Gregg Easterbrook Continues to Complain about the Most Pointless Things He Sees Take Place in Movies

Gregg Easterbrook wrote about fast-paced offenses again last week in TMQ, continued to criticize NFL teams for not making the correct calls on fourth down using his overwhelming grasp of hindsight (except in the case of the Falcons, who went for it on fourth down at the goal line before halftime as opposed to kicking a field goal and this was the difference in the Falcons winning and losing the game), and then generally wrote the same annoying TMQ he writes every week. This week Gregg says the Saints celebrated too quickly and that's why they lost to the Patriots, pimps his book out again, and complains that Hollywood shows people sleeping more heavily than they actually do. Yes, we are at the point where Gregg is criticizing how Hollywood shows that people sleep. It's getting ridiculous.

Has any team ever looked more dead than New England did when, trailing New Orleans, the Patriots turned the ball over twice with less than three minutes remaining?

Yes, many other teams have looked even more dead than the Patriots did against the Saints.

The Patriots looked dead enough to audition as extras for the sequel to "World War Z."

Great joke. Thanks Rick Reilly. 

But the Saints were in the process of making a colossal blunder. New Orleans players and coaches were celebrating on the sideline: hugging, slapping hands. Never celebrate when the game isn't over! The football gods punish that sort of thing.

Well, that and the New England Patriots defense punishes this sort of thing by not allowing the Saints to pick up a first down.

In Game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals, the Phoenix Suns held a seemingly safe lead over Chicago with a minute remaining. Charles Barkley and Dan Majerle began clowning around and mugging to the home crowd. Michael Jordan noticed, and his eyes took on a steely gaze: The Bulls won on a closing-seconds 3 by John Paxson.

The Bulls were down like four points with less than a minute left and when hasn't Charles Barkley mugged for a crowd? It's his thing. Gregg writes great fiction.

Fox analyst Troy Aikman said Bill Belichick made this call because he didn't trust his defense to stop New Orleans. Actually, the New England defense is playing strangely well this season -- ranked fifth in points allowed. Belichick made the call because he thought the Patriots could convert, and they needed the ball in order to score. Instead an accurate pass was dropped. New Orleans takes over on the 24, and the exodus to the parking lot begins.

But verily the football gods rewarded the Patriots for being miserable failures on fourth down through fault of their own and helped them get the ball back? The football gods reward teams for dropping crucial passes?

One snap later, the Saints would make the first of four colossal errors. New Orleans dawdled coming up to the line and, seeing the play clock about to expire, Drew Brees spent the Saints' final timeout. Trading a timeout for 5 yards was a bad move, since a walk-off would have left the Saints in field goal position anyway.

Yeah, because making sure the Saints get a first down so they could drain the clock and win the game shouldn't have been the Saints #1 priority. Ensuring they don't have to gain 5 extra yards to get the first down and drain the game clock isn't important at all. Gregg is brilliant when using hindsight.

Why would a team in the driver's seat need to conserve its last timeout?

They really wouldn't need to. But wait! Gregg has the ability to use hindsight and he knows why the Saints could have used this timeout.

It is always good to have a timeout in your pocket: They can be useful on defense as well as offense.

Just in case the Saints need to stop the clock on defense, which would allow the Patriots to huddle and possibly draw up a play that helps them win the game. Logic would dictate that if a team on offense has no timeouts then it isn't always smart to call a timeout and allow that team on offense the luxury of time to get everyone on the same page. We all know if Sean Payton had saved a timeout and then used that timeout while on defense then Gregg would have criticized Payton for calling a timeout and giving Tom Brady time to regroup the offense. Gregg would then say you should never call timeout and give a quarterback like Brady a chance to regroup. No matter whether the Saints used this timeout on offense or defense, Gregg was going to find a way to criticize them because they lost the game.

Another snap later, New Orleans made a second colossal blunder. Facing third-and-7 on the New England 21 with 2:33 remaining, Brees threw incomplete -- stopping the clock. 

Wait, so stopping the clock by calling a timeout on offense is a bad move, but stopping the clock on defense is a good move? Gregg just wrote that the Saints could have used their timeout on defense instead of using it on offense, but now he criticizes the Saints for throwing an incomplete pass that stopped the clock with more than two minutes remaining. Does Gregg realize a timeout stops the clock? See, I told you that no matter what the Saints did, Gregg would criticize them because they lost the game. He thinks the Saints should use a timeout to stop the clock on defense, but then criticizes the Saints for throwing a pass and stopping the clock on offense.

Also, doesn't fortune favor the bold? The Saints were being bold and trying to pick up the first down, so why didn't fortune favor them?

Considering the Patriots' winning touchdown came with five seconds showing, if on this snap the Saints had simply run up the middle for no gain, they almost certainly would have won. Instead, because New Orleans stopped the clock before the two-minute warning, New England was able to get the ball back with 1:13. What a blunder by Saints coaches.

This is why the Saints using their last timeout on offense wasn't a big deal, because if the Saints defense had called a timeout on the last drive it would have stopped the clock for the Patriots offense.

Another completion puts New England on the New Orleans 17; Brady spikes the ball at 10 seconds. The New Orleans defense looks disordered -- didn't the network already declare the game over? 

The Saints can't hear the broadcast so what the broadcasters have stated is of no relevance to the Saints at this point in the game.

Lacking a timeout, the Saints cannot pause to collect themselves.

But calling a timeout would have also helped the Patriots better collect themselves. The Saints had time to collect themselves in the same manner the Patriots offense had time to call a play they wanted to run. The Saints lost the game because of poor defensive execution. Calling a timeout won't suddenly make Jabari Greer a better defender or make Rob Ryan call a defensive play that allowed Greer to have safety help. The Saints didn't need a timeout to get this done because it was all about execution and the Saints didn't execute.

On the winning down, there were fifth and sixth Saints blunders. New Orleans corner Jabari Greer made the high school mistake of looking into the backfield trying to guess the play, rather than simply guarding his man. Receiver Kenbrell Thompkins was single-covered going to the end zone, no safety around, though the pass absolutely had to go into the end zone.

Would a timeout have solved this? It wasn't a miscommunication, but a bad play by Greer that helped Thompkins catch the game-winning touchdown. There appeared to be no confusion on the part of the Saints, but the defensive play call didn't give Greer safety help.

There have been fantastic comebacks before, but never one on which the comeback team looked so totally dead. Just right for preparing for Halloween!

Halloween is over two weeks away. How can a game that happened on October 13 have anything to do with Halloween? This is Halloween Creep! 

In football-trend news, you will be assimilated by the offense, resistance is futile. Latest indicator: Week 6 began with the Texans and Jets having the league's two best defenses statistically. Both lost at home, by a combined 57-19.

Yeah, but remember you have always said the defenses will catch up around November?

Stats of the Week No. 6: The Giants are 0-6, have committed 23 turnovers, and are three games out of first place.

It's almost like these three events are related in some way.

Sweet Play of the Week: At Minnesota, the Carolina Panthers ran the flea-flicker -- tailback starts up the middle, then flips the ball back to the quarterback. Rather than pitch deep, Cam Newton threw a tight end screen, with pulling offensive linemen. First down, Cats score on the possession and go on to win in a rout. Your columnist has attended way too many football games, and never seen the flea-flicker used to set up a screen. Sweet.

This was actually a horrendous play when viewed on television or on replay. It looked rushed and like the Panthers had drawn the play up in the sand. Shocker of all shockers, it was the offensive line coach's idea to run this play.

Embattled coach Ron Rivera, excoriated for conservative tactics, went for it twice on fourth-and-1 on the Cats' opening drive, including on fourth-and-goal. Touchdown, and an aggressive tempo was set. Sweet, on a day when fourth-and goal tries by Baltimore and Buffalo were stuffed.

And shockingly these last two teams weren't rewarded for their aggressive tactics by winning the game. 

Indianapolis, trailing 13-6, punted on fourth-and-short from the San Diego 40 late in the third quarter, which must have caused millions of people to write the words "game over" in their heads.

No, pretty much only you write "game over" in a notebook during a football game.

Sweet 'N' Sour Special Teams: Behind practice-squad quarterback Thad Lewis, Buffalo scored two late touchdowns to take the favored Bengals to overtime. In the fifth quarter, the teams exchanged punts; after the second, the Bengals' Brandon Tate broke two tackles and returned the ball 29 yards to the Bills' 33, setting up the winning kick. That was sweet. When Cincinnati punted a few snaps before, Leodis McKelvin, the 11th player selected in the 2008 draft, not only did not try to return an overtime punt, he called a fair catch at the Buffalo 7. Very sour -- never fair catch inside your own 10! Had McKelvin stepped away from the ball, there was a good chance of a touchback.

I will concede McKelvin possibly should not have caught this punt, but was there a good chance of the punt being a touchback? How does Gregg know this or is he just making shit up in order to better prove a point he wants to make? I think I know the answer, but there's no telling where that ball would have bounced if it had hit the ground. It could have gone sideways and rolled out at the one-yard line, bounced into the end zone for a touchback, been downed at the three-yard line, or bounced 20 yards and the Bills would have had the ball at the 27-yard line.

My point is that Gregg is making his typical "there was a good chance of X happening" statement when he doesn't have any proof that there was a good chance of X happening.

Here is a New York Times op-ed article spun out of my new book, "The King of Sports." 

It's another reminder from Gregg that he has a book out, as if his reminders for the past six weeks went unheeded. 

The article notes that Theodore Roosevelt has been treated kindly by historians for his 1905 initiative to reform football; that like Teddy, Barack Obama is a huge fan of football but also concerned with its many defects; I propose that Obama, like Roosevelt, use the bully pulpit of the White House to pressure the football establishment for reform.

I propose that President Obama has more important things to worry about here in the United States and overseas than reforming college football. How about Obama use his bully pulpit to help Congress get along and then perform his Presidential duties and let football reform stay on the backburner for the time being?

The Bills organization praised itself for avoiding the blackout, saying Wilson had "generously" bought remaining tickets. He would have paid about $400,000 -- about $275,000 after taxes, since the purchase was a business expense. So Wilson gets a $95 million gift from taxpayers whose incomes are far lower than his, then is praised for giving back $275,000 -- about a third of 1 percent.

I guess the Bills organization didn't have to buy the remaining tickets to avoid the blackout. The reason taxpayers give this large gift is because they enjoy football and receive a supposed financial benefit in the form of revenue generated for the city because a football team is located there. Yes, Wilson gets revenue as well...you know what, I can't defend the blackout rules because they are stupid. Even if Wilson wasn't that generous, it was still nice for him to buy the tickets to avoid the blackout.

Here is more on how the NFL fleeces taxpayers.

Don't click on the link. It's a link to an article that Gregg has written. He's linking columns he wrote and not mentioning to us that he wrote the column before linking it. It's a page out of the Bill Simmons playbook. "I'm right and here is another example of my opinion to prove that I am right because I agree with myself."

The Football Gods Chortled: The week before, New Orleans lined up to go for it on fourth-and-1, then Drew Brees used a hard count to draw the Chicago defense offside. Now at New England, New Orleans lined up to go for it on fourth-and-1. Brees barked a hard count -- and his teammates jumped offside.

I don't know. It certainly looked like the Patriots defense encroached, which caused the Saints offensive lineman to jump before the snap. This looked like a bad call against the Saints to me.

It's nutty enough that in the movies and on TV, when lovers awake after a night of passionate sex, they're wearing underwear. Apparently actors and actresses get out of bed, put their bras and boxers back on, then return to bed to sleep.

But no Gregg, these people literally do this. I mean, they actually wake up and go put their clothes back on. It happens. I know Gregg has suddenly become all about nakedness over the past year (mainly in reference to Colin Kaepernick and Tim Tebow of course), but sometimes after passionate sex these lovers will get dressed again.

Nuttier still is the Hollywood cliché scene in which, after a night of wild lovemaking with a mysterious stranger, a man or woman awakes to find the stranger gone. That mysterious bombshell with the glowing lip gloss, that mysterious hunk with the square chin, got out of bed, dressed and departed without making the slightest sound.

I feel based on his description here that Gregg has a lot of sexual fantasies about mysterious people having sex. 

Again, this happens all the time. I wake up in the morning and will go mow the grass, take a shower and leave the house, go get coffee, or do some other household chore without my wife waking up. What is really nutty is that Gregg thinks a person can't sleep through another person in the room getting dressed. If you are quiet and the other person is dead asleep, this is easy to do. I don't even know why I am talking about this or why Gregg is talking about this.

A common improbable special effect in Hollywood is the space alien or demon with glowing eyes. If the eyes emitted light, wouldn't that stop them from working as eyes?

I don't know. Ask Superman. Also, it's a fucking movie.

These scenes are goofy all right -- but TMQ thinks the most improbable scene in all Hollywood annals occurs in the first "Godfather" movie. The sleazy Los Angeles producer wakes up to find a horse's head in his bed, and the mansion echoes with his screams of terror. The producer's hands and silk pajamas are soaked in bright red blood, possible only if the horse was slaughtered on the premises that morning. (Blood turns brown when exposed to air.) How did mobsters slaughter a horse at the mansion, then enter the bedroom and place a large, heavy object on the bed, soaking the sleazy producer in warm blood, without making any noise?

I don't know. It doesn't seem incredibly hard. They killed the horse and then dragged the horse's head, using more than one person, up to the producer's room and then placed it on the bed while the producer was sleeping. Some people are really heavy sleepers. If this is really the most improbable scene in Hollywood annals then Gregg needs to stop complaining about the lack of realism in movies.

Now back to "The Bridge." After the gorgeous widow awakes to find her lover departed without making the slightest sound, she decides to walk to the barn. Wouldn't that be your first move after a night of wild lovemaking?

If I had horses in stalls that I enjoyed visiting, an underground tunnel that led to Mexico used for transporting guns/illegal immigrants/drugs, and a hired hand who may know where the departed lover went off to (all of which this character has), then yes, possibly this would be my first move.

In the barn, she screams in horror -- the scene is shot and paced to remind of the "Godfather" scene -- after finding her prize racehorse has been slaughtered and suspended from the rafters, as a warning to her from a Mexican drug cartel. The bad guys killed a horse and lifted it into the rafters -- without making any noise.

Nobody said they didn't make noise. They didn't make enough noise to wake someone up in the house. This character lives on a huge ranch for God's sake. Does Gregg hear things happen in the garage two doors down from his house? Probably not, so it's very likely the character wouldn't have super-powered hearing that allowed her to hear a horse being killed out in the stables in the middle of the night.

Polls show the approval rating for the House of Representatives has shrunk to a rock-bottom 5 percent. The 5 percent satisfied with Congress -- who are these crackpots?

And yet, all of these same Congressmen will be re-elected during the next elections. The approval ratings means nothing because districts are so gerrymandered that the incumbents have a great chance of being re-elected.

One of the puzzles of modern politics is the number of hard-core types who devote themselves to denouncing government -- after first ensuring they personally enjoy the pay and benefits of government positions. The majority of the 2012 Republican presidential contenders have spent most or all of their adult lives sheltered in government employment. Pretty sweet hustle: Enjoy government benefits while demanding that others not be allowed to receive them.

The right's man of the hour is Sen. Ted Cruz, who has advanced anti-government vitriol to an art form. Yet he himself spent only a few years in the private sector: Most of his adult life he's been in state and local government. Paul Ryan is the right's intellectual of the hour. He too has spent most of his adult life enjoying the pay and perks of government, after a few years in the private sector -- working for his family's firm, where there was no risk of being fired.

I get what point Gregg wants to make here, but there is a difference in living off the pay and perks of the government, as compared to living a life of public service. I know it sounds corny in this day and age, but many important political figures through United States history have served for a long-time in the public sector. It used to be considered noble to use your talents to help out the general public as opposed to working in the private sector. So there is a fine line between saying these Congressmen have been sheltered in government employment and saying they wanted to work in the public sector. Besides, it's hard to be a real presidential candidate if you don't have a resume showing you have led in other parts of government. A presidential candidate with a short track record of public service is considered unqualified by many to be President of the United States, so many presidential candidates self-select in that they will have enough public service in other areas as mayor, governor, or Congressperson to be considered qualified in running for President.

The home crowd in Massachusetts booed the Patriots when they were ahead in the fourth quarter! The booing was because a red zone drive stalled, culminating in a field goal. The home crowd booed Super Bowl hero Tom Brady when he threw a late pick. What have you done for us lately? Oh wait, what you did was one of the sport's all-time comebacks.

Let's calm it down a little bit. It was a great comeback, but I'm not sure I'm ready to call the Patriots victory over the Saints one of the sport's all-time comebacks. Not to mention it's stupid to criticize Patriots fans for booing Brady. The Patriots fans didn't know Brady would lead a comeback when they were booing him earlier in the game. They just knew he threw a terrible interception at a terrible time to throw an interception.

Oregon Held to 45 Points: The University of Washington was hosting Oregon, which has big-college football's best offense.

The Baylor Bears would like to argue this point.

Because at the NFL level, a one-point win has the same value as a 20-point win, you might think NFL coaches would always go all out for victory. But they don't. In the endgame at Seattle, underdog Tennessee took a short field goal rather than try for a touchdown, then didn't onside kick. Coach Mike Munchak was transparently assigning more importance to ensuring a close loss than trying all out for victory. With the Seahawks likely to make the playoffs, at year's end Munchak can say, "We went to Seattle and only lost by 7."

I hope Gregg really doesn't think NFL head coaches simply try to keep the margin their team loses by down so he can point out how close the game was after the season was over. If a coach loses a lot of games by seven points or less, then wouldn't the owner/GM rightly point out that head coach sure has a tough time winning close games? So even if Munchak brags the Titans only lost by seven points, it wouldn't be enough to save his job based on the fact the Titans lost a close game. After all, in a close game good coaching can make the difference in a win or loss.

Leading 19-17, Green Bay faced third-and-3 at Baltimore, 1:32 remaining, the hosts out of timeouts. Eddie Lacy ran wide for the first down -- then immediately "got on the ground," not trying to extend the play, because he knew the Packers could start kneeling. Smart move.

Doesn't Gregg mean "highly-drafted glory boy rookie from a football factory" Eddie Lacy made a smart move to kneel down? Oh that's right, Gregg won't mention Lacy is a second round pick and went to the University of Alabama because that doesn't fit his agenda that football factory schools only brainlessly churn out NFL talent and second round picks only care about their personal statistics and don't work hard for the team overall.

In the third overtime at Happy Valley, Michigan faced fourth-and-inches on the Penn State 16. Michigan's was the second possession, meaning a field goal wins the game. But the Michigan place-kicker had missed his previous two attempts. Going for the first down would raise the Wolverines' odds of victory via touchdown.

Just like a failed attempt on fourth down would have lowered the Wolverines' odds of victory. Not to mention, the Wolverines averaged 2.75 yards per carry during the game and their starting running back averaged 1.0 yard per carry during the game, so picking up the first down wasn't guaranteed. Plus, a college kicker should be able to hit a field goal on the Penn State 16 yard line.

In the fourth overtime, Penn State faced exactly the same choice, fourth-and-inches on the 16. Penn State ran for it, converted, and recorded the winning touchdown a few snaps later.

Perhaps Michigan should have run to get the first down, but I'm just saying getting a first down would raise the odds of victory, while not getting a first down would increase the odds of defeat. Gregg tries to prove his point by only assuming the Wolverines would have picked up the first down. The Wolverines weren't exactly running the football well during the game. A college kicker should be able to hit a field goal from the 16 yard line. It's not that I like the Wolverines decision here, but Gregg oversimplifies the decision by only focusing on what happens if the fourth down attempt works.

Single Worst Play of the Season -- So Far: Bad enough that Houston was self-destructing at home against the lower-echelon St. Louis Rams. Bad enough that Texans quarterbacks had thrown interceptions returned for touchdowns in four consecutive games, and were about to make it five. When at the end of the third quarter, backup T.J. Yates threw a pick-six to Alec Ogletree of the Rams -- Yates was the sole member of the Texans who tried to catch him.

Here is the video. Ogletree had a Rams player escorting him to the end zone. I get that maybe the Texans should have tried to catch him, but there was no way they were catching Ogletree. If you look at the video, no Texans player had an angle where they could have gotten Ogletree.

Ogletree is a linebacker. The Texans had speed merchants on the field, and rather than chase Ogletree, they stood around watching.

Ogletree ran a 4.7 40-yard dash at the Combine (I left off rounding to the hundredth of a decimal since I know Gregg hates hyper-specificity) and used to be a safety. The Texans may have had speed merchants, but unless they had a guy on the field who ran a 3.8 40-yard dash they weren't catching Ogletree once he had a 10 yard head start on them.

The 98-yard runback took 11 seconds, a long time by football standards, yet none of the Houston speed players chased Ogletree, who's all alone in every camera angle of play.

Right, it took 11 seconds to go 98 yards. Ogletree ran 8.9 yards every second and 2.45 40-yard dashes in covering the 98 yards. Ogletree essentially ran a little faster than a 4.7 40-yard dash in other words (around a 4.48 40-yard dash...which tells me Gregg's time of 11 seconds is wrong) if you take the 11 seconds it took him to run the distance divided by 2.45 40-yard dashes. So if Ogletree had a 10 yard head start on the Texans players then the Texans player would have to run 108 yards in the same time Ogletree ran 98 yards, which means the Texans player would have to run a 4.07 40-yard dash (approximately...if you take 108 yards divided by 40 to equal 2.7 40-yard dashes then divide the 11 seconds by this 2.7 40-yard dashes the Texans player would run) to catch up with Ogletree at the goal line. I'm not sure the Texans have a player that can run that fast. That Texans would have to run a 4.07 40-yard dash just to catch Ogletree at the goal line with a 10 yard head start. To tackle him before he scores the Texans player would have to run a sub-4.0 40-yard dash.

(My math makes sense to me and I'm only using Gregg's numbers. Either way, it was very hard for the Texans to catch Ogletree since he had a head start and had a Rams player escorting him to the end zone)

Next Week: Can the Texans make it six straight games throwing a pick-six?

More importantly, now that Gregg has complained Hollywood doesn't show people being woken up by their lover getting out of bed, Gregg will tackle the issue of why Hollywood never shows characters taking a crap? John McClane was running around New York all through "Die Hard with a Vengeance" while nursing a hangover and didn't once have to take a post-drinking poop? Very unrealistic.