.

I am sure it was the fact they just assumed the ball was going to be thrown short that had the safeties bite and had nothing to do with the play fake to Chris Johnson or the image of Vince Young running free with the football. Football players don't have assignments on each play, they just play free-lance defense based on their own assumption of what they think should happen on each play.

Sweet Play of the Week (Small-College Bonus): Playing No. 13 Virginia Tech on the Hokies' field, Division I-AA James Madison -- hired by the Hokies for an automatic win -- faced first-and-10 on the host's 12, trailing 16-14 in the fourth quarter.

Cupcake alert! This is terrible that Virginia Tech schedules shitty teams like James Madison just so they can beat up on team. Virginia Tech should not be able to get these easy win---...wait, Virginia Tech lost? But that doesn't support Gregg's theory! This can't happen.

I like how one week Gregg Easterbrook assumes any Division I-AA team is an easy win and is a "cupcake" and the next week celebrates his own wrongness by pointing out they aren't always easy wins.

James Madison came out in a "pistol" -- quarterback set back from center but not as far as in a shotgun, with a tailback behind him. (A pistol is smaller than a shotgun.)

Which is exactly why you would never take pistol shells to fight a seven headed and ten horned beast. They are completely ineffective against the beast.

Announcers and the sportsyak world love to drop the term Cover 2, but how many could tell you what this means or how it differs from a Tampa 2? How many could diagram a Cover 4 or a Cover 1? TMQ bets that few who talk and write about football for a living actually know what these coverages are.

Says the guy who writes a football column for (part) of his living and doesn't understand some of the basic principles of the sport. For example, he thinks when Event A happens on a football field then Event B will usually happen every time.

Later, leading 31-14 in the fourth quarter, New England faced third-and-goal on the Cincinnati 1. Backup offensive lineman Dan Connolly reported eligible and lined up as a fullback. Tom Brady didn't even play-fake, simply dropping back to pass; Connolly sprinted into the right flat as if the pass was to him. Linebacker Brandon Johnson covered Connolly; no one covered Gronkowski, the tight end on the right, who caught the game-icing touchdown. A goal-line play that results in a receiver covered by no one is a sweet play. Bengals linebacker Johnson could have covered a tight end or an extra offensive lineman, and chose to cover the lineman: That was sour.

This is what I was talking about when I wrote what I did above. What if the Bengals were running a mix of man and zone defense? Johnson's responsibility may have been the man coming out of the backfield and the other linebackers would drop back in a zone, as would the safeties. So Johnson did what he was supposed to on the play and followed the man coming out of the backfield, so was it was the linebacker or safety's fault a touchdown was scored? Gregg doesn't even think this could happen because a linebacker would never play man with a zone defense behind him in Gregg's mind.

Mike Singletary ordered a punt in Seattle territory while trailing 28-6 in the fourth quarter -- see below. Joe Staley and Anthony Davis, two of the league's highest-paid linemen, both played poorly Sunday.

Anthony Davis is a rookie...who was playing in his first game ever...on the road. Isn't it fair to give him a break this week?

Last week Princeton was hit with an NCAA sanction because an adult friend paid part of a tennis player's tuition.

This isn't as nutty as it sounds. The NCAA bans payment of tuition by anyone other than immediate family members. Otherwise boosters would pool funds to pay the tuition of prospects, and big universities could evade scholarship limits. Since in the Princeton case the person who paid was a longtime friend of the student, the NCAA should simply have let this pass.

So how are we supposed to tell the difference in "a close family friend" and some guy who pays for a college athlete's education to get around scholarship limits? Is there some test required that says a person is a close family friend? Anyone can claim to be a "close family friend" which is why the rule exists.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Martz: What to make of Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz, the former Rams coach? He punted on fourth-and-2 from the Detroit 41, a mincing fraidy-cat call. Facing fourth-and-goal on the Lions' 1, Martz went for it, the manly-man call,

Was it Mike Martz or Lovie Smith who went for it and punted on these two occasions? I would hope Lovie Smith is making decisions like this and not Mike Martz.

but using a bland straight-ahead play that failed. TMQ maintains you must do a little dance on short-yardage downs: A shift or man-in-motion or both are required to distract the defense.

So to go for it on fourth down and not have Gregg criticize you, a team must make sure the play works. Otherwise, if it doesn't work then Gregg thinks it was a dumb call...it is all based on the outcome that determines what Gregg thinks about it.

Then Gregg goes through a list of times when the Jets blitzed and should not have blitzed. He ignores the fact the Jets gave up a grand total of 10 points to the Ravens. This is evidence that may show blitzing worked, so he ignores this evidence because it doesn't reach the conclusion he wants it to reach.

Failing to score a touchdown in their final outing of 2009, the Cowboys scored only one in their first outing of 2010. Didn't we spend the offseason hearing about the "high-powered" Dallas offense, about its "weapons"? The final snap of the first half and the final snap of the second half netted minus-14 points for Dallas -- in a game the Cowboys lost by six.

Washington defensive coordinator Jim Haslett used an aggressive game plan that included 18 cornerback or safety blitzes on 71 Dallas snaps, a very high number of times to gamble on defensive backs rushing the passer.

So here Gregg criticizes the Cowboys offense for not being high powered enough against the Redskins and moderately criticizes the Redskins for blitzing so often and preventing the Cowboys offense from being high powered.

Everyone gaped in amazement at the idiotic play on which Tony Romo flipped the ball to Tashard Choice on the final snap before intermission, with Dallas stuck on its 36. Choice fumbled, and Washington returned the rock for a touchdown. What, if anything, was Romo thinking? Choice was just as bad -- hemmed in by Skins, he was struggling to gain an extra yard to pad his stats, rather than just get on the ground.

Of course there is also the field of thought that Choice may have been trying to get more yardage and score a touchdown by not going to the ground. That would be stupid to believe though, so I am sure rather than trying to score a touchdown for the Cowboys, Choice was trying to get some extra yards to pad his stats. What running back would refuse to be tackled just so he can score a touchdown for his team?

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Trailing 24-0 at New England, Cincinnati faced fourth-and-7 on the Patriots' 35 with 1:19 remaining in the first half, holding two timeouts. As the field goal attempt boomed, TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook.

The game was over, not because the score was 24-0 at halftime, but because the Bengals kicked a field goal in this situation. If the score was 3-0 in favor of the Bengals, the game would have still been over in Gregg's eyes.

That big commitment to the run that Josh "When Does the Frat Party Start?" McDaniels decreed in the offseason? Counting sacks and scrambles, he called 38 passes and 23 rushes. Trailing 24-17, Denver reached third-and-3 on the Jax 14 with 4:51 remaining. Pound the ball? Incompletion, incompletion, ye gods.

Part of the reason the Broncos could not commit to the run is because they were down 17-7 in the early parts of the third quarter and down 24-10 at the end of the third quarter. Being down double digits makes it hard to run the ball in the second half.

Doesn't McDaniels get credit for going for it on fourth down and not being a chicken so that he can turn around the losing culture in Denver? If this play worked, Gregg would give him credit, but because it failed he gets none. So fortune doesn't favor the bold, it favors those who are bold and succeed in being bold.

Gregg tries to pretend he has a rule that going for it on fourth down is smart in certain situations, when he really believes (in retrospect of course) that going for it on fourth down is only smart if a team converts a first down.

Welker had a good day for New England, and many touts have him as their predicted pick for comeback player of the year. "Comeback" player has no formal definition. But how can Welker be viewed as a comeback player when he missed only one game?

I don't know, ask Peter King.

Brett Favre got four votes for Comeback Player of the Year in 2009 and he never missed a game the year before. It brings me to the conclusion, awards like this can be fairly meaningless.

There has been a lot of praise for the Jets' funky defensive sets, too. On Monday night, Baltimore was in a conventional 3-4 almost the entire contest and blitzed only a few times. Who won the game?

This sample size of one game proves the Jets constant blitzing, which led to the best defense in football last year over 16 games in the regular season and got them to the AFC Championship game was just a fluke!

San Diego won the division last season despite having the league's 31st-ranked rushing attack. But when it's raining, you must be able to run the ball. In Kansas City, when it was raining, the Chiefs could run the ball and the Chargers could not. Who won the game?

It's a passing league though. Gregg said this himself. So the Chiefs could win this game, but they can't win the Super Bowl by rushing the ball well. I would think because the Chargers don't run the ball well, they would be fine in this new pass-wacky NFL.

Defending Champion Notes: New Orleans is viewed by the sports world as pass wacky, yet in the Super Bowl showed it could play superior defense, and against Minnesota showed it could play a traditional power game on offense -- rushing for 70 yards in the second half against the Vikings' top-rated run defense.

The Saints can rush the ball and they do rush the ball. They get ahead by throwing the ball and then run the ball well in the second half to try and ice the game. Again, it is easy to run a power running offense when your team is in the lead and you are running the ball well.

Arizona's dreadful seven fumbles kept St. Louis in the game. On Les Mouflons' last-gasp drive, $51 million rookie Sam Bradford kept throwing underneath -- it may have been that the game plan for the rookie's debut included only short passes.

Or it could have been that the Cardinals had taken away the deep pass from the Rams and the Rams were able to throw underneath because they had 3 timeouts left. There's no point in trying to throw the ball deep into double coverage and getting the ball intercepted if the receiver isn't open. Bradford had 3 timeouts and took what the defense was giving him.

Hidden Play of the Week: Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives.

I hate this definition. It is not like highlight reels contain every key moment or play of a game. They are called HIGHLIGHT reels for a reason. That reason being they only show the highlights and not every important play in a game.

Leading 14-9, defending champion New Orleans faced third-and-1 on its own 21 with 4:20 remaining, Minnesota holding two timeouts. If the Vikings could force a punt, they would have good field position to win the game on their final possession. Drew Brees play-faked a power dive, then threw a flare pass in the flat to blocking back Heath Evans for a first down. This play will never be on anyone's highlight reel, but was essential to the Saints' win.

This play was the first down that allowed the Saints to keep the ball and get a new set of downs. This is the play that kept the ball out of Brett Favre's hands and prevented the Vikings from getting the ball and coming back. For anyone who watched this game, this was not a hidden play simply because it wasn't on SportsCenter.

Cupcakes -- Fear Their Wrath: The college football season opened with Jacksonville State and North Dakota State, Division I-AA cupcakes hired to assure big-deal programs an auto-victory, winning at Ole Miss and at Kansas, respectively. In the second week James Madison and South Dakota, Division I-AA cupcakes hired to assure big-deal programs an auto-victory, won at Virginia Tech and at Minnesota, respectively. Note that in all four cases not only did the cupcake prevail, it prevailed on the home field of the football factory.

So either Gregg's whining about teams play cupcake teams doesn't have too much relevance because these teams win sometimes or these teams really aren't cupcakes so Gregg should stop criticizing teams for scheduling these games. Either way, I don't know if Gregg can complain about cupcake games being played when the cupcake is upsetting the "football-factory" schools.

Hurray for overmatched Morgan State. Trailing football factory Maryland 48-0 on the Terps' home turf, the Bears -- a hired cream puff who in 2009 lost by 41 points at Akron -- kicked a field goal to prevent the hosts from boasting of a shutout.

So the Murray State coach wasn't just padding the score to make himself look better by saying his team scored? Gregg would accuse any NFL coach who goes for a field goal in this situation of trying to make himself look better by not getting shut out, yet he celebrates Morgan State here when they kick a field goal rather than being bold and going for it on fourth down.

Gregg LOVES to call a coach who puts points on the board for his team in a blowout a selfish person for trying to make himself look better, yet he backs away from this criticism in this case.

Next Week: Tony Blair claims to have said "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" and to have written the Magna Carta.

This is supposed to be humor.