5 comments Gregg Easterbrook Thinks NFL Teams Will Now Try to Put the Best Possible Defense on the Field, Since They Weren't Trying to Do This Already

Gregg Easterbrook again claimed last week that he chooses not to sit in the press box at football games, because he can see the action better sitting closer to the field. I'm still not sure I believe this. Gregg also allowed his readers to vote on the TMQ MVP award and it went to Richard Sherman. He also neglected to mention Peyton Manning's pocket presence and quick release is one of the reasons he wasn't sacked often this year. This week Gregg also takes back everything he has said all of this year and in years past about offense ruling in football and now wonders if defense will now become dominant. Gregg is absolutely fucking unbelievable. For 2-3 years now he has been harping about how offense is taking over football on all levels and now after a Super Bowl where a historically great defensive team beats a historically great offensive team he takes it all back. Of course, I know next season when offenses start off strong again then Gregg will write about how there are runaway offenses all through football and he will wonder if defenses will ever catch up. Then in November when defenses catch up Gregg will say he expected this to happen all along. Then if the Seahawks repeat as Super Bowl champs he will wonder if defense is dominant again. The cycle will continue after that.

Duck -- because the pendulum is swinging, from offense back toward defense.

Gregg is the worst. Just the worst. All year it's been about how offense is taking over the NFL. Now after the best defensive team in the NFL wins a Super Bowl, he announces (at least until next August) the pendulum is swinging back to offense. It's a rather quick change for a guy who has preached about offensive superiority all year. Once offenses start dominating again, Gregg will completely ignore he claimed the pendulum was swinging back to defense.

The outcome will have long-term impact across professional football, and perhaps in the college and prep ranks as well. For a decade, all attention has been on offense -- best athletes on offense, new high-tech tactics, crazy pace, pass-wacky. It has been offense, offense, offense. Even Bill Belichick, who got his start as a defensive coordinator, has converted to high-speed offense as the new gold standard.

Right Gregg, because the Seahawks won the Super Bowl all of these fast-paced offenses will just magically disappear. I'd love to hear from Gregg why this didn't happen back in the year 2000 after the Ravens won the Super Bowl. In fact, that was near the beginning of when Gregg claims these fast-paced offenses started to take over football. Amazingly, the Ravens winning a Super Bowl with defense did nothing to deter fast-paced offenses from becoming prevalent. It's funny how that works isn't it? Gregg claims an all-time great defense will change the landscape of football, even though that's been proven incorrect already. Gregg is the worst. Just horrible. Next year when scoring is up again, I hope I can remember this column. I know if scoring increases, then Gregg will immediately throw out a horseshit excuse for why he was wrong and hope his readers forget this column.

Now that's over.

HAHAHAHA! All of that stuff Gregg has been talking about pertaining to runaway offenses over the last 2-3 years, forget about it. It's all done now. Every NFL team is going to try to put together a historically great defense, since these teams weren't trying to do that already or anything, and offenses will forget how to score points because every football team from the high school level to the NFL will have a fantastic defense.

This offseason will be about NFL teams looking at their defenses -- personnel, styles of play, mindset. Head coaches will shift from focusing on offense to defense.

Tom Brady! You are fucking fired! Get out of here! Bill Belichick is going to try to put together a great defense now, you know since he wasn't trying to do that before and all. Gregg Easterbrook somehow managed to make his last column of the year the worst column of the year. Kudos, Gregg. He has managed to contradict everything he has said before about where the NFL is headed and he is making things up as usual. Brilliant, well done.

Money and draft choices will go to the defense.

I'm going to laugh my ass off when 8 of the first 10 picks in this year's NFL Draft are offensive picks. It's going to be a riot.

Crazy defensive schemes will be tossed out and replaced with traditionalism. 

Moron, the Seahawks have a historically good defense. They have a great rotation of defensive linemen, great linebackers, and an outstanding secondary. They can run a traditional defense because they have this talent. Not every team has this talent and not every team can just magically gather this type of talent. If they could, they would have done so by now.

The idea that defense not only can slow down the other team but can itself win the game -- the Seattle defense outscored the highest-scoring NFL offense ever -- will be revived.

This idea never died.

In Super Bowl matchups of No. 1 offense versus No. 1 defense, defense is 5-1. Of the 10 highest-scoring teams in NFL annals, only one, the 1999 Rams, won the Super Bowl that season.

And yet, high-scoring offenses and fast-paced offenses have been prevalent and every NFL team isn't ignoring offense and focusing mainly on defense. Weird how that works. It's almost like Gregg makes shit up and then hopes his readers forget that he lies and deceives.

Some thought the arrival of quick-snap, shotgun-spread, call-everything-at-the-line offense fundamentally had overcome the edge of pressure defense.

YOU! You and only you! I actually get bored of typing "defensive pressure is the key" because it's the fucking key. Defensive pressure is now and will always be the best way to beat a great offense. There are no exceptions. Get pressure on the quarterback. It works. Teams know this too, it's just hard to find great defensive linemen that can get pressure with four rushers.

Now we know that's not true.

Don't "we" your readers. You are the one who has said runaway offenses are taking over the NFL and never considered the idea great pressure on the quarterback is the key to beating a great offense. It's easy to have a "traditional" defense when that defense can get pressure with four pass rushers. Don't "we" everyone who reads your column. YOU were wrong about the runaway offenses (even though Gregg really wasn't, he thinks he was), not "we."

Pro, college and high school coaches will re-evaluate everything they do. Keep your head low as the pendulum swings back toward defense.

I'm going to keep my head up high so I can look for when Gregg completely ignores that he said the pendulum will swing back towards defense. The Seahawks Super Bowl victory didn't signify a dramatic change in defensive philosophy, but merely signified a dominant defense that won the Super Bowl. There is no way that coaches on all levels will re-evaluate what they do as a response. Coaches are already trying to put the best possible defense on the field, so they will continue trying to do this while still scoring as many points as possible. Let's just say I don't think scoring will decrease dramatically and Gregg is going to feel like an asshole when it doesn't. Actually, Gregg has no shame so he will feel nothing.

As the season concludes, see below for TMQ's annual State Standings.

I can't wait. We have heard Gregg claim all year that superior football resides on the West Coast while Texas is the home of football.

Stats of the Super Bowl No. 1: Teams that return an interception for a touchdown are 12-0 in the Super Bowl.

I guess the lesson to learn is that teams should try to return an interception for a touchdown. Look for a complete change in philosophy on high school, college, and the NFL level where teams will now start trying to intercept passes and take them back for a touchdown. Teams were not trying to intercept passes to return for a touchdown previous to this past Super Bowl.

Stats of the Super Bowl No. 8: Mannings have started in five of the past eight Super Bowls.

But they have only won three of those five Super Bowls. Clearly this is because of the Peyton Paradox.

The Seahawks set two men left, including undrafted Doug Baldwin, a finalist for TMQ's Non-QB/Non-RB MVP. In "combo" moves, the first guy always sets the pick and the second guy always is the target.

ALWAYS! There are no exceptions.

Defenders should know this.

Yes, defenders should know prior to the play starting it is a combo move being run. Defenders should use telepathy, like the Seahawks are able to use. This will represent a change in philosophy for football teams on all levels. They will start to use telepathy to guess the play being run.

The victors would end the night with four offensive downs longer than any gain recorded by Denver's offense -- plays of 37, 30, 24 and 23 yards. These gains mattered almost as much as the defensive stops.

This is great TMQ analysis. These gains of 20+ yards mattered in this game almost as much as the defensive stops. You wouldn't think four gains for a total of 114 yards would matter, but they did, and these are all obviously hidden plays as well.

So it's Bluish Men Group by 5-0. No problem for the highest scoring team in NFL annals. Denver took possession, advanced to fourth-and-2 on its 43 -- and punted. What good is the highest-scoring offense in NFL history if the Broncos are afraid to try on fourth-and-short from midfield?

Highlight reels will show Seattle's touchdowns on interception and kickoff returns -- but to TMQ, this was the pivotal moment of the contest. Facing the league's best defense, Denver needed to set an aggressive tone. Instead the Broncos set a passive, retreating tone.

Well, of course. The Seahawks clearly scored 43 points because the Broncos punted in this situation and the Broncos only scored 8 points over the rest of the game because the tone of the game was passive. If the Broncos had gone for it in this situation, even if they had not converted, then they would have won the Super Bowl. Gregg wrote "Game Over" in his notebook when the Broncos punted here.

Chancellor drops back into a high Cover 1 position, as if he were the free safety. Six men rush, Manning is hit as he releases, and the pass goes directly to Chancellor for Denver's first of many turnovers. The play caused an electric reaction in the stands, people seeming to think. "Peyton is going to self-destruct again!"

Or they were excited because an interception had occurred. You know, either way. Oh yeah, I'm probably wrong because Gregg can read minds. It also so happens that Gregg's ability to read minds coincides with the mind being read having a thought that supports Gregg's point of view.

Though it is hard to argue with the Super Bowl MVP going to a linebacker rather than a quarterback or running back -- Seattle's Malcolm Smith, 10 tackles and a pick-six, hoisted the award -- Chancellor got TMQ's MVP vote. His early interception, his pick, nine tackles, two passes defensed, including a jarring legal hit that caused Wes Welker to drop what would have been an important completion, and a bone-jarring early tackle on Demaryius Thomas, set Seattle's physical tone.

When Gregg says "His early interception, his pick..." so does Gregg mean the pick Chancellor had in his hair set Seattle's physical tone? Was it a very intimidating pick in his hair? I wonder, because if not, then Gregg listed Chancellor's interception twice when lauding his accomplishments during the Super Bowl...then began to talk about all of the items the "New York Times" got wrong in the past six months, which seems ironic to me.

New York Times Corrections on Fast-Forward: From the past six months of the corrections page in the Paper of Record:

If there was a list of Gregg's mistakes over the past six months I bet it would surpass the mistakes from the "New York Times." At least the "New York Times" acknowledges their mistakes, which Gregg won't often do.

Acknowledged that certain "stellar events" must have occurred far more than 4.5 billion years ago, the dating given in an article. The Times huffed, "A reader pointed out the error in an email two months ago; this correction was further delayed for research." Research into events before the formation of the Earth?

No idiot, research into whether the reader who pointed out the error was correct or if the original article was correct.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback's annual State Standings are based on the states in which teams actually play: Maryland teams are the Ravens and R*dsk*ns, and so on. State news: it has now been 18 years since teams from California or Texas, the centers of football culture, won a Super Bowl.

Oh my, it's almost like naming two certain cities the center of football culture and believing this to mean that professional football teams from those states will win more Super Bowls than teams from other states is a fallacy. This couldn't be true though, could it?

Washington state: 16-3
Colorado: 15-4
Massachusetts: 13-5
North Carolina: 12-5
Indiana, Louisiana: 12-6
Arizona: 10-6

So basically this is the record of the Seahawks, Broncos, Patriots, Panthers, Colts, Saints, and Cardinals. The whole State Standings thing is a bit silly overall. Also, when Gregg writes "R*dsk*ns we know he is writing Redskins, so it ruins the point of not writing the word.

TMQ continues to think that getting a college diploma is a better reward for football than any amount of pay players might receive;

Try telling this to college athletes who grew up in poverty and couldn't have afforded college without a scholarship. Yet again, Gregg reveals his upper-middle class, white upbringing and lifestyle by thinking a college diploma is a better reward than any amount of pay the players might receive. That diploma isn't going to buy lunch at McDonald's or put gas in a football player's car while he is in school. Not every college athlete has mommy and daddy sending him money every month to finance his college lifestyle.

More good sports-and-academics news: the son of former Cowboys star Larry Allen turned down FBS offers to pick Harvard. Most high school athletes, even those who do well in the classroom, won't have a Harvard option. But they could prioritize recruiting offers by graduation rates. Suppose a potential FBS player has offers from, say, USC and Wisconsin. USC is dismal at 53 percent graduation, Wisconsin is strong at 72 percent. The smart recruit factors likelihood of a diploma into his choice.

If this potential FBS player is highly recruited and highly ranked then the smart recruit would choose the college football team that will allow him to start the soonest and plays a style that takes advantage of his strengths. That's assuming this FBS player wants to make it into the NFL. A recruit who is a wide receiver and wants to catch 10 passes per game would probably choose USC over Wisconsin since the Badgers are better known for running the football. But Gregg's naivety and simplistic approach is very endearing.

And also, a smart recruit also knows that HE controls whether he graduates from college or not. Whether he graduates has nothing to do with whether he chooses USC or Wisconsin, but whether he puts in the effort and work to graduate from college. It just seems that USC recruits high school athletes who don't graduate as often as Wisconsin athletes do, but this is a decision by the student-athlete not to graduate, not necessarily the school.

Tuesday Morning Quarterback noted last week, "The Broncos must throw deep, even if that means Peyton Manning holding the ball for more than 2.36748790345 seconds or whatever his average is supposed to be. The drip-drip-drip short passing Denver has lived on this season will be difficult against Seattle's in-your-face press coverage. Nobody covers short better than the Seahawks. Short and sideways is not the formula for defeating Seattle."

And I wrote:

Of course if it is cold out or somewhat windy then it may be hard for Manning to throw deep, plus the Seahawks corners are tall and by playing press coverage they make it difficult for receivers to get a clean release which would make the Broncos successful deep passing game difficult to achieve. 

What I left out is that the Seahawks could have a great pass rush which would make Manning holding onto the football longer a recipe for disaster. If I had added that, then I would have been correct. Throwing deep is a great idea, but Manning doesn't have the arm strength to throw deep consistently and he didn't have time in the first half to throw deep. The Seahawks pass rush was getting to him quickly.

Yet in the first half, the Broncos threw short almost exclusively, as if they either hadn't looked at the the Broncos' defense or were so overconfident they believed all they had to was snap fast and victory would follow. Denver didn't try to move the ball down the field until the contest was out of hand -- the Broncs' longest first-half gain was 19 yards.

Since Gregg is big on analysis, I wonder why he leaves out that the Broncos didn't have time to run deep routes? Probably because if he acknowledged the Broncos didn't have time to run deep routes it wouldn't make him feel like he got what the Broncos game plan should have been completely correct.

Though Denver was held to a miserable 27 yards rushing, Broncos coaches never adjusted and called traps between the tackles. Everything went sideways. This played into the hands of Seattle's speed-based defense. The football saying is, "Run toward speed and away from strength." Instead of rushing straight ahead -- toward speed -- Denver tried to run sideways, away from speed.

I remember the Broncos running up the middle quite a few times. Of course it doesn't make sense to run the ball a lot when you are down 22-0 and Peyton Manning is your quarterback.

Then Seattle leading 22-0, Denver going on fourth-and-2 from the Seahawks' 19, the Broncos had Thomas and Wes Welker left. Welker beat his man and was open in the end zone; Manning looked that way, then threw incomplete to Thomas. A touchdown would have pulled Denver to within two scores at the half, changing the game's psychology.

Oh, so now the Broncos punting on fourth down early in the first quarter didn't end up setting a passive tone, as Gregg claimed earlier in this TMQ? Well if punting early in the game did set a passive tone, then that tone could have been offset by a touchdown pass thrown in this situation. So the passive tone set in the first quarter didn't really play a part (as admitted by Gregg) in the Broncos loss did it? It was a series of problems that caused the Broncos to lose the game. Also, the psychology of the game could have changed with a touchdown here, but I don't think it means the Broncos would have scored the 29 additional points they needed to win the football game. But good try to make shit up. I'm sure someone fell for it.

Obviously, Seattle's performance was magnificent. Early, the Seahawks showed a conventional Cover 2, the defense that Manning sees most often. Then they began switching to unorthodox coverages, and Manning never caught on.

Gregg Easterbrook from earlier in this column:

Crazy defensive schemes will be tossed out and replaced with traditionalism.

Seattle proved a hard-hitting but very traditional defense -- conventional fronts, few blitzes, tight coverage and nasty disposition -- could roll over the highest-scoring offense in professional football history.

I'm guessing that Gregg doesn't consider unorthodox coverages to be a non-traditional type of defense? Either that or Gregg simply forgot what he had written earlier in the column.

For much of the contest, Richard Sherman was defending Eric Decker one-on-one, as if it were a basketball game. Seattle seemed to decide to take Decker out of the game, which it did. The Seahawks knew this would open up opportunities for Demaryius Thomas, who made 13 receptions. But Seattle also knew the rap on Thomas is that he's mistake-prone.

Gregg is literally writing fiction right now. He's writing complete lies. Thomas has eight fumbles in his four year NFL career, including two fumbles this season. Eric Decker has six fumbles in his four year NFL career, including two fumbles this season. Wes Welker has 25 fumbles in his 10 year career, including one fumble this season. Demaryius Thomas was not only the Broncos best receiver this season but he didn't fumble any more than Eric Decker fumbled and two fumbles on the season isn't being "mistake-prone."

Causing Denver to throw to Thomas worked beautifully -- he lost a fumble, and twice pulled up and quit running when he might have caught slightly overthrown deep balls.

Thomas fumbled in the Super Bowl, this doesn't make him mistake-prone. As far as him not running hard or quitting on a ball thrown, I'm not sure I saw that. Of course I didn't have the view that Gregg had sitting in the lower level of the stands and only watched the game on television where I could seem multiple replays.

Seattle got terrific pressure on Manning using a conventional four-man rush. Bear in mind, this is how the Giants twice defeated the high-scoring Patriots in the Super Bowl -- not funky blitzes, conventional four-man rush combined with tight coverage so the ball doesn't come out fast, allowing the rush time.

No Gregg, you keep it in mind. Most knowledgeable NFL fans know how the Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl and know a strong front four is how you beat a great offensive team.

Manning seemed so sure he would not be hit in the pocket that on those interceptions, he heave-hoed when he would have been much better off just taking the sack.

I would agree that Manning was better off not throwing the interceptions, but remember he is coming off multiple neck surgeries and is 37 years old. Taking a sack means Manning may not be getting up feeling 100% or could cause him to get injured. Manning stood in the pocket and threw the football several times during the game, but he's old and just can't take a beating anymore.

Denver has downplayed kick defense all season, having some of the league's worst stats. The Broncos' attitude seemed to be -- We score so much, who cares?

I'm sure that's the exact attitude of the Broncos. Fuck special teams, who cares?

Not only did this attitude lead to a Seattle kickoff return for a touchdown, three times the Seahawks stopped a returned kickoff inside the Denver 20, meaning the Broncos would have been better off with a touchback. This was an impressive demonstration of what disciplined kick defense can accomplish.

While I recognize the Broncos were bad on special teams, they did have Trindon Holliday as their kick returner and he is one of the better kick returners in the NFL.

TMQ warned early this season of the Peyton Paradox, then throughout the season had warned that high-scoring teams -- the 1990 Bills, 2007 Patriots, 2010 Oregon Ducks, 2011 Patriots and 2012 Ducks and Baylor Bears -- tend to peter out at the last.

The Peyton Paradox is real, people. The paradox is that Peyton Manning's teams are cursed to be Super Bowl contenders every year, but they don't manage to win the Super Bowl every year.

Obviously, the pattern repeated. I note all my warnings not so much to pat myself on the back (OK, a factor) but to show that Denver should have had plenty of notice about this common football phenomenon. Instead, the Broncos seemed shocked and unprepared when they didn't fly down the field.

Well, what the fuck should the Broncos have done? Decided to score fewer points? Played at a slower pace so they score fewer points? Somehow manage to make their defense much, much better halfway through the season through the use of traditional defensive techniques? It's fine to brag about being right (though notice Gregg won't mention when he was wrong...you know, like his opinion of the read-option), but what sort of correction should the Broncos have made to ensure they don't score as many points and how would they have improved their middling defense halfway through the season? If you are going to brag about the Broncos being "unprepared" then tell us all how they should have been prepared better.

Plus for a college bowl or the Super Bowl, there's extra time to break down film of the offense's tendencies and know what's coming, as Seattle often seemed to.

Other NFL teams are going to start watching film of the opposing offense's tendencies, since they don't do that already. This is going to be a complete change on all levels of football.

As the pendulum swings back toward defenses,

It's not.

offensive coaches need to bear in mind that the scoreboard tends to spin early in the season

But I thought the pendulum was swinging back towards defenses?

but not late.

So stop scoring so many points late in the season? Is that the solution?

Verbal tics such as saying "you know" may be human nature. The one that drives TMQ to distraction is "frankly." This verbal tic is either void of meaning -- many United States senators would order lunch by saying, "Frankly, I'll have the turkey club" -- or communicates that most of the time the speaker in lying, but just this once has decided to tell the truth. 

That "frankly" means "most of the time I am lying" is disturbing when one considers how often politicians employ this interjection.

Mostly the word is verbal foam, unless the speaker actually means to admit that he or she usually lies.

The word "frankly" can also mean the speaker is speaking in a frank manner. Being "frank" can also mean unmistakably evident. So "frankly" doesn't mean the speaker otherwise lies, but could serve to tell the listener/reader that the speaker/writer is being direct and unmistakably evident with what he is about to say. So "frankly" doesn't necessarily mean "most of the time I am lying," but can mean "I'm not mincing words." It is possible to look these type of things up before writing TMQ. Fuck accuracy and being frank with your readers. Who cares?

The word "frankly" is used in a weird context sometimes, such as when ordering a sandwich, but Gregg's interpretation of the meaning isn't entirely accurate.

From earlier in the column: 

The two great highbrow publications of New York City, the New York Times and the New Yorker, seemed strangely uninterested in the Super Bowl in their midst.

Having the Super Bowl come to your city seems big, so why did the New York Times and New Yorker not respond with enterprise reporting?

From later in the column:

Many Super Bowl guests, including your columnist, stayed in the days before the game in Manhattan, where New Yorkers were blasé: "Super Bowl, that's all it is?"

Gee Gregg, maybe that's why New York papers were uninterested about the Super Bowl, because they knew those who read the paper were blase about it. I doubt it though, because that would make too much sense.

My initial read was Denver's night because the Broncos cheer-babes showed great professionalism, starting the game with bare midriffs and plunging necklines, while the Seattle cheerleaders wore track suits.

And remember, Gregg got done telling us in last week's TMQ that he thinks the NFL objectifies and takes advantage of these cheerleaders. So back to Gregg ogling the cheerleaders and thinking it gives one team an advantage if that team's cheerleaders wear less clothing...or as Gregg calls it "showing great professionalism."

Returning to the hotel, I clicked on ESPN coverage -- and the first thing I beheld was a Peyton Manning endorsement commercial. Manning is accessible to the media, and of course does endless endorsements. How much time in the week before the Super Bowl was he doing interviews rather than watching film of the Hawks?

The commercial that Manning filmed was probably filmed prior to Super Bowl week, you know, around the same time he was setting NFL records for passing yards, points and touchdowns in a season. If Gregg is accusing Peyton Manning of not watching enough Seahawks film prior to the Super Bowl then I would imagine he is dead wrong. Manning is well-known for studying film of the opposing team and trying to find weaknesses in the defense. In fact, part of the reason Manning is able to offset his average arm strength and physical abilities is that he has such a great knowledge of his offense and the opposing team's defense. NFL players are required to fulfill certain interview obligations on Super Bowl week, but I doubt Manning was shooting a commercial. Even if he was, I feel confident saying he wouldn't let it interfere with preparations for the game.

I couldn't help thinking if Manning didn't grant so many interviews and make so many commercials, there would not be a debate about his legacy, since he would not have flamed out so often in big games.

There is a correlation between athletes flaming out in big games and doing a lot of endorsements. That's one of the reasons Michael Jordan never won an NBA title, because he was too busy shooting Nike commercials with Spike Lee.

His fellow Broncos must be pleased to have made the Super Bowl, whatever the result. One can't help but wonder how they feel about being extras in the endless video clip that is Manning's life.

Considering Manning's playing ability makes every offensive player around him and his offensive coaches look good, then I don't doubt they have no issue with it.

As a loyal son of Buffalo, N.Y., your columnist has been stumping for years for the notion that Andre Reed belongs in the Hall of Fame: "He came from a small-college program, Kutztown University, and when he retired he had the third-most receptions, trailing only Jerry Rice and Cris Carter. Reed's accomplishments were compiled despite playing for a cold-weather, rush-oriented team while Rice played for a warm-weather passing team and Carter played most of his career indoors." But Reed also threw his helmet in the Super Bowl, and it doesn't matter that defensive pass interference should have been called on the play. That knuckle-headed moment cost him eight years of nail-biting waiting as a passed-over finalist -- sort of Canton purgatory.

I really doubt Andre Reed was denied entry into the Hall of Fame because he threw his helmet in a Super Bowl game. Hall of Fame voters haven't denied entry to guys like Lawrence Taylor so I doubt Reed throwing a helmet in a Super Bowl is why he wasn't elected into the Hall of Fame prior to this year. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has a somewhat odd induction process that only allows a few players in per year, which leads to a backlog of qualified candidates. I think that's a more accurate explanation as to why Reed wasn't elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame prior to this year.

Last week in New York for that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about, I lunched with my literary agent. I feared he would tell me the book market was in such a swoon that I should change careers. Actually he said my chances of another book advance this year were strong, which was music to my ears.

That's great, Gregg! We are all pleased to hear that you will soon be making more money. Hopefully you will write your book on a subject that you don't sound like a complete dipshit discussing. I'm not confident of this.

In theory, authors should be OK, though the situation has far from shaken out. Write a book that sells 55,000 copies (my best result, for "The Progress Paradox," published 2003) and the royalty would be about $2 per hardback and $1 per paperback. Electronic books sell for half the price of printed books, thus half the royalty, and all the price pressure is downward. Suppose electronic formats enable authors to sell far more copies, with lower royalties per sale. There's no reason an author could not have about the same income, but with a far larger readership while offering better deals to readers.

That's even better, Gregg! Your readers care about you personally and want you to make as much money as possible. When you do make a lot of money selling a book, please tell me how much you made. Because, truly, I give a shit.

When a book is printed the author must always live with any factual errors or dumb sentences -- trust me, I have plenty of experience -- but no government agency or corporation can make anything controversial in the book disappear. Electronic books are easily changed, and this can be done remotely.

You know, sort of what is done in Gregg's TMQ every week. A mistake is made and then immediately covered up never to be mentioned again. Gregg is afraid he won't be able to point out the mistakes of other authors, but has no problem covering up mistakes made in TMQ.

But the far larger concern is censorship. Books contain information the White House or some big company doesn't want the public to know. What if those passages mysteriously disappear?

The author of those passages would know that the information has disappeared, and unless the United States turns into a total police state and the author is detained and prevented from speaking, could alert the public that his book was altered and describe exactly what was altered.

If you have an electronic book that might be altered remotely, the only way to be sure would be to print it out and keep the printed copy. Which may be the best case for the future of printed books.

I understand where Gregg's concerns lie, but the author and anyone else who read the book prior to it being altered would know something was left out of the book eventually. So some passages could mysteriously disappear and it may take time before someone figures it out, but I doubt any excised passages would stay hidden from the public's knowledge permanently.

Hidden Play of the Super Bowl: Hidden plays are ones that never make highlight reels, but help win championships. Denver threw a quick sideways screen to the tailback -- and the play was run down in the flat for a gain of only 1 yard by Seattle defensive tackle Michael Bennett. When a defensive tackle is catching a tailback in the flat, your defense has speed and your mind is in the game.

Apparently this play was so well hidden that Gregg doesn't know Michael Bennett is a defensive end, not a defensive tackle. But facts are just small details that should be ignored to prove a larger point.

"The Public School Advantage" by Sarah Lubienski. Poor public schools are a problem in many places. But the good public schools, this book contends, do a better job than any private school at any price. Lubienski thrusts up a mountain of data to show that a good public school is the ideal choice for most young people: both in educational quality and in exposing students to the cross-section of society missing from the snobby prep schools.

So a person wrote an entire book telling the public that a good public school is the ideal choice for most young people? I mean, I don't know, this seems sort of obvious. A free public school that can provide a good education obviously seems like the best choice for most young people. It doesn't mean some people shouldn't choose to attend a private school, just in the same way a Toyota Camry could be just as reliable as a BMW, but a person could still choose to purchase a BMW. I'm interested in reading a book that tells us how we can make more public schools be good public schools, rather than a book that seems to state the obvious, that a good public school is the best option for most young people.

I've done a fair amount of radio in conjunction with the release of "The King of Sports," and now finally pay attention to Twitter. Something I've heard more than once this season is that the column has never been better -- people do actually say that! -- but that my enthusiasm for football seems to be declining.

I think what they mean to tell you is "The column has never been better than any other football column posted on the Internet."

Here's the deal. Football as a sport engages me as much as it ever did, more perhaps, as with each year my understanding improves of both tactics and the culture of the game.

ARE YOU BEING FRANK WITH US NOW, GREGG?

Does your understanding improve though? You still think a defensive end is a defensive tackle, still think cornerbacks cover a single man as opposed to cover a zone, and still can't understand that a team's offensive line getting a push is much more important than "doing a little dance" as it pertains to getting a first down on short yardage. You can improve your knowledge and still lack a lot of knowledge.

Single Worst Play of the Season -- Final Edition: The Broncs moved quickly from their 23 to first down at the Bluish Men Group 38. The most important Seattle defensive series of the night then occurred, though without any flashy play -- incompletion, incompletion, loss of a yard. Now it's fourth-and-11 on the Seattle 39, and in trots the punting unit.

Not only was Denver punting when down by 29 points in the second half of the Super Bowl, not only was the No. 1 offense in pro football history punting when down by 29 points in the Super Bowl, a team trailing by 29 points in the second half of the Super Bowl was punting in opposition territory.

This shouldn't shock anyone who has watched John Fox coach. He's very, very conservative. Sure, the Broncos may not have gotten four more possessions in the game, what happens if the Broncos don't convert this first down? They could lose the game, you know.

I'm not all about going for it on fourth down, but in a situation where a team may not get enough possessions to tie the game up, and they are down 29-0 in the Super Bowl? Yes, you go for it in that situation. This is one of the most frustrating parts of John Fox's tenure in Carolina. His ultra-conservative nature...well, that and third-and-long draw plays.

Peyton Manning trotted off with his head hanging, not protesting the decision. There is no way on God's green Earth that Tom Brady, Drew Brees or Brett Favre would have trotted off passively in that situation. They would have gone to their coaches agitated, demanding a try.

Acting like a child and throwing a temper tantrum isn't going to serve to make John Fox change his mind. It will only serve to show the opposition how frustrated you are. We all know if Peyton Manning had trotted off the field and berated Fox for punting here, then Gregg would have said that the Seahawks knew they had won the game at this point because Peyton Manning (who never loses his cool) had lost his cool. Acting like a baby and throwing a tantrum isn't leadership and I'm sure Gregg would have found a way to twist it if Manning had gotten agitated.

As the punt boomed, your columnist thought, "This is the single worst play in all of football history." And yea, verily, you don't need to know anything about the remainder of the game.

You don't need to know anything else about the remainder of the game mostly because it was 29-0 in the third quarter.

Next Week: The stadium lights are turned off, the film rooms are dark and the cheerleaders put their miniskirts away in very small drawers. Tuesday Morning Quarterback will return weekly in August.

We are without TMQ until the time of the NFL Draft, yet somehow I will get by reading columns about the NFL from sportswriters who actually seem to understand the game and don't make shit up on a whim. Remember though, come Fall the focus in football on all levels will be defense and teams will no longer score a lot of points with the fast-paced offenses becoming a thing of the past.

Notice how Gregg doesn't do his "Wrong Predictions" and "All-Unwanted or Undrafted Team" column anymore. I wonder if it is because he realizes they are stupid columns full of hypocrisy and contradictions on his part or he just couldn't find enough unwanted and undrafted players to field a team?

2 comments Jason Whitlock Gets All Jason Whitlock-y When Writing about Dez Bryant

Jason Whitlock, who probably has more in common at times with Jay Mariotti than he would like to admit, has decided to write about Dez Bryant and his sideline temper tantrums during the recent Dallas Cowboys game against the Detroit Lions. Whitlock is like Mariotti in that he has knocked ESPN (well, Mariotti knocks the entertainment sports machines but I know he's talking about ESPN) as if he is above working for them, but once ESPN (or any major entertainment entity in the case of Mariotti) comes calling he's glad to work for them. It's interesting that Whitlock, who used to criticize Rick Reilly for mailing in columns, has a tendency to do the same thing. Whitlock isn't at the point of consistent ridiculousness that Reilly is at currently, but he has the template to write an attention-grabbing column with a few references to "The Wire" and Jeff George reference down at this point. No need for too much thinking. Just write something that will gain attention and this will allow Whitlock to be deemed a columnist who talks about controversial issues. So Jason Whitlock writes about Dez Bryant and says he is no Jeff George. Whitlock also says Bryant's temper tantrum is different from a white quarterback's sideline tantrum because Bryant is inherently a malcontent. That's sort of differentiating between the two sideline tantrums based on past behavior, which I'm not entirely sure is fair when discussing the reaction to Bryant's argument with Witten/Derek Dooley and (for example) Tom Brady's sideline argument a few years ago with Bill O'Brien.

Not to say Jason Whitlock has sold out by going back to work for ESPN, but above this column is a video of Max Kellerman and Marcellus Wiley discussing this column on SportsNation. Sports news happens, ESPN personalities give an opinion on this sports news, then another ESPN personality comments on that other ESPN personality's opinion, and now not only has ESPN reported on a sports story but they have created and reported on themselves making news for the story. It's the ESPN news cycle, which is why Skip Bayless is still employed despite his overwhelming awfulness. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

False equivalency is the lifeblood of American public debate.

A receiver and a quarterback both yelling at coaches and teammates on the sidelines doesn't seem like a false equivalency to me. I think it seems like a pretty fair measurement for how the media treats a quarterback (white or not) and a receiver who throws sideline tantrums. The key difference is that a quarterback is expected to be a leader and a receiver is not. Whitlock even says Dez Bryant isn't a leader because he's a wide receiver. So he's working on an incorrect belief from the very start that receivers can't be leaders. The media has their own perception of leadership on a football team and which players can be leaders. Linebackers and quarterbacks are leaders. Safeties can be leaders, but only in certain cases. These players who are considered leaders show their leadership by yelling at teammates, preparing well for the upcoming game, not wearing a towel on their head on the sidelines, and blaming himself or blaming nobody for the mistakes made by a team. Quarterbacks are leaders, running backs and wide receivers are not. So when a wide receiver throws a sideline tantrum then it is not possible for him to be displaying leadership.

So it should come as no surprise that, in an effort to rationalize Dez Bryant's counterproductive sideline tantrums, Bryant's defenders compared the immature Dallas receiver to Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

I wouldn't argue it is the exact same thing, but sideline arguments happen all the time and the cameras pick them up occasionally. Todd Haley has argued with Anquan Boldin and that didn't stop him from getting a head coaching job. Perhaps Haley was showing leadership since he was the offensive coordinator at the time and coaches show leadership by yelling (according to the media).

Celebrated white quarterbacks yell at their teammates. Why can't a black wide receiver?

The equivalency is false on multiple levels.

It's not even that. It's that many sportswriters shrug off Peyton Manning getting into it with Jeff Saturday or Tom Brady getting in an argument with Bill O'Brien, just like it should be shrugged off. But because Bryant is a wide receiver, and I don't think it is a black/white issue though we all know if Jason Whitlock can talk about race he takes the first opportunity to do so, he gets criticized and his actions get dissected. Bryant was demonstrative and seemed angry, which only further led to sportswriters getting excited over his sideline tantrum.

Dez Bryant erupted on the Dallas sideline for at least 10 solid minutes.

Apparently the amount of time of the eruption factors into whether it is leadership or just a player acting immaturely.

A friend of mine, a native Detroiter, was seated a dozen rows up behind the Dallas bench on Sunday. He and his friends heckled Bryant throughout Sunday's game.

Jason Whitlock is going to the Bill Simmons well of "I have a friend who saw it and this is how he reports it so it must be fact" journalism.

"The television highlights do not accurately portray how bad his tantrum was,"said Scott Nichols, the point guard on Ball State's 1990 NCAA Sweet 16 team. 

What he did 23 years ago is irrelevant and doesn't give his story more credibility. This may be Whitlock's attempt at name-dropping. The fact that this guy and his friends heckled Bryant the whole game (which for a person who is around 44 years of age seems really, really mature to do) tells me that he could very well be exaggerating the length and severity of Bryant's tantrum, as well as using his bias against Bryant as a way to make Bryant look worse than he was.

"He berated dozens of teammates for what seemed like 20 minutes."

But it wasn't 20 minutes. It was 10 "solid" minutes apparently. Also, why would I trust the account of someone who heckled Bryant all game?

Yes, I'm aware of the video showing Bryant interacting positively with Tony Romo and an assistant coach. The video is a little more than a minute long.

And of course to prove his point and churn out this column Jason Whitlock will assume Dez Bryant didn't interact positively with Romo or any assistant coaches for the entirety of the game, so one minute of being nice doesn't override the ten minutes of a tantrum. 10 is more than 1, Dez Bryant is an asshole and not comparable to any quarterback. 

Problem is, it's not footage of the scenes that made news all Sunday and Monday. It's a highlight of Bryant's "good" screaming. It's the same as if I released a one-minute clip on YouTube of me eating raw vegetables and leaving out the 19 minutes of me making love to a deep-dish, meat-lover's pizza.

So now it appears Jason Whitlock is arguing the point that Dez Bryant was unfairly portrayed by the media, which could lead me to assume that Whitlock doesn't see a false equivalency in comparing Bryant to a quarterback who gets in the face of a coach or teammate...except that's not the way Whitlock goes at all with this column.

I eat raw vegetables. But my 30 for 30 documentary better include sit-down interviews with Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders and Little Debbie.

Yeah, we get it. You like food and ESPN has a "30 for 30" documentary created by your good buddy and the only other ESPN sportswriter who is in love with his own opinions as much as you are, Bill Simmons.

Jason Witten wasn't yelling at Bryant and DeMarcus Ware wasn't restraining Bryant because he was shouting positive reinforcement at Romo and the coaching staff. Go sell that garbage somewhere else. Dez Bryant melted down Sunday, even if he littered his tantrum with a few positive words.

I'm not sure anyone is arguing that Bryant was yelling words of encouragement on the sidelines. It's quite obvious he was pissed off. So Whitlock is not really disproving anything here.

Brady and Manning have never done what Bryant did Sunday. Not even close. What Bryant did was akin to the tantrum thrown by my former high school teammate Jeff George when Falcons coach June Jones pulled him from a game in 1996. You remember that tantrum? And surely you remember the national media shredding George for doing it. You may also remember that Jeff George is and was white.

A lot of information here. Yes, Manning and Brady haven't thrown a tantrum quite like Bryant's in front of the cameras, but Brady has thrown a few tantrums on the sidelines during a game and gotten visibly angry on the field as well. This of course doesn't make Tom Brady a bad person, bad leader, and he's gotten a little criticism for it. Brady doesn't deserve criticism because disagreements happen on a team, despite the fact the media seems to believe this isn't true and likes to blow a disagreement out of proportion.

So what Brady or Manning lack in length of tantrum on the sidelines, due to their long NFL careers they have more quantity of tantrums than Dez Bryant has. This means nothing about their leadership and I don't believe it is a color issue. I believe it is the issue of Dez Bryant not being considered a leader by the media because he isn't a quarterback. Because Jason Whitlock immediately jumps to the race issue in this situation like other mouth-breathing morons, he thinks he's shown a false equivalency by pointing out Jeff George got ripped by the media for an argument with his head coach, June Jones, 17 years ago.

At no point does Whitlock think, "Maybe the difference is that the media didn't really like Jeff George and Peyton Manning/Tom Brady are Hall of Fame quarterbacks and get more of the benefit of the doubt?" No, instead Whitlock says "Jeff George is white quarterback who wasn't well-liked, so the media will criticize a white quarterback and this proves it."

Whitlock doesn't take the media's relationship with George into making this supposedly really good point, because it would go back to the coverage of George and Bryant's sideline tantrums having something to do with each player's relationship to the media, and this could lead back to there not being a false equivalency that Whitlock insists exists.

George's critics questioned his maturity and leadership ability. They wondered if his mental approach would undermine his chance of capitalizing on his immense physical gifts.

And maybe that's the issue here, not the treatment of a white quarterback compared to the treatment of a black wide receiver. Maybe the difference is the media sees a player labeled "immature" having an argument on the sidelines and assumes because that player is immature then this argument could in no way display leadership or just be a typical sideline argument. It's not like the media doesn't enjoy making a big deal out of something small.

No one, to my knowledge, ever intentionally or unintentionally insinuated there was a racist double standard causing the national media to criticize Jeff George. As the national president of the Jeff George Fan Club, I would've heard about this. It did not happen.

Right, because there was nothing to compare George's sideline argument to in 1996. This incident happened 17 years ago. For someone to claim there was a racist double standard causing the media to criticize George then there would need to be a black quarterback who threw a temper tantrum just like Jeff George did and wasn't criticized for it prior to 1996. There wasn't one. For there to be a double standard there has to be two different examples of a standard being applied. Jeff George was one example and there wasn't a comparable example of a black quarterback throwing a tantrum like George threw prior to 1996.

George berated his head coach before the addiction to false equivalencies swept across America like crack cocaine in the 1980s. Politically partisan cable TV ushered in this epidemic. Bill O'Reilly is the Avon Barksdale of false equivalencies. Sean Hannity is Prop Joe.

"The Wire" is like this, "The Wire" is like that. No one gives a shit. It's a television show, not life.

We love false equivalencies in the sports world, too. Remember in 2006 when the Tennessee Titans had a contentious separation from quarterback Steve McNair? My favorite NFL player, Ray Lewis, said the Green Bay Packers and the Indianapolis Colts would never treat Brett Favre and Peyton Manning the way the Titans treated McNair. 

And neither Indianapolis or Green Bay locked Manning or Favre out of the team's training facility. The Packers simply traded Favre when he wanted to un-retire and the Colts released Manning once they had drafted Andrew Luck. Neither quarterback was physically prevented from entering their team's training facility. Favre wanted to be traded and the Packers did this for him. Manning was released because the Colts found a younger starter in the draft. Manning was done a favor by being released fairly early in the offseason so he could have time to search for a new team as a free agent. The Colts very well could have played hardball with Manning and not released him until they drafted Luck, brought Luck into camp and knew Luck would learn the offense by the time the season began. They didn't do this and released Manning as early as possible so he could have more options in free agency.

Well, despite Favre's and Manning's combined seven MVP awards (McNair had one, shared with Manning in 2004), the Packers booted Favre in an ugly dispute and the Colts pushed Manning aside for Andrew Luck.

The dispute with the Packers was ugly at times, but the Packers ended up trading Favre and absolutely said he could play for Green Bay as a backup. I think a team saying, "Sure, come practice and be the backup" is different from a team saying, "We won't allow you to enter the training facility to participate with the team in any fashion." I'm not arguing there was racism involved, but the Packers nor the Colts locked either quarterback out of their team facility. In fact, the Packers were more than willing for Favre to play for the team as a backup quarterback.

For the most part, comparing Dez Bryant to quarterbacks is nonsensical.

He plays receiver. It's a different lane and a different role from playing quarterback. Quarterbacks call plays. They bark instruction. They lead huddles. The very nature of the position dictates that quarterbacks yell at the line of scrimmage and occasionally yell at teammates. It's the job.

See? Wide receivers aren't considered leaders by the media oftentimes. I think this is silly. Steve Smith is considered a leader by his Carolina Panthers teammates and he acts like an asshole, yells at his teammates and just generally doesn't act mature on the field. He's gotten the benefit of the doubt that Dez Bryant doesn't have yet. Bryant acts like a knucklehead and hasn't been in the NFL long, so he won't be considered a leader by the media and any argument he has with a teammate is not waved off as just a disagreement, but a sure sign that Bryant is really immature.

Dez Bryant isn't a quarterback. He's not a leader.

This is part of the problem. Jason Whitlock, and other media members, don't think wide receivers can be leaders, especially wide receivers who have a history of being unfocused and a diva. Wide receivers are divas and so an argument on the sidelines with a teammate is just diva behavior.

He's so high-maintenance that a year ago Jerry Jones employed a team of "advisors" to help Bryant function as an adult. Jones gave Bryant a curfew and a set of guidelines pertaining to strip clubs and whatnot.

This is true. My point is that I take Bryant's sideline argument as a part of who he is on the field. A lot of NFL players are different on and off the field. Bryant has an ego and he thinks he is better than he really is. I would not say that Tom Brady has thrown a tantrum like Dez Bryant threw, but I also think using this as a way of proving Bryant's immaturity isn't fair. My point is that quarterbacks and other football players will argue with each other on the sidelines. Looking at which player is arguing and judging what position he plays seems to be the only criteria for determining whether this argument is a product of immaturity or leadership. Dez Bryant had an argument with a teammate. It happens and may not mean anything more than that, no matter how much the media wants it to.

Dez Bryant is a typical, me-first NFL receiver diva, cut from the same cloth as Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson, Randy Moss and Keyshawn Johnson, sprinkled with a heavy dash of Pacman Jones.

Maybe, but it doesn't mean his sideline argument with Jason Witten or Derek Dooley isn't just a part of football.

Diva receivers believe emotional sideline tantrums and elaborate, hey-look-at-me gimmicks are an extension of their "passion" for the game. They can't recognize the fine line between Ray Lewis' inspiring pregame dance and ranting for no good reason.

Notice how Whitlock won't criticize Ray Lewis now that he is a member of the ESPN team. There's nothing about Ray Lewis's pregame dance that isn't hey-look-at-me. The dance can be inspiring, but it was also about getting attention on Ray Lewis. 

Jerry Rice is the gold standard because he beat defenders with his head. Bryant won't catch Calvin Johnson by screaming.

First off, Dez Bryant is four years younger than Calvin Johnson, and second, their numbers through their first four seasons are eerily similar:

Johnson: 270 receptions, 4191 yards, 33 touchdowns
Bryant: 245 receptions, 3512 yards, 35 touchdowns

So if Dez Bryant wants to catch Calvin Johnson, he seems to be doing a pretty good job when you compare their NFL careers through the first four seasons.

I root for people from tough backgrounds who have emotional issues. I want to see them overcome. Bryant won't overcome if we lie to him and rationalize his obvious errors. He was clearly out of bounds on Sunday. He was too caught up in the one-on-one duel he was having inside his head between himself and Megatron.

Bryant apologized because he knew he was out of line. It's a non-story. Players argue. Because Bryant is considered immature and doesn't play the quarterback position there is more related to the importance of this argument than would be when a quarterback and his coach argue. When a quarterback argues with a coach then it is over a play-call or the overall direction of the offense. That quarterback is just looking out for his team, while Dez Bryant didn't care about the team and was intent on waging a personal war that only existed in his mind. Fortunately Jason Whitlock can read minds (or at least pretend to read minds in order to make his point) and knows why Bryant really had a sideline tantrum.

Bryant wanted to go catch for catch with Johnson.

Or he wanted the football when he was wide open so that the Cowboys could score a touchdown. But again, Bryant only wanted to score a touchdown for himself, and didn't care if scoring a touchdown helped the Cowboys team or not.

Some people have blamed Dallas coach Jason Garrett for not commanding enough respect to silence Bryant on the sideline. Garrett is powerless in his relationship with Bryant.

Jones, who doubles as the team's GM, drafted Bryant. Jones has invested millions of dollars in Bryant. Jones paid for an elite baby-sitting team.

I've read the "Sports Illustrated" article about Dez Bryant. I know he isn't mature and I know he definitely seems to march to the beat of his own drum. I'm not defending Bryant as much as I am defending his right to have a sideline argument with a coach or teammate that doesn't turn into a representation of Bryant's concern only for himself. It's just interesting to me how a sideline argument that features a quarterback is couched in terms of a disagreement between that quarterback and his coach over the direction of the team, while Bryant's argument is being shown as his concern only for himself.

Having watched his baby act like a baby and create the non-composed environment that powers fourth-quarter collapses,

Yes, Jason Whitlock is now blaming Dez Bryant for the Cowboys fourth quarter collapse against the Lions. I always thought the Cowboys fourth quarter collapses were Tony Romo's fault, but now I've learned they are Dez Bryant's fault. I do know where the blame for the fourth quarter collapse does not lie, and that's with the Cowboys defense. Not their fault at all.

False equivalences are fun and easy. They're a good tool for defending someone you love and respect. There was a time in the 1990s when I would've excused Jeff George for hiding on the grassy knoll and assisting Lee Harvey Oswald by saying: "No one was mad at AC for driving O.J. all over the 405 and tying up traffic."

While Bryant throwing a sideline fit and Tom Brady throwing a sideline fit aren't the same thing, they are false equivalencies only in the way the media chooses to look at each player's behavior. It's ingrained that quarterbacks are leading and showing concern for the team's direction when arguing on the sideline, while wide receivers are divas and any argument had with a coach or teammate on the sideline is self-serving. This is what the media feeds us.

I'm as guilty as anyone. But let's stop the nonsense. We're only hurting Dez Bryant. We're baiting him to resist maturity and evolution. We're reinforcing bad habits.

I'm 100% sure that Dez Bryant doesn't care what anyone writes about him. His behavior isn't going to stay the same or change based on people's reaction to a sideline argument. It's best not to condescend like this anyway.

He apparently thinks the best way to handle a frustrating situation is by erupting emotionally. That's no good. It leads to trouble.

But see, the same could be said for any sideline argument between teammates or a player and a coach. Yet, the same thing isn't said in every instance of a sideline argument between two teammates.

He won't equal or surpass Calvin Johnson until he channels his emotions properly.

Oh that's right, I forgot Jason Whitlock can read minds and knows this is the real reason Dez Bryant blew up on the Cowboys sidelines against the Lions. It seems ESPN prides itself on employing writers who use their friends' observations as definitive proof something is true and have the ability to read minds in order to reach a conclusion that supports their column's main thesis. 

3 comments 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.