TMQ Has It's Season Finale, Unfortunately It's Not the Series Finale

Gregg Easterbrook revealed his lowly anticipated TMQ Non-QB Non-RB MVP last week and I revealed my highly anticipated BotB Highly-Drafted Glory-Boy Only MVP. Gregg also talked about high scoring teams, felt like Andre Reed was held back in the Buffalo Bills offense, and then sort of agreed with but also sort of criticized the NCAA's new admission requirements for athletes. This week Gregg takes on the hard-hitting football issues like whether Iran's space monkey is fake, talks about Hollywood toys, and decides what the best book of 2012 ended up being. He also heroically manages to fit in some discussion of the NFL, which is convenient since TMQ is posted on ESPN.com and is supposed to be a column about football. More interestingly, Gregg doesn't include an "all-unwanted team" in any of this year's TMQ's. Does this mean the fight to oppose Gregg believing undrafted and unwanted players are better than highly-drafted players is over? Probably not. Most likely Gregg didn't have the energy to mislead his readers into believing unwanted players are better than highly drafted players. I am sure next year he will have an all-unwanted team again and will just ignore there weren't enough unwanted or lowly drafted players to form a team during the 2012 season.

After a season of praising Jim Harbaugh for being smart and using college tactics in the NFL, Gregg has decided Harbaugh isn't a good head coach anymore and is guilty of the single worst play of the season. I'm sure next year when the 49ers win the Super Bowl Gregg will be criticizing those writers who criticized Jim Harbaugh this past year. Gregg's a hypocrite like that.

Offense rules this decade, so it was only appropriate that Ravens-Niners became the second Super Bowl in which both teams scored at least 30 points. When the Baltimore Ravens made it 31-23, your columnist opined, "The '77 Cowboys were the only team to reach 30 points and not win the Super Bowl. The Ravens have reached 30 points. They will win."

Notice how offense rules this decade but zero Super Bowls in the last decade had both Super Bowl teams reach 30 points in the game and the last time this happened was 1977. So did offense rule the 70's as well?

We also know Gregg would never have brought up he stated "Game Over" if the Ravens ended up losing the Super Bowl to the 49ers. Gregg probably wrote "Game Over" in his notebook with reference to Baltimore when the Ravens started playing poorly in the second half and the 49ers started to come back. I would bet he did.

Not only for the fifth time in the past six seasons was the Super Bowl decided by one score; not only for the fifth time in the past six seasons was the outcome in doubt until only a few seconds remained; for the fifth time in the past six seasons, the Super Bowl was the best game of the year. Once, Super Bowls were known for being clunkers. Recently, the Super Bowl has been consistently terrific, showing why America is crazy about football.

America is crazy about football, but remember that Gregg has said multiple times there is no law stating the NFL must stay popular. So he's fully expecting America to either quit watching the sport or for American to continue to be crazy about football. Either way, he's right.

The Niners offensive line was run-blocking very well, San Francisco rushing for 182 yards. How could Baltimore's exhausted defense stop the Niners from gaining the final seven yards and the Lombardi?

With help from Jim Harbaugh, that's how!

I do think the 49ers should have run the ball more than they did on the goal line, but as documented in MMQB by Peter King, the Ravens were running a zero blitz specifically to stop the 49ers from running the football. Contrary to Gregg's opinion, an offense just can't do whatever it wants anytime it wants. If the defense has a great play-call it can prevent the offense from doing what it wants to do.

Baltimore leading 7-3, the Forty Niners have third down at the Ravens' 8. Presaging the endgame, once San Francisco reached goal-to-go, Colin Kaepernick did not rush. (When he runs in the red zone in the fourth quarter, it's a 15-yard touchdown.)

I realize Gregg is equal part stupid and equal part willing to mislead his audience, but this 15-yard touchdown was not a designed run play. Gregg is suggesting the 49ers design a run for Kaepernick and then saying Kaepernick ran for a 15 yard touchdown earlier in the game. The difference, and why Gregg's point is up for debate, is that Kaepernick's touchdown run was not a designed run. So maybe the 49ers should have called a passing play that didn't work and caused Kaepernick to scramble. That's how Kaepernick ran for a touchdown earlier in the game.

In a game they would go on to lose by three points, the Niners reached Baltimore's 9, 8 and 5 without scoring a touchdown -- sour indeed. 

It's no credit to the Ravens defense this happened, it is just the 49ers offense didn't call the right plays to score a touchdown. Gregg thinks NFL defenses can never just stop the opposing offense. There always was a bad play call that caused the offense to not score a touchdown in the red zone.

First-and-goal at the 7. LaMichael James up the middle for two yards. Frank Gore just ran for 33 yards and has been repped out for a down. But what Baltimore's tired defense most fears, a Colin Kaepernick sprint run, doesn't happen. 

Gregg now has the ability to not only read one mind, but read multiple minds. He knows a Kaepernick sprint run (as differentiated from a "run"?) is what the Ravens defense fears the most. Of course, Gregg is sort of correct and the Ravens had a zero blitz called to try and make sure a Kaepernick run did not work, but this reality is irrelevant to Gregg. He lives in his own world where a defensive play call has no effect on the offense's ability to gain yardage and the 49ers should have done what the Ravens defense fears the most.

Third-and-goal at the 5. Gore is taken out! This tells the Ravens they don't need to honor the rush.

Frank Gore being out of the game tells the Ravens they don't need to honor the rush, even though the 49ers just ran the ball with LaMichael James and Gregg claims the Ravens fear a Kaepernick sprint rush the most. I am sure it all makes sense when you are a hack writer like Gregg, but exactly how can the Ravens fear Kaepernick running with the ball most, but the Ravens also don't believe they need to honor the rush when Kaepernick is in the game without Frank Gore?

Think what's happened here. Three straight plays from the Baltimore 5, Colin Kaepernick, one of the most dangerous players in the sport, has not rushed. Frank Gore hasn't touched the ball. Three straight pass attempts to the same guy, Crabtree, and all three toward the right corner.

It wasn't great play-calling, but the Ravens also did a good job of taking away what the 49ers wanted to do.

Inexperienced right-handed quarterbacks are more comfortable throwing to their right. The Ravens' defense was expecting passes, and passes to the right -- just what San Francisco delivered.

I'm pretty sure Colin Kaepernick threw a touchdown pass to his left earlier in the game, but no, I'm sure inexperienced right-handed quarterbacks are more comfortable throwing to their right. They are also more comfortable throwing to their best receiver, Michael Crabtree, who just happened to be lined up on the right.

New York Times Corrections on Fast-Forward: During recent months the Paper of Record has, according to its corrections box: 

This is the part where Gregg talks about all the errors the "New York Times" made during the year. Only Gregg Easterbrook could point out errors made by other media outlets in TMQ when he states misleading and sometimes erroneous comments in TMQ.

Said penguins are indigenous to Louisiana.

Here is a great example of Gregg citing an article and misleading his audience. The "New York Times" did not say penguins are indigenous to Louisiana. Well, they did, but they meant to type "pelicans" are indigenous to Louisiana. So they confused penguins with pelicans, and that was the error, the error was not believing penguins are indigenous to Louisiana. So yes, in theory Gregg is correct, but he misleads his audience about the actual mistake that was made.

This year's challenge was to create a visual representation of a TMQ stalwart, such as Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed at All.

The winner is R.C. Torres of Eagle Pass, Texas, whose accompanying visual incorporates both Cold Coach = Victory and the all-important concept of cheerleader professionalism. 

It's a very good drawing that R.C. did. I'm sad for him that he participated in this game that Gregg created, but if he participated purely to use TMQ to get his art out to the world, then good for him.

John Harbaugh's December decision to install Jim Caldwell as offensive coordinator paid off with higher scoring.

What was that Gregg? Is that an "I'm wrong" I am reading? It's not, well it should be. Gregg from December 18:

Chan Gailey has acted all season as though he was fired last season. John Harbaugh was more concerned with shifting blame than fixing his team.

By firing Cameron now -- rather than this past offseason, when the offensive coordinator position could have turned over in an orderly manner -- Ravens coach John Harbaugh sent the signal that he expects yet another playoff collapse and wants an excuse lined up. At the postgame media event following the playoff collapse Harbaugh/East appears to expect, he can blame Cameron for the team's troubled offense. Firing an assistant coach just before the playoffs isn't a bold move to invigorate the team. It's a desperate move about blame shifting. 

Gregg Easterbrook from January 1:

John Harbaugh fired offensive coordinator Cam Cameron midseason, trying to make the Ravens' plodding offense his fault: though Baltimore averaged 25 points under Cameron, and has averaged 23 points since. 

It's always awkward when it is just hanging out there in the world that a writer was wrong, and dammit, he just won't admit it. This is one of the big things I dislike about Gregg Easterbrook. He knows he is wrong, but he just won't say it because he is too damn proud that his readers might think he isn't this all-knowing person that he believes they believe him to be.

Flacco's rollout under pressure on third-and-7, stopping to throw a perfect 30-yard strike to Anquan Boldin, was a Hall of Fame-class play.

That is the kind of play the best quarterback in the NFL is expected to make. Right, Merrill Hoge?

Everyone's noting that the gamble of switching to Caldwell as offensive coordinator paid off. 

Yes, but is everyone apologizing for accusing John Harbaugh of trying to shift the blame off another eventual playoff collapse? Apparently not.

The next item in TMQ is Gregg thinking of movie ideas based on board games and they are terrible ideas.

"Chutes." A young slacker who inexplicably has a red-hot swimsuit-model girlfriend takes a college class in Indian mythology. A mysterious professor hands him a map and tells him to dig up what he finds. He discovers an incredible 3D board, thousands of years old, that opens ladders that take him to space stations on other worlds but also fantastic snakes that try to drag him down to a hell dimension.

I liked this movie better when it was called "Jumanji" and the hell dimension doesn't scream "family-fun time" to me.

"Tonka." A lonely boy whiles away time by playing with classic 1960s-style metal Tonka trucks. One day the trucks start driving around on their own. Zany mischief follows as the trucks build things behind his mom's back, then become toys again whenever she looks. A starship lands and out steps Tonka, leader of an embattled race of living machines that has come to protect Earth from invasion by an evil race of living automated speeding ticket cameras. Though they possess advanced faster-than-light technology, the trucks can only win if they have a child to guide them.

I'm getting these are jokey sort of movie ideas, but they are close enough to reality in that they aren't funny nor are they original. Somehow Gregg has found the middle ground between a terrible movie idea and a non-funny parody of bad movie ideas.

"Erector." Gigantic steel monsters attack the Earth. A lonely teen who inexplicably has a red-hot girlfriend gets text messages telling him to buy an old 1960s-style Erector Set on eBay. When he does, the text messages start giving him instructions on how to build a siege engine that will defeat the invaders.

Notice how every one of Gregg's ideas involve aliens or machines coming alive? I know he is basing these ideas on "Transformers" but at least be somewhat original. Also, the movie is called "Erector?" Really?

"Not So Silly." A group of teen misfits finds a strange pink lake, where the stuff in the lake feels like putty. They take some home. A girl molds some putty into a super-handsome boy-band leader who does whatever she wants. A boy molds some putty into a flying pack that can outrun jet fighters. They make other amazing stuff, which they hide so the government doesn't seize it, then go back for more, only to discover the "lake" has begun to glow and seethe. Something evil has taken over the putty and is using it to make Lucifer. The only hope is if they mold their dwindling supply of putty into clever weapons that stop the evil.

Again, not funny, and also not really original. We are back in the middle ground of not-funny parody and a bad original idea. All Gregg needs to do is hire Brett Ratner to direct these movies and he will ensure no one wants to see them.

Sing the Whole Song! Your columnist complains about the Super Bowl, and other public events, in which only the first verse of "America the Beautiful" is sung.

Sunday, children from Newtown, Conn. sang the first verse. Then Jennifer Hudson joined them, and sang the first verse. First verse performed twice, other verses unsung. Never-sung lyrics include, "America! America! God mend thine every flaw/Confirm thy soul in self-control/Thy liberty in law," and, "God shed His grace on thee/Till selfish gain no longer stain/The banner of the free." Do organizers of public events think Americans are too shallow to entertain such thoughts?

More likely the organizers just want the Super Bowl to start at 6:30pm. So "America the Beautiful" gets one verse and somehow we all manage to move on with our lives.

Bill Belichick Was Behind This Somehow: The new nonfiction book "Last Ape Standing," by Chip Walter, details new research that suggests Neanderthals, rendered extinct by Homo sapiens about 30,000 years ago, were stronger and had larger brains than people. So how, the book asks, did we beat them? TMQ thinks we must have videotaped their sideline. 

A Spygate joke! Very timely and relevant. I expect Gregg to start making jokes about the 1919 Black Sox very soon.

Buck-Buck-Brawckkkkkkk: Trailing 28-6 midway through the third quarter of the Super Bowl, the Forty Niners, their hot offense facing a weak defense, had fourth-and-7 at midfield and punted.

This was a "weak defense" that had held the 49ers to six points midway through the third quarter by the way. So I'm not sure how "weak" the Ravens defense really was. Gregg can't stop misleading his readers even when it is quite obvious his statements don't match the factual data he provides when making that statement. I wouldn't consider a defense that has given up 6 points in the Super Bowl through two-and-a-half quarters to be a weak defense.

Harbaugh/West thought defensive holding should have been called on the fourth-and-goal. It could have been, but Michael Crabtree was pushing off too, and on the opposite side of the field, San Francisco receiver A.J. Jenkins pretty much threw his defender to the ground, which could have been flagged.

Maybe it could have been flagged if Jenkins was outside the five-yard bump limit, but otherwise as long as he literally didn't throw his defender to the ground the illegal contact should not have been called.  

A full-time professional coach should know this, and know it's a reason why, on fourth-and-goal from the 5 to win the Super Bowl, a fade is a weak call.

Is this as opposed to a part-time professional coach? Plus, is a fade to the 49ers best receiver who is being defended by a rookie really that weak of a call? It feels like a passive call, but I don't know if I would consider it weak since Crabtree against a rookie seems like a good matchup to me. Then I could defend the play call by saying the only reason it didn't work is there was a good case for defensive pass interference on Jimmy Smith's part. I don't think I like the passivity of the call, but it wasn't a weak call because it went to the 49ers best receiver matched up against a rookie.

"Vertigo," a 1958 film often praised as one of the best movies ever, seems to have started this trend: It was about climbing tall objects. By the 1989 movie "Batman," the climactic scene involved Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson climbing a spire. Why would a criminal mastermind try to escape Batman by climbing to the top of a high spire? To see who falls off, of course! 

Actually, in the original Batman the Joker went to the top of the spire so that he could catch a helicopter and get away safely with Vicky Vale. It was easier to catch the helicopter on top of a huge building rather than have the helicopter try to land or pick up the Joker on the streets of Gotham. In fact, Nicholson almost got away with it if it weren't for the meddling Batman. So there was a purpose to the Joker's climbing the spire.  

Movies are full of clichés.

Remember, Gregg gets paid to write this type of content on a weekly basis. "Movies are full of cliches." No way? Do tell.

Surely the goofiest dangling scene was in the 1959 thriller "North by Northwest." Eva Marie Saint dangles off Mount Rushmore, grasping the hand of Cary Grant, who himself appears to be dangling by his fingertips. Could even the strongest man hold this position for more than a few seconds? In Hollywood, complications like that do not matter. 

Adrenaline can make people do crazy things. Lift heavy cars or do something else that seems extraordinary. I think helping a woman hang from a ledge while also hanging from a ledge by one hand could qualify as something adrenaline-fueled that seems extraordinary.

Kaepernick's second-quarter interception was intended for Moss, and the pass was high. But Moss did not try to knock the ball away from Ed Reed. Seeing the pass was high, Moss just stopped and stood there watching the interception, then stood there watching the return. What a punk. 

Moss didn't make the greatest effort to catch this ball, but this was such a terrible pass I'm not even sure if he didn't alligator-arm the catch then he could have gotten a hand or fingertip on the ball to make sure Reed didn't catch it.

Moss vanished in the Vikings' 1998 home NFC title-game loss; he vanished in Minnesota's epic 41-0 playoff destruction by the Giants in the 2000 championship game; he was held in check in New England's 2008 Super Bowl loss and vanished in the San Francisco's 2013 Super Bowl loss. Some greatest receiver. He wouldn't even make my top 10. 

Of course he wouldn't. How's that Crabtree Curse going for the 49ers, Gregg?  

By the way, Moss had 5 catches for 62 yards and a touchdown in the 2008 Super Bowl. If that's holding him "in check" then I'm not sure I understand what this phrase means. For his career, Moss has 54 catches for 977 yards and 10 touchdowns in the playoffs over 15 games. Considering he is playing a higher level of NFL team in the playoffs this isn't too shabby.

Did Iran fake its space-monkey launch?

Wouldn't put it past a country that five years ago issued fake pictures of a missile launch. 

Great point. More importantly, why does it matter in a column about football whether Iran faked its space-monkey launch? Even more importantly, who cares?

Nate Silver of the 538 blog is a hot name. His political forecasts are consistently sound, though Silver did not, as some have said, precisely call the 2012 presidential election. On the morning of the balloting, Silver forecast that Obama would win with "314.6" electoral votes. That absurd tenth of an elector aside,

It's a mathematical calculation taken by many different simulations that Silver ran. The tenth of an elector isn't absurd, but just shows the results of the different political simulations that Silver ran. Nate Silver obviously (at least to any sane human being who isn't being willfully ignorant) wasn't saying that Obama would win 314.6 electoral votes.

Obama won with 332 electoral votes. So Silver was close, but off by 5 percent -- or as he might say, by 5.53083 percent. 

Good one, Gregg. Good zinger. You really stuck it to math and the overuse of hyper-specificity in numbers.

Sunday, The New York Times ran a full page boldly titled "Nate Silver Picks the Super Bowl!" The article was rich with pseudo-scientific decimal-place ratings of various stuff -- but never got around to saying which team would win. Your columnist predicted the winner would be Baltimore by three points. And yea, verily, it came to pass. 

If Gregg took the time to read Silver's column, which I doubt he did, then he would see Nate Silver essentially picked the 49ers to win.

All San Francisco talk in the playoffs has been about whiz kid Colin Kaepernick and the Niners' college-inspired offense. What jumps out at your columnist is the postseason decline of the Niners' pass defense.

What Gregg means to say is "pass rush." A good pass rush can make the pass defense look really good. The decline of Justin and Aldon Smith coinciding with the decline of the 49ers pass defense is not a coincidence. How can Gregg not understand this?...outside of the fact he doesn't understand football, of course.

One factor in the decline of the Niners' pass rush was Justin Smith nursing injuries.

Aldon Smith depends on Justin Smith to play well, along with the fact the 49ers were playing a higher level of quarterback and I think these are the biggest contributing factors to the 49ers secondary struggling.

The game's Hidden Play came in the first quarter, when Flacco threw incompletion on third-and-9 from the San Francisco 18, but the Niners were called for offside. Now facing third-and-4, Flacco threw a touchdown pass -- a four-point swing in a game the Ravens would win by three points. 

First off, there are no hidden plays in the Super Bowl. Second, a play that results in a touchdown pass is never a hidden play. An offsides that gives one team another chance on third down and this second chance results in a touchdown pass is never ever, ever, ever hidden.

Your offense gains 468 yards, your team scores 31 points -- and you lose the Super Bowl. Of course a special teams breakdown was an issue. But San Francisco's poor pass coverage throughout the playoffs was the problem hiding in plain sight. 

Sort of wrong. The 49ers poor pass rush was the problem hiding in plain sight.

Baltimore facing third-and-10 at the 2-minute warning of the first half, Jacoby Jones ran a stutter-go. San Francisco was in a Cover 2. Niners cornerback Chris Culliver simply let Jones blow past,

Which is obviously what the design of the defense required him to do, so he should be free of blame.

On Jones' 108-yard kick return to start the second half, Delanie Walker and Tramaine Brock had the best angles. Walker quit on the play at Baltimore's 45, Brock quit on the play at San Francisco's 25.

Delanie Walker is a fullback and Tramaine Brock tried hard but had no chance at catching Jacoby Jones, who is very, very fast.

Probably neither would have caught the runner. But it's the Super Bowl, why are you standing there watching, maybe he'll stumble! 

Yeah, I guess so, but I don't see how giving up on a kickoff return where you would not have caught the runner is the single worst play of the season. The odds of Jones falling are not high and he wasn't going to be caught otherwise, so acting like they were lazy to stop running is silly. How is this the single worst play of the season?

But verily, it is not the single worst play of the season! Gregg threw us a curveball!

But the single worst performance of the 2012 NFL season was turned in by Jim Harbaugh. In the third quarter, the Niners kicked on fourth-and-short when trailing and on fourth-and-7 from midfield when trailing. San Francisco reached first-and-goal at Baltimore's 7 at the endgame, facing an exhausted defense. Harbaugh didn't let Kaepernick run. Harbaugh didn't let Gore run. He sent in play calls that might have been right for the guy he benched, Alex Smith. Offensive coordinator Greg Roman may have made the calls but Harbaugh/West was in charge, he could have told Roman what he wanted at the last. Then when the Niners' odd tactics failed, the coach tried to blame the officials!

As Peter King explained on Monday, the Ravens had designed a defense to force Kaepernick to beat the Ravens with his arm and not his legs. They ran a zero blitz on three of the four calls down in the red zone to prevent Kaepernick from running. Perhaps the 49ers should have tried to run with Kaepernick anyway, but the Ravens used good defensive tactics to stop the 49ers from doing what they wanted to do.

Also, Harbaugh wasn't completely at fault for blaming the officials. It was a tough no-call in that situation. An argument could have been made for pass interference.

TMQ folds its tent and steals off into the desert till next season, though will resurface briefly around draft time.

I'll try to act sad. Nope, can't do it.

I do enjoy eviscerating Gregg on a weekly basis, but it's good to take a break. It's bittersweet though when I temporarily lose a writer who embodies the very reason I write on this site.