I Would Say TMQ Broke Bad But It's Never Really Been Any Good

Gregg Easterbrook quickly jumped off the 49ers bandwagon last week in TMQ. I'm assuming he has jumped right back on the bandwagon this week after the 49ers dismantled the Rams on Thursday Night Football. You may wonder how the 49ers saved their season in Gregg's opinion? They went for it on fourth down of course. Going for it on fourth down, and not playing the Rams, in Gregg's opinion gave the 49ers the confidence necessary to win the game. I was also reminded in the comments that Gregg wondered if the read option was a fad in last week's TMQ, but it was just back in late August when Gregg wondered if the Packers should pull Aaron Rodgers from the game so Vince Young could throw a different look at opposing defenses. I am guessing Gregg wants us to forget he wrote that. This week Gregg writes about the undefeated teams in the NFL, criticizes "Breaking Bad" (which seems to be a popular thing to do) for (what else?) not being realistic enough, and takes the time to prove writing "Game over" in a notebook indeed does not mean the game is over. Gregg telling us he writes "Game over," as if this is proof a team should have gone for it on fourth down and they lost the game due to not going for it on fourth down, is pointless because it proves nothing. Gregg realizes this, yet still won't stop writing "Game over" as if this comment isn't pointless.

It's down to the Final Five -- five undefeated NFL teams remaining: Denver, Kansas City, New England, Seattle and New Orleans.

I'm still very excited for the 9-0 Bowl between Denver and Kansas City, then again I'm also very, very excited for the 10-0 Bowl between Denver and New England. If I were Peter King I would include a sentence that says it is too early to say for sure this 9-0 Bowl will happen, but then continue to talk about this game like it is sure to occur.

Here is a rundown of the NFL's remaining undefeated clubs:

It's a rundown and you should expect no type of analysis during this rundown. Straight bullshit, no chaser.

Kansas City: Already twice as many victories as it posted in 2012. The Chiefs had a run of bad luck in 2012 games.

I'm very confused how the Chiefs had a run of bad luck in 2012 games. It seems like they lost quite a few games decisively and they didn't lead in regulation for the first eight games of the season without leading during regulation. If an NFL team doesn't have the lead in regulation for eight straight games that's not just bad luck holding them back from winning games. Other than the murder/suicide of Jovan Belcher (which had nothing to do with the games) I'm not sure how the Chiefs had a run of bad luck. Score one for Gregg making shit up.

The Alex Smith trade is looking like a masterstroke. A disciplined West Coast quarterback is what Andy Reid always wanted. Now he's got one.

I guess Andy Reid always wanted a disciplined West Coast quarterback and never has had one. Donovan McNabb is sad upon hearing this.

Seattle: TMQ's Law of Comebacks holds: Defense starts comebacks, offense stops them. 

This is a good example of Gregg stating something that is shockingly obvious, but he wants us to believe it isn't so obvious. Defense has to start a comeback since a team can't actually come back until they have stopped the other team from scoring. It's hard to start a comeback if the defense can't stop the opposing team from scoring.

As usual, the New England defense allowed a bucket of yards but stiffened when necessary. Score 30-23, the Falcons reached first down on the New England 13 in the final minute and went incompletion, incompletion, short pass, incompletion. Needless to say, it did not occur to Atlanta coaches to surprise the Patriots' dime defense with a rushing play. 

Maybe the Falcons should have tried a running play, but when they have Julio Jones, Roddy White, and Tony Gonzalez available in the passing game then it is pretty tempting to use these players rather than count on Jacquizz Rodgers to surprise the Patriots defense.

No NFL team can match New Orleans for fun-to-watch quotient. The Saints may be 6-2 or even 7-1 at the midway point, then face a killer three weeks of San Francisco, Atlanta and Seattle in succession.

The good news for the Saints is they can easily beat the Falcons because Atlanta doesn't run the ball enough and the 49ers can't score because the read-option is just a fad.

The Broncos' defense is pedestrian, though it might improve, assuming Von Miller returns. The main cautionary note for Denver faithful is that the formula the Broncs are using -- fantastic pass-wacky offense, middling defense -- is the formula the Patriots have used for the last five years, and the Patriots have petered out in the playoffs.

Yes, be warned Broncos fans! Your favorite team may only make two Super Bowls over the next five years. I hope you can handle this type of mediocrity that being like the New England Patriots represents.

In TMQ news, last week I did a live Twitter test of my "game over" notations, and came out smelling like a rose. I promised to repeat the test this week, and came out -- ahem, see below.

The test failed and the Bills came back to beat the Ravens. The problem with Gregg's sudden self-awareness about writing "Game over" in his notebook is that he still tries to pass writing "Game over" as something that has value when it really doesn't. It means nothing. Sometimes when Gregg writes "Game over" it's true, other times it is not.

Sour Play of the Week: Trailing 30-13 in the third quarter at Detroit, Chicago coach Marc Trestman sent in the kicking unit on fourth-and-5 from the Lions' 7. It was the kind of play that makes a guy want to write "game over."

I think it was safe to write "Game over" in this situation even if the Bears went for it on fourth down.

Facing fourth-and-1 on their own 29, the Raiders had their kicking unit trot in -- but it formed a Wildcat offense and ran for the first down as Rdskns coaches failed to signal timeout.

It's still obvious you are writing "Redskins" you dumb sht.

Later, Oakland, which entered with the league's fourth-ranked running offense, punted on fourth-and-2 in Washington territory.

I'm pretty sure the Raiders first and second string running backs had been injured at this point in the game, so I'm guessing that probably impacted the decision to go for it in this situation and not attempt to run the football with the third string running back...and rightfully so.

Who is the stupidest law enforcement officer in television crime? The detectives on "The Bridge" are candidates: see more below. Sheriff Esquivel in "Under the Dome" is a contender. She arrives just after two people are shot to death and finds two men standing at the scene, each with a gun. One committed the murders, the other tried to stop him. Sheriff Esquivel puts the good guy in jail while letting the evil guy walk, setting in motion the season-finale cliffhanger. It never occurs to her to examine the guns the men are holding (one would have a warm barrel) or check their hands (one would have powder residue).

Usually the police have to do a test for gunpowder residue and it isn't usually visible simply from looking at person's hands. So perhaps Sheriff Esquivel should have had both people stand there for a few hours (or more) until the residue test came back, but she certainly could not have looked at each person's hands at the scene of the crime and determined which person fired the gun.

It never occurs to her to take both men into custody, then do a ballistics investigation.

It never occurred to Gregg you can't hold a person for an indefinite length of time without formally accusing that person of a crime. Ballistics investigations can take more time than just 24 hours.

One of the guilty pleasures of "Breaking Bad" is that it depicted Walter White as an amoral but very intelligent man operating in a world of idiots. Hank is the worst idiot of all.

Oh, do tell how Hank is at fault for not thinking his brother-in-law was a meth kingpin.

Walt is directly under Hank's nose for the show's run, yet Hank takes till almost the end to notice. When Hank finally puts it together, he doesn't simply arrest Walt -- by that point he has probable cause --

The show very clearly spelled out why Hank did not arrest Walt. He had no probable cause. He saw the initials "W.W." inscribed in "Leaves of Grass" referring to Walt while using Walt's toilet and this reminded him of a prior conversation he had with Walt where Hank was wondering who another meth cook (who was working with Walt) could have been referring to when he wrote "W.W." in a notebook found at the scene of a crime. Probable cause isn't "This guy has a book where someone wrote the initials 'W.W.' in it and the initials 'W.W.' were in another book that was found at the scene of a crime." Even after the conversation where Walt threatens Hank, there is no probable cause because Walt could simply deny the conversation ever happened since it wasn't recorded. So Hank didn't have probable cause.

or go to a judge for a search warrant.

It's abundantly clear that Gregg Easterbrook did not watch "Breaking Bad." Where would Hank have searched with this warrant? Walt's house? There was no evidence of any type in Walt's house, and in fact, Walt had not been cooking meth for a few months and was completely out of the business. Hank would have to have known where to find Walt's money to get a search warrant for the storage garage where the money was kept and Hank didn't know where the storage garage was located. A search warrant would have done no good, because even if Walt's home was searched nothing would be found.

But even after Walt comes to Hank's garage, admits his "criminal enterprise" and threatens Hank -- threatening a federal agent is cause for arrest -- Hank does not act. 

Walt never came right out and threatened Hank in the garage (other than saying "tread lightly" and being vague about being a meth kingpin), and even if he did, it is one man's word against another. The fact Hank clearly had beaten Walt up a little bit in the garage probably wouldn't have looked so good for Hank either. Hank was trying to build a case against Walt, and as Steven Michael Quezada said on "Talking Bad," when researching his role as Gomez (Hank's partner) he found that it takes months for the DEA to build a case and then act on it. So Hank knew this and wanted to put Walt away for sure as opposed to building a half-assed case based on heresay evidence.

Though they are going after a stone killer involved in perhaps 20 murders, they don't bring along backup. They do bring along Jesse Pinkman, himself a suspect. That makes for two lawmen handling two very dangerous suspects,

Pinkman had just recorded a video for Hank and Gomez outlining his and Walt's crimes. It was fair to say that he wasn't a dangerous suspect at this point in the story, considering any type of immunity from his crimes was dependent on cooperating with the DEA. Besides, Jesse thought Walt was trying to kill him (which he was), so he would not switched to Walt's side. Before Gregg criticizes television shows he should try to watch these television shows so he knows what he is criticizing.

Arresting Walt in mid-desert, Hank observes pickup trucks full of men approaching their isolated off-road location. Seeing those trucks, Hank doesn't call for backup.

That area was an hour away from most of civilization so there was almost no chance of backup reaching them in time. Plus, once Hank called backup how was he going to direct them to the location? GPS coordinates would be the best way probably, but backup still would have struggled to get there in time.

Since Walt alone knew the desert location, the approaching vehicles must contain someone Walt contacted. Hank mumbles, "Maybe that's the tribal police." If that was the tribal police, they would have been in uniform.

Gregg second-guesses so much he actually doesn't even make sense at times. So how is Hank supposed to know the tribal police are not in uniform while the trucks are being driven? He's in the middle of a sunny desert and he is supposed to be able to see inside the truck and immediately know for sure the driver and occupants aren't wearing uniforms?

When thugs hired by Walt get out and show rifles, Hank and Gomez don't take cover; they stand in the clear, exposed.

Because at this point if they started running to take cover they would have been shot because they were showing the crazy Nazi guys they were a threat. Geez, use your head.

Even when the shooting starts, they never call for backup.

BECAUSE THEY WERE BEING SHOT AT BY NAZIS WITH AUTOMATIC WEAPONS! DEFENDING THEMSELVES FROM BEING SHOT WAS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MAKING PHONE CALLS!

Besides, backup would NOT have gotten there in time at this point. The shootout wasn't going to last 30 minutes to an hour in time for backup to arrive.

Dexter McCluster of Kansas City was only lightly brushed on an 89-yard touchdown punt return. Adrian Peterson went 7 yards for an untouched touchdown in London. Because the play was on first-and-goal, Pittsburgh was in a run defense, yet laid no hand on Peterson.

Because NFL teams are always in a run defense on first-and-goal.

TMQ continues to think that neither pace nor skill-player speed but downfield blocking is the key to Oregon's offense. If you've been wondering how Oregon gets so many untouched long runs, downfield blocking is the explanation. In most of football, including at the NFL level, offensive linemen deliver one block and then stand watching the play, while the wide receivers casually bump their men.

Just read that last sentence again. So most football linemen deliver one block and then stand and watch the play while the receivers don't really block hard. I didn't know this was true. This happens in most of football apparently. We all know Gregg would not make something up in order to help prove a point he wants to make.

Of course Gregg's crackpot theory on why Oregon is so successful on long runs doesn't really make sense. Once the running back gets past the line of scrimmage it isn't very often that he has offensive linemen running ahead of him blocking defenders. Sure, offensive linemen will often pull or occasionally end up ahead of the running back, but it doesn't happen often enough to attribute the long, untouched runs of the Oregon offense purely to good downfield blocking by the offensive linemen.

There's an NFL gentlemen's agreement that corners don't pursue an opposite-side rush if wide receivers don't try to block them -- look away from the ball during an NFL run and you're likely to see a wide receiver and corner just watching.

I'm sure this happens, but I'm not sure about the gentlemen's agreement.

There are only two offensive linemen over 300 pounds on the Ducks' roster, with the heaviest a 305-pound guy who is 6-foot-7. Ole Miss looked sluggish against Alabama; one reason might be nine offensive linemen who weigh at least 25 pounds more than the heaviest player at Oregon. Why other football programs don't notice Oregon's success with downfield blocking and switch to lean, fit offensive linemen is a minor mystery.

Perhaps this is a minor mystery to Gregg, but not every football program runs the fast-paced offense that Oregon runs. Alabama runs a slower, more power-running oriented offense that requires the offensive line to be bigger and stronger in order to open up holes for the Alabama running backs. Not every football offense is run like the Oregon offense, so not every offensive line scheme would succeed with the type of offensive linemen the Oregon Ducks have.

Because Pac-12 night games start too late for East Coast viewers, the conference's impact on the evolution of football tactics is not widely appreciated by sports media.

Apparently Gregg still lives in a world without cable and Internet, so watching Pac-12 game is impossible.

TMQ's Law of Weasel Coaches holds: When you hire a coach who only cares about himself, you get a coach who only cares about himself. USC hired Kiffin away from Tennessee under weasel circumstances. What made USC think he would stop being a weasel?

So I would love to hear how this explains Nick Saban's success at Alabama and Brian Kelly's success at Notre Dame. Nick Saban has three national titles in the last four years. Saban left the Dolphins team after lying and saying he had no interest in the Alabama job, while I'm sure Gregg thinks Brian Kelly is a weasel for dumping Central Michigan and Cincinnati for better paying jobs. I guess the Law of Weasel Coaches doesn't always hold.

Mired in a losing streak and sputtering versus the lower-echelon Rams, San Francisco faced fourth-and-inches on Les Mouflons 34 with 44 seconds remaining before intermission, leading 7-3.

The losing streak was a streak of two games by the way. Two. Games. Also, when did winning a road game at halftime become "sputtering"?

This decision was not a "huge gamble," as announcers say of going for it on fourth-and-short. St. Louis has the league's worst run defense, while San Francisco held two timeouts, meaning if a first down was obtained, the 49ers could use anything in the playbook to try for a touchdown. Not only did the odds favor the play, but San Francisco needed to shake up its young season, and succeeded.

I'm sure Gregg believes the 49ers saved their season by going for it on fourth down. I knew Gregg would work hard to find a way to weasel out of jumping off the 49ers bandwagon and claiming (but not actually stating it in order to avoid being wrong) the read option is a fad. So the 49ers weren't 1-2 because they had played three teams who made the playoffs in 2012, they were 1-2 because they needed to shake up their season with a fourth down try.

The New England at Atlanta game was one the Falcons had to win. Entering 1-2, if they can't defeat a quality opponent on their home field, they are goin' nowhere this season. The Patriots did not have to win. Entering at 3-0, they could have absorbed a loss without much trouble. That New England dominated Atlanta might mean the Falcons are goin' nowhere.

In 2011 the New York Giants lost to the Green Bay Packers (who went 15-1 on the season) on their (the Giants) home field to go 6-6. The Giants then went on to win the Super Bowl.

The FX series "The Bridge" wraps its first season this week. Initially advertised as social commentary about Mexican poverty and American hypocrisy, the social commentary lasted about two episodes and was quickly replaced with a slasher-film-style splatter -- 

The show was never advertised about a social commentary on Mexican poverty and American hypocrisy. It was advertised as a show about a Mexican and American police officer joining forces to solve a murder that happened on the Mexican-American border. Sometimes I think Gregg outright lies and doesn't give a shit about whether his readers know he is lying.

Does this trailer look like a show about social commentary or a show about a killer who the police are trying to identify? Gregg is pretending to know how the show was marketed in order to help prove a point he wants to make. He lies and deceives his audience and I'm (not) surprised ESPN allows him to get away with it. It's just sad how many of his gullible readers believe the crap he writes is 100% the truth.

On "The Bridge," a serial killer murders two dozen people in the same area in just a few weeks, yet only a couple local cops are working the case.

Yet again, this is not completely true. The serial killer (may have...it was not definitively stated) killed a bunch of women in Juarez, but women goes missing all the time, the police are corrupt in Juarez and it's not that nobody cares any more than the Mexican police just don't have the time and manpower to search for all the missing women and police the murders. Plus, some of the murders have drug ties, which further pushes the police away from investigating. Also, it was indicated these women were murdered over a few years, not a couple of weeks.

The latter's character, viewers learn after a half-dozen episodes, has known all along that the serial killer has a strong reason to want revenge against him personally -- yet it never occurs to him mention this, or to protect his family.

I'm about to have a seizure here. The amount of lying and misstating by Gregg is astounding here. It's not that serial killer wants revenge and the police officer didn't know this, it's that the police officer thought the serial killer was dead. The conversation between the officers went like this:

(Woman cop) "I think it's this guy who is killing the women."

(Male cop) "It can't be that guy. I knew that guy. I went to his funeral. He's dead."

(Woman cop) "That must make it hard for him to commit a string of murders, but I think he's alive."

(Male cop) "I think he's dead. Again, I was at the funeral."

(Woman cop) "Here is a picture of him on a driver's license using a different name."

(Male cop) "Yep, that's him. He's still alive. That's the killer then."

The reason it never occurred to the Mexican police officer to mention this serial killer has a vendetta against him is (a) the policeman didn't know he had a vendetta against him and (2) he thought the guy was dead. There's no reason, other than to make "The Bridge" seem dumber than it is, for Gregg to mislead his readers like he does.

The serial killer has a small wireless device that allows him to shut down the electric power at the United States-Mexico border by pressing a button, then press another button to turn the power back on; this device is never explained. He possesses unlimited money and resources, unexplained and odd since viewers are told he was fired by the FBI years ago after flunking a psych evaluation. He's a skilled surgeon, which is never explained, and also has plumbing skills. He needs only minutes to rig cars so the doors can't be opened from the inside. He can overpower police officers without making a sound. He can sneak up on people in public in broad daylight without his targets noticing or calling "Help!" when grabbed.

It helps he tends to stab these people before they can call out "Help!" and it was established this guy was very, very good at his job when he worked for the FBI. Otherwise, some of what he did seemed impossible but made the show fun to watch. I'm one of those weird people who watches a television show to be entertained. Crazy to do that I guess.

When a witness the serial killer wants dead runs away from Kruger's character into the streets of El Paso, the serial killer knows in advance which direction she will run; he kills her and vanishes, though cops are converging from all directions.

There were three police officers chasing this girl and these three officers weren't aware the girl had run away until a few moments after she left. So yes, the killer knew which way the girl was going, but it's not like there was a team of cops hot on the girl's trail because she had a head start on them.

Most absurd, at a black-tie party, the serial killer follows a man into the washroom and murders him with a knife. Young and seemingly fit, the man does not resist and never cries for help.

The man who got killed was washing his hands and the killer came from behind him and slit his throat. My throat has never been slit, and I'm guessing Gregg's hasn't either, but I am merely suggesting that perhaps it is difficult to resist or cry for help once your throat has been slit. Again, I'm not sure Gregg actually watched this show.

FX's "The Bridge" is a remake of a Scandinavian television show about a crime at a bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Before centering the remake on a bridge between Texas and Mexico, producers first proposed using the bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario...If the Detroit-Windsor setting had been chosen, it would have been a tunnel into a Tim Horton's doughnut shop, used to smuggle government-financed Canadian prescription drugs.

Just hilarious. I'm guessing the police would spend a lot of time at Tim Horton's because we all know that police like donuts.

Seeking to prove that I really do write "game over" in my notebook, a week ago, yours truly tweeted of a contest still in the first quarter, "game over" -- and it came to pass that I was right. I promised to try this again. When the Bills kicked on fourth-and-2 from the Baltimore 9, I tweeted "game over." Verily, what I foresaw did not come to pass: the Bills prevailing over the defending champions.

This proves that Gregg writing "Game over" in a notebook does not mean a game is over. This also means that a team who punts on fourth-and-short isn't destined to lose the game just because they punted on fourth down. Also, Gregg has done two live Twitter tests to determine when his "Game over" has been accurate and he has gotten one right and one wrong. I imagine this is around the same percentage of times Gregg gets "Game over" correct prior to posting this prediction on Twitter. I also imagine Gregg will stop posting his live "Game over" comments on Twitter for fear his readers will start to see through his bullshit.

"Game over" doesn't go into my notebook any time a team kicks on fourth-and-short -- fourth-and-short kicks can be smart moves.

Yet, Gregg has consistently presented this to his readers as if anytime a team kicks instead of going for it on fourth-and-short it will doom that team to defeat.

Trailing 14-3 on the road versus high-scoring Denver, Chip Kelly took a field goal on fourth-and-4 from the Broncs' 7 -- I wrote "game over" in my notebook.

If he doesn't post it on Twitter, it doesn't happen, especially now that we know for sure Gregg is wrong about his "Game over" proclamations.

My feeling in the first quarter of Baltimore at Buffalo was that you can't dance with the champ, you've got to knock them down -- settling for a field goal on fourth-and-short from close range against the defending champs isn't enough. Obviously I will now reassess this feeling, and the live Twitter test concept.

Yeah, Gregg isn't going to reassess his feeling. He's simply going to stop posting his predictions of "Game over" on Twitter, then claim he wrote "Game over" in his notebook and make claims after the fact that a team punting on fourth-and-short doomed that team to defeat. 

Officiating was odd in both directions. Two weeks ago, Cleveland coaches complained the Baltimore offensive linemen were lining up off the line of scrimmage -- being set back a bit is helpful to pass-blocking. Sunday, Baltimore offensive linemen consistently were lined up illegally; zebras only flagged this once.

Apparently the Ravens offensive linemen weren't consistently lined up illegally if the officials only threw a flag for this once.

Indiana of Pennsylvania 20, California of Pennsylvania 7 in the annual Tuesday Morning Quarterback Obscure College Game of the Year. Located in Indiana, Pa., Indiana of Pennsylvania has an optional "Learning Management System that offers collaborative learning tools, activity-based learning and interaction with materials that encourage critical reflection." Isn't that what the entire college is supposed to do?

Yes, but this is appears to be a computer program that achieves these goals, not a class at the school.

Next Week Cameron Jordan wears Air Jordans to Cameron Indoor Stadium.

I'm just surprised Gregg didn't say that Cameron Jordan was with Jordan Cameron when he was wearing the Air Jordans in Cameron Indoor Stadium.

I look forward to next week's TMQ when after New Orleans and New England lose this weekend Gregg jumps off their bandwagon and then one week week later after these teams win their next game Gregg jumps right back on the bandwagon using a bullshit reason for why he did so. I'm sure it would have to do with undrafted players or going for it on fourth down.