Gregg Easterbrook Talks High School Offenses, Shockingly Manages To Not Ogle High School Cheerleaders

I almost didn't cover TMQ this week because I know everyone is probably very tired of hearing about Tim Tebow and also tired of every sportswriter talking about Tim Tebow. There's not much else to be said at this point. I decided I would cover TMQ anyway. Gregg Easterbrook talks a bit about Tebow today because it provides him with pageviews and is guaranteed to get a reaction. That's what sports journalism is really about. It is not about writing a good weekly column, but writing a weekly column that gets as much of a reaction, positive or negative, as possible. As always, Gregg succeeds in doing this by being infuriating.

Everybody be at the pep rally after school -- senior Tim Tebow is leading Denver Broncos High School to state! Yeah!

Not Willis McGahee or the Broncos defense...but Tim Tebow is singlehandedly leading the Broncos to state.

Also, I think Gregg has some bizarre high school football fetish. I am sure it is tied up with high school cheerleaders in some way. We need an investigation into this. Where is Charles Robinson when you need him?

Denver is, improbably, the NFL's hottest team outside Wisconsin, 5-1 since Tebow took the reins.

The Broncos are also 5-1 since the Broncos defense started playing very, very well.

The Broncos are tearing up the NFL using high school tactics.

Let's know the phrase "tearing up" is being used very lightly. The Broncos offense averaged 303.6 yards per game prior to Tim Tebow being named the starter. The Broncos offense has averaged 320.5 yards per game after Tebow was named the starter. 17 yards per game is the difference in pre-Tebow and post-Tebow in the Broncos offense. Tebow has also taken care of the ball better, but the offense is averaging 1 less first down per game with him as the starter. So I wouldn't say they are tearing up the NFL with the high school tactics.

The Broncos defense averaged 385.8 yards per game given up pre-Tebow and 329.8 yards per game given up post-Tebow. That's 56 less yards they have given up with Tebow as the starter. The Broncos pre-Tebow gave up 28 points per game and have given up 20 points per game after Tebow. Fewer turnovers and better defense means more wins. The Broncos have improved, but they aren't tearing the NFL up with their tactics.

High school won on a crazed quarterback scramble by Tebow for a 20-yard touchdown. Denver had 229 total yards of offense and 11 first downs -- a prep-game stat. Yet the Broncos prevailed.

Because of the high school offense. Not because the Broncos defense gave up 318 total yards and forced three turnovers of course against the Jets.

Repeatedly, Tebow held the ball in front of the tailback and read the unblocked defensive lineman: That's the "read" part of a zone-read rush. If the lineman moved toward the tailback, Tebow kept the ball, often executing the old-fashioned "midline option" on which the tailback leads into the hole and the quarterback follows.

It isn't like these high school tactics have never been used before. I remember the Falcons running some variation of this with Vick and Warrick Dunn. What Gregg has failed to be mentioned by Gregg is Carolina has been running parts of the option offense with Newton since Week 1 of this year and it has led to a 3-8 record. Newton is better than Tebow at...pretty much everything except when it comes to not throwing interceptions (which is very important) and Carolina has better running backs than Denver, so am I to believe if Carolina ran this offense consistently they would go 5-1? Probably not because there are other elements to winning a football game. Namely, Denver's defense is great.

Tebow even used the high school tactic of running out. In a prep offense, after the quarterback hands off, he sprints in the opposite direction, hoping a defender will follow him.

Mike Vick did this back in the early 2000's in the Falcons offense. Cam Newton has done it since Week 1 of this season. It's not revolutionary offensive tactic, but is intended to be a wrinkle added to the offense, much like the Wildcat was three years ago.

This tactic hasn't been observed in the pros since the 1950s.

Or the early 2000's with Vick or Week 1 of 2011. Gregg's just half a decade off, which is pretty accurate for him.

At San Diego, Tebow enthusiastically ran out the other way each time he handed off, just as a high school quarterback would. The Bolts were so rattled that by the second half, a man was going with Tebow when he ran out empty-handed.

The Chargers weren't rattled, the play was designed well and the Chargers were cognizant of Tebow's running ability.

It's not that high school-flavored offenses have never been employed in the contemporary NFL. Five years ago, Carolina defeated the Falcons by rushing 52 times and attempting seven passes, a stat any prep coach would feel comfortable with.

Gregg has this incredible ability to be correct about something, but also be completely wrong in why he is correct. He is correct in the statistics he uses. He is wrong in that Carolina didn't run a high school offense that day, they ran the Wildcat offense and ran a pro-style running attack...that is unless Gregg thinks Chris Weinke was running an option attack, in which case he is even dumber than I ever thought since Weinke has the foot speed of my grandmother.

But it showed that when presented as a surprise tactic, high school offense can work in the pass-wacky NFL.

The Broncos offense isn't a surprise by now. Denver has been running it for nearly a month now. Teams just can't seem to stop it.

Denver's victory over San Diego was aided by spectacular play from Von Miller -- see below.

Let's drop a mention in really quickly about the best rookie defensive player in the NFL. He may ,just maybe, have something to do with the Broncos 5-1 record but most of the credit goes to Tebow.

Now that defensive coordinators have film of Tebow running the offense seen on Friday nights, its effectiveness is likely to decline.

You don't say! Of course we have been saying this for a few weeks now and the Broncos keep winning.

This brings me to a question...why talk about Tebow and the high school offense being used by the Broncos as if it will continue to work (which is what Gregg has done) and then say the offense won't work much longer? Gregg casually dismisses the 3-4 defense as a fad when it has been used for over two decades now with success, yet focuses on the high school offense being run by the Broncos as if it is revolutionizing the NFL, but then says this offense will decline in effectiveness.

In other football news, New England, New Orleans and Houston are among football's elite teams. The Patriots have 16 touchdowns by tight ends, the Saints and Texans have eight.

Tight ends are important? No way. I certainly don't remember any good teams earlier than this year with great tight ends that went by the name of Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates, Brent Jones, Jay Novacek, and Shannon Sharpe. Nope. This is the first year the tight end has ever been important and Gregg will willfully ignore the teams from last year which had great tight end play and weren't elite teams.

In that contest, Jax tight end Marcedes Lewis dropped passes in the end zone on consecutive snaps, causing his team to settle for a field goal. Better tight end play might have altered the outcome for the Jaguars.

Is this the same Marcedes Lewis who was 9th in catches, 8th in yards, and tied for 1st in touchdowns during 2010 on a mediocre team? You mean, he was somewhat elite and played for a mediocre team? Well that can't be, because this year Gregg is pushing the idea elite tight ends make a team an elite team.

Johnson says he should be considered an elite receiver, and his agent has been asking for elite-receiver money. Yet Johnson hurt his team with his everyone-look-at-me nonsense, plus ignored the mature player's dictum:

A few weeks ago, Gregg said the Bills need to give current players outperforming their contract, like Fred Jackson, to show they are committed to putting a good team together. Johnson is a pretty good receiver, so I wonder if Gregg thinks the Bills should give him a new contract for outperforming his current one?

TMQ has done previous items on Washington defensive coordinator Jim Haslett losing games by big-blitzing in this situation. In 2010, Washington lost a big second-half lead against Houston by big-blitzing late. In the first Washington-Dallas game this season, Washington lost a late lead on an eight-man blitz at the two-minute warning. In the second Washington-Dallas game, the Cowboys faced third-and-15 in overtime: Washington big-blitzed, Dallas got a long gain and the winning field goal a moment later.

Gregg of course leaves out the times when big-blitzing has worked for the Redskins. The only reason he does is because he intentionally misleads his readers and wants them to believe his point of view is correct, so he leaves out any evidence that contradicts his point of view.

So please don't tell me Haslett will call another big blitz! He did, sending seven.

Let me guess, a touchdown ensued due to this big-blitz?

The result was a sack and a Washington win. But TMQ still ranks this as a sour play.

Well, naturally this is a sour play. Don't be confused about the positive outcome, it was an illusion. Since Gregg Easterbrook is a person who decides whether a coaching-related decision was smart or not based solely on the outcome, a positive outcome that contradicts one of his previous contentions would be rejected as an illusion. He will never re-consider his original contention to determine whether it was correct or not because he never wants to be seen as wrong. I have a headache now.

Big-blitzing late has consistently harmed the Redskins under Haslett, and if continued, will harm them again.

It is also entirely possible that big-blitzing has helped the Redskins late in games as well, but Gregg refuses to note when this occurs since he is against big-blitzing. There is some selection bias in this comment because Gregg hasn't featured the times, other than this one, when big-blitzing has helped the Redskins. Gregg presents this as the outlier where big-blitzing late in a game has consistently hurt the Redskins and calls it a sour play, but Gregg never talks about when big-blitzing helps the Redskins late in a game since it would contradict a previous assumption he furthers.

I declared the 49ers set free from the Crabtree Curse because Mike Singletary, who drafted Crabtree, has departed: It was he, not the team, who was cursed.

This probably shouldn't anger me, but it does. Why the fuck would it be called the "Crabtree Curse" if it was a curse caused by Mike Singletary? Any player drafted while Mike Singletary was coaching in San Francisco could be a part of the curse, so it wouldn't need to be called the "Crabtree Curse." Semantics aside, Gregg is bullshitting us rather than have to admit he was wrong. I just don't like it when people are wrong and refuse to admit it and then dance around the issue by talking semantics.

What Gregg said on September 14, 2010:

Under Mike Singletary, San Francisco is 8-5 without Michael Crabtree and 5-8 with him

Who does that sound like the curse is due to? Gregg points out the 49ers have a winning record under Singletary without Crabtree and then points out they have a losing record under Singletary with Crabtree. If Gregg really meant Singletary was cursed, he would not only not name the curse the "Crabtree Curse," but he would also not point out the 49ers record without Crabtree on the roster.

To make matters worse, this sentence was under a section titled "The Curse of Michael Crabtree."

Then on December 28, 2010 Gregg wrote the following:

Mike Singletary -- fourth head coach fired in 2010 before season's end -- finished 8-5 without Michael Crabtree and 10-17 with him.

Again, the curse is about Crabtree, not Mike Singletary.

But let's not forget the Crabtree Curse, which TMQ sees as all too real. In 2008, Singletary fought to make his players buy into the notion that no one is bigger than the team. It worked, and San Francisco began to win. Then the 49ers used a high first-round draft choice on me-first Crabtree, watched him stage a prolonged holdout, then rewarded him with a $15 million bonus for going me-first.

So Singletary, who was not the 49ers General Manager and had NOTHING to do with Crabtree's contact or rewarding him for this holdout and therefore had no say in how much money Crabtree made or how long his holdout continued, was negatively affected by Michael Crabtree on the roster. The mere presence of Crabtree on the roster made the 49ers players lose games, but now the 49ers are winning games. Gregg says this is because Mike Singletary isn't the head coach anymore, but the curse was never about Singletary being the head coach, but was always measured in relation to Michael Crabtree's presence on the team.

Crabtree is still a high first-round draft choice, still got a $15 million signing bonus, and he still had staged a prolonged holdout. The Crabtree Curse was always about Crabtree because Gregg made it a point to show how many games the 49ers lost and won with/without him on the roster. Gregg made it a point to show what a poison Crabtree was on the 49ers roster, yet that isn't true now and he is saying it is because Mike Singletary is gone. Yet the reason for the curse, Michael Crabtree, is still on the roster. I don't even know why I am arguing this really.

Then Gregg points out where readers have shown him to be wrong and says his "readers know too much." What he really means is the readers won't allow him to make shit up and then get paid to put this shit that isn't true in a column. If your readers are smarter than you when it comes to football shouldn't this destroy any credibility you have to write a weekly football column?

What Is the Packers' Secret? Defending champion Green Bay has won 17 in a row and is playing nearly flawless football. What's the secret? Maybe other NFL teams need more tight ends and undrafted rookies. The Packers' roster has five tight ends, most in the league, and three undrafted rookie free agents.

The Packers also start a 1st round draft pick at quarterback who happens to be the best or one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. That helps.

Saints leading 14-3, the Giants had first-and-10 on the New Orleans 37 with 1:31 left, holding two timeouts. If I'd told you at that instant that New Orleans would be the team to score a touchdown before the half, and that no turnover would be involved, you'd have said I was crazy. But Jersey/A threw three straight incompletions, then punted. Coughlin made no attempt to manage the clock -- the Giants should have rushed at least once, to move the clock and ensure no time remaining for New Orleans to reply

Gregg can be such an idiot when he thinks black and white. He gets so quick to criticize he doesn't think logically. The Saints had three timeouts left over. Three. So if the Giants had rushed to move the clock and ensure there was no time remaining, the Saints easily could have called timeout to stop the clock. So Gregg's criticism is stupid. Sure, maybe the Giants should have run the ball once, but there was no way they could have ensured the Saints didn't have time to reply since the Saints had three timeouts left over.

This is what concerns me about TMQ. People who don't care to read something and then evaluate whether the writer is being truthful or not will think the Giants were morons. Those who do question a writer's truthfulness will see Gregg's criticism doesn't hold up. The Saints could have stopped the clock if they had wanted to, no matter what the Giants did because they had three timeouts at this point in the game.

Instead the Saints took possession on their 12 with 1:09 remaining, thanks to those incompletions preserving time.

Also thanks to the Saints having three timeouts, so time would have been preserved by the Saints and the Giants had to try to get a first down.

The result: a nearly effortless 50-yard completion to Marques Colston. New Orleans drove 88 yards in 34 seconds, against a defense that knew the Saints had to throw deep.

Any idiot when criticizing this play would look at how many timeouts were left for the Saints. Any idiot other than Gregg. The Saints didn't have to go deep because (repeat after me) they had three timeouts left.

Atlanta leading 24-14 with six minutes remaining, Percy Harvin of the Vikes legged a kickoff 104 yards -- but did not score. Chris Owens of the Falcons caught Harvin -- a high No. 1 draft pick as a speed merchant -- from behind at the Atlanta 3.

So because Harvin was drafted as a speed merchant he obviously failed by running the kickoff 104 yards. Gregg Easterbrook will go to any lengths to discredit high draft picks. Even when a high draft pick returns a kick for 104 yards he finds something negative to say. It's incredible.

Here, The New York Times recounts how Obama reached his decision, laboring to make the story sound appalling. Never mentioned is that smog is already declining under the existing standard -- and has been declining steadily for about 30 years. No mainstream media account of the Obama decision, among those seen by your columnist at least, mentioned that smog is already declining anyway.

I have always found it very ironic that Gregg criticizes other people for writing misleading stories or leaving out important details. His TMQ consists of this exact behavior on a weekly basis. I guess he's good at knowing what details are left out of a story since he appears to do this same thing himself.

Ever-boasting, often-invisible Chiefs wide receiver Dwayne Bowe surely thought the game was over -- Kansas City's final pass went to him, and Bowe didn't even bother to raise his arms as all Steelers around him leapt for the ball, the result an interception. Then the clock struck midnight on the Chiefs' once-promising season.

"Once promising" Chiefs season? Was this in the preseason? Or when the Chiefs started 0-3? Or was the season promising when they were 4-5 and had lost their starting quarterback for the season?

Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels, but stop or sustain drives.

As I always say, if you are relying on a highlight reel to tell you what the most important plays in a game were then you deserve the ignorance you are acquiring from assuming the only important plays are seen in a highlight reel. To call a play "hidden" because it doesn't make a 45 second highlight reel is simply bizarre. There isn't time for more than 4-5 plays in a general highlight reel shown on television.

In overtime, San Diego reached third-and-6 on the Denver 31. The Bolts ran, hoping to improve field goal position. Denver rookie linebacker Von Miller got a TFL -- tackle for a loss -- dropping Mike Tolbert on the 35. That pushed the field goal attempt back to a 53-yarder, and San Diego missed.

Even considering the criteria of having to make a highlight reel is a bit narrow, this play by Miller which pushed the Chargers on the edge of field goal range was not hidden. This was a very important play since it pushed the field goal back four yards and it took place in overtime. Gregg just wants to appear smart by highlighting a play he believes his readers aren't smart enough to understand the significance of. He's pretentious like that.

Miller's performance is as important to Denver's sudden win streak as anything done by Tim Tebow. Miller is showing the potential to be the best speed linebacker since Cornelius Bennett.

Or Miller could be as good of a speed linebacker the NFL has seen if you don't include the other 6-8 quality speed linebackers who have played very well since Cornelius Bennett retired.

Next Week: The Giants denied perfection to New England; will they deny perfection to Green Bay?

If they Giants don't deny perfection to the Packers it will definitely be because they blitzed too much and not because of any other reason.