It's all about attention. That's a lot of what is wrong with modern sports journalism and a lot of journalism in general. I don't listen to talk radio. I should say I no longer listen to sports-talk radio because it's all about getting attention and having the hottest sports take. Naturally, a lot of this starts to bleed into written sports journalism as well. This column written by Dan Bernstein states that Derrick Rose isn't humble anymore and he isn't just the hometown kid anymore either. As well as being an example of sports-talk radio journalism, this article also shows the media's fascination with building people up in anticipation of eventually tearing them down. Look no further than Robert Griffin to see how the media goes about building a person up through pushing a false ideal of perfection on that person only to tear the person down when it turns out he isn't perfect and has flaws. But hey, it's about getting attention and Dan Bernstein got attention for this article. Big win for him.
Complaining while not playing is a bad look for someone who has sold a phony reputation as a humble, team-oriented kid.
Derrick Rose doesn't want to rebuild. This is completely understandable. No professional athlete wants to rebuild. No professional athlete wants to be injured two years in a row and watch his team lose while he is on the bench. Everyone is happy when a team wins, everyone is unhappy when a team is losing. Winning covers up flaws a team has, while losing creates flaws where there may not actually be flaws or exacerbates current flaws.
Derrick Rose isn't not team-oriented because he doesn't want to rebuild. He's a human being because he doesn't want to rebuild. The Bulls don't want to sit around and wait for Rose to get healthy and plan around a player they aren't completely sure will come back as their franchise player. Derrick Rose knows the Bulls either (a) want to rebuild and possibly not have him be the centerpiece of the rebuilding plan or (b) rebuild in a way where the Bulls aren't a championship contender when Rose gets healthy. Not looking forward to a rebuild is being human and not in any way non-team-oriented or not humble.
According to a story in the New York Daily News, Rose is now unhappy
that the Bulls will have to reconstruct their roster in an effort to win
a championship, apparently thinking that such a move would be a waste
of his precious time and efforts.
I wonder how Dan Bernstein would feel if he missed a month of work with a health issue, only to return to hear that his co-host and many of his best co-workers were fired? Would Dan Bernstein roll with the punches or be upset while he was out of the office his employer gutted the office? I really, really doubt Dan would just roll with the punches and be pleased. This also wouldn't make Dan Bernstein selfish for not liking that his favorite co-workers were fired. Of course putting himself in Rose's shoes takes too much work, so Bernstein points a finger at Rose instead.
‘Derrick is worried that the Bulls are going to lose what they have,’
said a league source. ‘He doesn’t want to go through rebuilding.’”
This statement may be true/untrue depending on if the league source is a Bulls employee or a guy who works for another NBA team who wants to create drama on the Bulls roster. It's not like that type of thing doesn't happen, especially concerning a report coming from a league source reported in a New York paper. You think the Knicks wouldn't want Derrick Rose or Joakim Noah on the roster in the near future? Who is this league source?
To Dan Bernstein it doesn't matter because anonymous league sources and their quotes are a good way to have a hot sports take and change the narrative around Derrick Rose to one that says he is selfish and not humble.
What does he think they have, and where does he think it’s going? Most
importantly, what does he not understand about the primary reason for
the Bulls’ current plight?
He's a frustrated basketball player. Again, if Dan Bernstein came back from an extended break and found that his employer had fired many of his favorite co-workers or were planning on cleaning house at some point in the near future, do you think he would be happy about it? I really doubt it. He would be frustrated and upset.
It takes some nerve to call out his employers after they have paid him 30% of their salary cap to miss consecutive seasons.
It takes some nerve to call out a player for not being humble and then seeming to act as if Derrick Rose has gotten injured on purpose.
This is typical behavior from a player who has always done only what is
in his personal best interest, everybody else be damned. He’ll take
every last dollar, and enjoy all the team-supplied resources for medical
consultations, surgeries, rehabilitation programs and various
therapists, only to ignore their professional opinions just because he
feels like it.
How dare a professional athlete take his own personal health into his own hands and not count on the medical staff on his team to do what is best for him instead of what is best for the team. We all know that the medical staff of a professional NBA or NFL team would NEVER do what is in the best interest of the team as opposed to what is best for the athlete. There are multiple stories of an NFL team's medical staff doing what is best for the team while risking the long-term health of the player. It's not crazy for Derrick Rose to take his own personal health into his own hands.
At this moment, John Paxson and Gar Forman are trying to win an NBA
championship more in spite of Derrick Rose than because of him.
Of course they are. Derrick Rose keeps getting in the way of the Bulls winning an NBA title by intentionally getting injured.
It doesn’t help anything that Rose is not among the brightest bulbs, and
that he still lives in an insular camp of cronies that is too often at
odds with his team.
Again, Derrick Rose has a career to worry about and sometimes that career is at odds with what his employer wants for him. I guess Dan Bernstein wants Derrick Rose to live in an insular camp of cronies that does exactly what the Bulls tell him to do? That's the better option?
It was understandable for him to be shielded from Englewood gangs and
other unsavory influences enough to get him a fair shot at a pro career,
but enough already. He’s 25 years old, in his fifth NBA season, is
worth a quarter-billion dollars and has a family of his own,
Which is why he has an obligation to his family and himself to not blindly trust the Bulls are going to do what is best for him and why he isn't completely pleased the Bulls are looking to rebuild. No player likes rebuilding, especially with the uncertainty of coming back from two straight seasons of suffering major injuries.
Reggie Rose is a clown, using the guise of brotherly love to aggrandize
himself after a failed career as both player and coach that was marked
by bizarre, immature behavior.
Bulls officials have become increasingly frustrated by continued
communication problems with Rose due to Reggie’s invasive influence,
with one source telling WSCR “It’s like talking to a wall.”
Perhaps the best advice came from Charles Barkley last February, when he
opined on TNT that instead of complaining about Bulls business, Reggie
should “shut the hell up.”
Maybe Reggie Rose is a clown. Maybe he doesn't have Derrick's best interests at heart. Derrick Rose may be guilty of poor judgment in trusting his brother, but he isn't guilty of not being humble and being selfish for continuing to trust his brother.
Another problem is the presence of BJ Armstrong as part of Rose’s group
as one of his agents. Armstrong’s personal bitterness toward Paxson and
the Bulls runs long and deep: he’s still angry that he didn’t get the
chance to replace Jerry Krause as GM and Paxson did, and the two former
teammates are not on speaking terms. As long as he is allied with Rose
there will be an undercurrent of conflict, with any comment or action
subject to interpretation regarding ulterior motive.
How interesting that Dan Bernstein makes a comment saying any comment from Derrick Rose, B.J. Armstrong or John Paxson is subject to interpretation regarding ulterior motive while writing a column where Bernstein takes comments by an anonymous source in a New York paper and doesn't at all think about the source's ulterior motive. Bernstein feeds this undercurrent of conflict by choosing to interpret comments and Rose's actions in the way he does.
Derrick Rose needs to grow up, wise up, and seize control of his image
and career before he and the bozos around him fritter away a mountain of
good will, scattering his civic capital to the winds.
This is absolutely possible. Rose may need to trust different people, but his trust of his brother and his agent doesn't make him not humble.
He says he’s all about winning a championship, but then he carps about
rebuilding when it appears his team is trying to do what it must to give
him that very opportunity.
But Rose may not see rebuilding as the solution to winning a championship. Therein lies the problem. Rose knows the Bulls were close with him on the roster and healthy and doesn't want anything to change. It's human nature to feel this way.
And it’s certainly not humble, so we can stop with that. The quiet
superstar is quiet not because he is naturally self-effacing, but
because he is bad at talking. The local-kid-made-good storyline is over.
Okay then. Time to tear him down as quickly as possible.
He likes to let his game speak for him, but then refuses to play even when instructed to by doctors.
Let's not forget that Rose sat out the entire 2012-2013 season, which many felt was too long, and he still suffered another knee injury less than a month into the 2013-2014 season. Any athlete who has been injured knows he/she needs to come back only when that person feels comfortable having recovered from the injury. The idea Rose didn't play when "instructed to" by the Bulls' doctors doesn't seem like a terrible idea in retrospect considering Rose suffered another knee injury the following season.
He opts for cartilage repair that requires a longer-term recovery, and
then lacks the basic understanding of how that changes the team’s title
trajectory.
Right, because Rose got injured intentionally and then selfishly chooses a recovery process he thinks will bring him back to 100% health (which will benefit the Bulls greatly by the way).
As always, the Bulls are trying to take care of themselves while Derrick
Rose tries to take care of Derrick Rose on the Bulls’ dime.
The Bulls can take care of themselves, but Derrick Rose isn't allowed to take care of himself. Got it.
Sadly, the two endeavors don’t always seem to be working toward the same ends.
Derrick Rose is concerned the Bulls are rebuilding because he thinks this negatively affects his goal to win an NBA title, while the Bulls are possibly thinking of rebuilding so they can win an NBA title. It seems the two sides just have different ways of reaching the same end. It's just Rose isn't humble anymore because that's the new narrative required to tear him down.
Showing posts with label don't take things out of context. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don't take things out of context. Show all posts
Monday, January 13, 2014
Saturday, October 5, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
9 comments MMQB Review: Peter Has a Great New Theory That Isn't Great and Not Really New
Last week in MMQB Peter King did his agent's bidding by reporting on the St. Louis Rams' draft room. Peter's agent is the father of the Rams COO and Peter's article on the Rams appeared in this week's "Sports Illustrated." It turns out (puts on shocked face) the Rams got exactly the players they wanted in the 2013 NFL Draft. Who ever could believe a General Manager would claim the players his team drafted were the players that team wanted all along? It also turns out that Les Snead has a mole in the Denver Broncos organization because he spent five minutes on the phone with an unnamed person (notice how Peter got full access to the Rams draft room except for the important shit his readers really want to know) who knew at #28 the Broncos were looking at Sylvester Williams, Eddie Lacy, and Alec Ogletree. I find it interesting Les Snead had this knowledge (and again, great job not getting who it was on the other end of the phone...it's not like the Rams only let Peter report the information that made them look good or anything, which was all part of Marvin Demoff's plan) and also find it interesting that the Broncos had Eddie Lacy on their board to be picked at #28, but the Broncos didn't choose him there and then chose Montee Ball over Lacy at #58. I'm not sure I can trust the information on who the Broncos were thinking of taking at #28 since it seems if the Broncos wanted Lacy at #28 they would get him at #58 as opposed to choosing another running back.
Peter also thought the Jets should cut Mark Sanchez immediately last week, which probably isn't something required to happen right now. This week in MMQB Peter talks about which teams will control the 2014 draft, which is something he does every year and then it rarely seem to turn out like he thinks it will. For a couple years he said the Patriots would control the draft and then the Patriots ended up trading back and their control of the draft was forgotten. It's a lazy kind of writing where Peter sees which team has the most picks and then announces they control the next year's draft. Peter also has non-football related observations which we all were so eagerly not waiting for him to relate to us.
It struck me during the draft, while watching the Rams go hard after Tavon Austin and Alec Ogletree, that there are four kinds of draft strategists in football today:
This serves as your reminder that Peter wrote a column about how the Rams draft war room in the latest "Sports Illustrated." Marvin Demoff is very proud right now.
Those who mostly sit near or right where they are high in the draft (Pittsburgh, the Giants, Green Bay, Cincinnati, among many others) and let the draft come to them.
You mean sort of like how the Giants traded up to draft Eli Manning? The Giants certainly let the draft come to them that day.
(It was rightly pointed out in the comments I have misremembered. The Giants didn't trade up for the #1 pick, but that pick was made by the Chargers and then traded to the Giants. I am wrong about that. This does help reinforce the point I have made countless times when old-school baseball writers mention they recall how great Jack Morris was and that's why he should be in the Hall of Fame. They remember him being great, which is why you had to watch Jack Morris pitch to know he belongs in the Hall of Fame. The memory of humans can suck. Like how I used a semi-strawman to divert attention from my being wrong about Eli Manning onto a discussion on how my being wrong proves another point I have tried to make previously? Very sneaky.)
Those who enter the draft with an eye on specific players and use picks as capital to go buy the objects of their affection (Atlanta, St. Louis).
An amalgam of those two ways of drafting (Baltimore, Minnesota, Seattle). Drafts are snowflakes, and they decide what to do after they set their boards.
Board-users (New England, San Francisco) married to nothing other than maximizing picks as value, unafraid of either going after a player they love (Pats: Jerod Mayo; Niners: Eric Reid) or, in the Jimmy Johnson way, trading down often because future picks are currency to get players they want.
So there are NFL teams afraid of going after a player they love? If a team has the picks to go after a player they love and the trade up is right, then why wouldn't this team go after the player? In fact, the 49ers did exactly that this year in trading up to get Eric Reid, which puts them in the group of teams who have an eye on specific players and use picks as capital to go get these players. The fourth kind of team is sort of like the second kind of team. The only difference is that the fourth kind of team will also trade back, but the 49ers moved up this year to get Reid, so wouldn't that make them the second AND fourth kind of team? Or to put a team in two categories would reveal that Peter's list of the kind of draft strategies teams use is based on short-term observation and really isn't true over the long-term? When Peter writes "draft strategists in football today," he means "today" as in "this past year" and this list of four kinds of teams' draft strategies possibly won't be true for the 2014 NFL Draft.
Check out what the Vikings did in the first round. They let the draft fall to them, and they also attacked the bottom of the round when Cordarrelle Patterson fell to them.
It's almost like NFL teams adapt different strategies depending on the talent pool in each NFL Draft and there are no set "kind" of draft strategies which certain teams employ from year-to-year. It's almost like this is true, but because this would mean Peter's list isn't accurate over the long-term and that couldn't be true, could it?
"Every draft is different, but among the ones I've seen, I thought this one was unique. So little separation between five and 25, to us. So with the talent being so even, I think teams homed in on need instead of taking the best player available -- because the best player available, this year, was such a close call on player after player.
There are four kinds of draft strategies in this year's draft, but having knowledge of this doesn't help in next year's draft or the draft after that because the talent pool available is different, so teams may adopt a different strategy. So observing the types of strategy different teams used in the 2013 NFL Draft is interesting to read and understand, but may have zero applicability to the 2014 NFL Draft. There aren't certain kinds of teams who use one certain strategy, but there are teams who adopted certain strategies in this year's draft.
So Spielman wrecked the rest of his board, basically, to move up to draft the immensely talented Patterson. (Talented, yes, but some scouts question his maturity. He doesn't come without risk.)
No draft pick comes without risk, especially a draft pick who has been in trouble during his college career and even got arrested recently...but we know no team would EVER choose a player in the first round who was arrested in February.
"But as far as your theory on draft philosophy, I am right on the fence," he said.
Translation: No team adopts a certain strategy and will try to use a mix of the four strategies that Peter just listed. If a team does adopt one certain strategy and isn't the least bit malleable than that team isn't going to succeed in building a team through the draft.
You don't want to just give those picks away. You have to be careful there, and I like to be patient. But you also have to know when to go get a guy you really want and really need."
Again, it's almost like NFL teams use a combination of these strategies and will go after a player they want if they have enough picks, will trade back if there isn't a player they want, and then if the draft is falling their way will just stick to their board and have one of their favorite players hopefully fall to them. So we are right back with the knowledge we had before Peter started writing this week's MMQB.
It's easy to say a team had a good draft when the first three picks come in the first round. But they weren't 8-11-9. They were 23-25-29, and if the Vikings hit on two of them, they will have had a great day.
If they hit on none of them then they will have had a very bad day. If they hit on all three of them then they still have Christian Ponder as their starting quarterback.
It's too early to say who was right on this draft day, and there is no one correct draft philosophy.
But there are four draft philosophies, no more and no less.
But Green Bay, Pittsburgh and the Giants, all of whom have been less aggressive historically, have won five of the last eight Super Bowls. The right answer is having the right scheme on both sides of the ball, and picking players who fit them, and never panicking when you don't get the guy you want.
These three teams also have franchise quarterbacks which always helps a team win a Super Bowl. Of course if Peter thinks he is telling us anything new by saying NFL teams have to have the right scheme and must pick players who fit that scheme well then he must also believe most of his audience is really stupid. This is quite obvious.
It's early, I know, but the Rams and Niners could own the '14 draft.
They have the most picks, which gives them the most options. This doesn't mean they will own the 2014 NFL Draft.
The Rams still have the best-looking 2014 draft profile. St. Louis is the only team with an extra first-round pick, courtesy of the last of three first-rounders from the Robert Griffin III trade in 2012. Three straight years with two first-rounders (at least to start the draft) is a great way to rebuild a franchise, obviously.
Not in Gregg Easterbrook's opinion. He thinks the best way to rebuild a franchise is to sign as many undrafted free agents as possible and trade away those first round picks otherwise spent on highly-paid glory boys.
San Francisco has its own choices in the first three rounds, plus what could be three additional third-rounders. The rundown:
An extra three from Tennessee, from a deal this year in which the Titans traded from 40 to 34 in the second round.
A possible extra three as a compensatory pick for Dashon Goldson signing a rich deal with Tampa Bay, and the 49ers not signing a major free agent on Goldson's level. If not a third-, then almost certainly a fourth-round pick.
And a third- or second-rounder from Kansas City, the remnant of the Alex Smith deal. Now it can be told: The second draft choice San Francisco will receive from the Smith deal will be K.C.'s second-rounder in 2014 if the Chiefs go 8-8 or better this season. It will be a third-rounder in 2014 if Kansas City is under .500 this season.
So basically we have no idea how many second or third round draft picks the 49ers may have. There is a difference in a third or fourth round pick, so it isn't like if the 49ers are compensated at a fourth round pick then this is the same thing as being compensated a third round pick. I don't know why Peter is infatuated with the idea of a team controlling the draft, but he writes about this every year and it gets tiresome. Extra picks are obviously great, but I recall Peter talking for a couple of years how the Patriots would control the draft with their extra picks and it never quite turned out that way.
2. Knee, heal thyself. Darrelle Revis' first three starts as a Buc: vengeance game at Meadowlands, presumably against Mark Sanchez, then Drew Brees and Tom Brady. Hope the rehab is timely.
Oh sure, NOW Peter jumps on the "I hope the injury doesn't linger too long" wagon in regard to Revis. Welcome, Peter.
4. Turf monster. "I love the 'Turf,'' Tavon Austin told me with a smile last weekend. His first five NFL games, and nine of his first 11, will be on the fake stuff. I know everyone is waiting for him to get hurt, and I know they're bigger, faster, and stronger in the NFL, but remember Austin missed one practice and zero games due to injury in four years at West Virginia.
While this is a good point, let's also remember that some football players hate turf because they claim it is actually harder on their knees. I'm not saying Austin will get injured and I am sure he will be just fine, but playing on the turf isn't the same as playing on grass.
8. Welcome Matt.Matt Flynn, Oakland quarterback, gets lucky. His two opening starts, assuming he wins the Raider quarterback job, come against the 26th- and 30th-rated defenses in 2012, Indianapolis and Jacksonville.
He's also lucky he gets to play the Chiefs twice next year. That's a fortunate turn of events.
10. Taste of Honey. If Tyrann Mathieu wins the starting free safety job in Arizona (it's unlikely he'll unseat vet Yeremiah Bell), his reward would be to face two No. 1 overall passers to start -- Sam Bradford, Matthew Stafford -- and then Drew Brees in game three.
I like how Peter words this. "If Tyrann Mathieu wins the starting free safety job, which he won't do..."
If he isn't going to win the job, what's the point of speculating? It's like saying, "If Matt Barkley is able to win the Super Bowl in his rookie season, which probably won't happen, then he could end up being the greatest quarterback in NFL history."
The Niners' new 68,500-seat stadium is due to open in time for the 2014 season ... 54 years after Candlestick Park opened. Super Bowl 48 will be played in New Jersey next February, with Super Bowl 49 slated for the Cardinals' stadium in Glendale, Ariz., in February 2015. So the 49ers would have two full seasons to work out the kinks before the big game.
The city of Miami would like to once again thank Jeff Loria for being such a cheapskate, douchebag asshole so that memories of him fucking over Marlins fans were still fresh in the voter's minds when they went to vote for the 1% hotel tax increase, which was intended to be used in helping make improvements to Dolphins Stadium. Jeff Loria is the gift that just keeps on taking and keeping everyone else's gifts (luxury tax) while pretending he gives a shit about baseball in the Miami area. I believe voters in some part remembered Loria using tax payer money to build the new Marlins park and then tearing the Marlin team apart again. Voters had to remember this and I can't help but believe it played even a small part in the measure passing.
The team worked hard to make theirs the greenest stadium in major pro sports. There will be 20,000 square feet of solar panels, a charging station for electric cars, loads of bicycle parking, and a living roof full of green plants.
Stupid hippies.
So there is going to be a lot of bicycle parking for the loads of 49ers fans that will be riding their bike to home games?
The Dolphins were so desperate to get this deal done that Ross said he'd pay for the special election for it, so the people of South Florida could decide for themselves. One source told me Ross was confident the vote would pass, even after so many in south Florida were outraged at the carpetbaggery of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. Now Ross has to hope the league will risk playing a historic Super Bowl in a pretty average stadium, without upgrades. I think it's likely the league goes to the Bay Area instead.
Plus, the Dolphins won't have a living roof full of green plants. That is very important to have when hosting a Super Bowl. Sure, San Francisco will have a better stadium and a charging station for electric cars, but who wouldn't want to go to a Super Bowl in Miami? Maybe the week before the Super Bowl can take place in Miami and then move the festivities to San Francisco for the actual Super Bowl?
Happy to announce this morning that my new football-centric microsite, which we'll kick off July 22, is adding a couple of strong column voices: Andrew Brandt and Richard Deitsch.
This site still has no name. Also, I need more material so I would encourage Peter to hire Jay Mariotti so I can immediately start writing about his columns and complaining Mariotti has a job writing about sports.
Two Brandt Factoids You Did Not Know: He went on double-dates in high school with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (she with a friend of his). And he repped Ricky Williams out of Texas -- before Williams left him for the rapper Master P. Really looking forward to Brandt's insights for us.
I didn't know Brandt repped Williams out of Texas. Maybe he can start repping some St. Louis Rams and Peter can write about what great players these Rams players are and there can be corporate synergy within the new football-centric microsite Peter is kicking off on July 22.
The Vikings drafted a punter, Jeff Locke, in the fifth round of the draft, the first punter or kicker drafted this year. Chris Kluwe, Minnesota's 31-year-old incumbent, met with Vikings GM Rick Spielman last week, and Spielman told me the team wanted to get through the weekend's rookie minicamp before making any decisions on the future of the punting position. But it seems pretty clear the team is giving strong consideration to going to training camp with only one punter -- Locke.
And of course the idea of Chris Kluwe losing his job makes everyone in the media sad because he says and writes what he means. He's so outspoken and the media loves that. They probably believe Kluwe deserves to keep his job simply because of how active he is in giving his opinion.
If the decision is made on performance, it's hard to see Kluwe not having a place as an NFL punter.
And this is the part where some people in the media will start to go to bat for Kluwe to find another job simply because they like him so much.
Four numbers why:
This is otherwise known as "four numbers presented without any context" why:
Kluwe has punted for eight years in the NFL, all of them with the Vikings. His 39.7-yard net average in 2012 was a career-best. His 45.0-yard gross average was the third-best in his career.
Kluwe's career-best average was only good for 17th in the NFL. At his career-best, he is an average punter in terms of net average. His third-best gross average was good for 22nd in the NFL. He's an average punter even at his best when determined by both of these metrics.
The numbers say Kluwe's just as good, or even a little better, punting outside. Over the last two seasons, his outdoor average punt -- 45.83 yards -- is better than his 45.30 yards-per-punt indoors. (That includes the playoff game at Green Bay last season.)
These numbers mean very little without context on how well other NFL punters performed indoors and outdoors.
With a scheduled $1.4 million salary this year, Kluwe is not among the top-12-paid punters in the NFL.
It's a good thing he isn't paid in the Top-12 because he isn't a Top-12 punter. The fact Kluwe isn't overpaid really doesn't speak to why he should have a job in the NFL.
Kluwe had a better net average than the famous Shane Lechler last year, and more punts inside the 20 than Mike Scifres two years ago.
One year Kluwe beat Lechler in one category and this is supposed to impress General Managers everywhere. Also, Kluwe was 31st in the NFL in terms of punts inside the 20 last year. 31st. Only Matt McBriar was worse. Again, one year of performing better than one other punter in one category isn't going to be impress General Managers (or shouldn't).
Not that Peter is shading statistics to make Kluwe look better of course. The only reason Peter would do that is if Marvin Demoff asked him to do it. Peter is just reciting cherry-picked statistics without the proper context.
Kluwe likely is toast in Minnesota. But he'll have a major gripe if he's not signed to be someone's punter this year, or at least to come in and compete equally for a job.
No, he actually won't have a major gripe. These are Kluwe's net punting and gross average rankings over the last six seasons:
2012: 17th, 22nd
2011: 22nd, 13th
2010: 10th, 21st
2009: 18th, 15th
2008: 21st, 4th
2007: 14th, 8th
Kluwe has been consistently average over the past four seasons and never been in the Top-10 in net punting average. He probably should get a look in a team's training camp, but I won't be shocked if he doesn't.
If he isn't punting somewhere in late July, there will be no question in my mind that NFL teams want their punters to be seen and not heard.
Or the question in Peter's mind could be whether teams want distractions in their locker room to the point they are willing to bring in a consistently average punter to compete for a job. Maybe Kevin Demoff and the Rams need a punter. Peter should recommend Chris Kluwe to Les Snead. After all, Jeff Fisher is great at taking guys with personality quirks and issues and making them productive.
Traveling back from Dallas to the East Coast Thursday night, my American Airlines flight had a slightly bumpy approach and landing. Nothing too unusual, except to the 12ish-year-old boy across the aisle in row 32. As I stood up to stretch, the boy, without warning from the window seat, projectile-vomited. He caught some of it, but a chunk of it, yogurty in feel, BB'ed into my right ear, with another couple of splashes on my shirt.
Good shot. This is kind of gross, but I like how Peter included "without warning" as if the boy would ordinarily warn everyone around him that he was about to throw up on all of them. Kids tend to throw up without warning.
A flight attendant, duly attentive, rushed up and asked the mom if she needed a bag -- no thanks, it seems to be over now -- and some towels. While they cleaned up, I went into the lavatory and washed my ear like I'd never washed it in my life, which was tough to do in an airplane lav.
I knock Peter's travel notes, but this is pretty disgusting. Clearly the boy did not like the smell of Peter's cologne or Peter was traveling with his shoes off.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think there aren't many years in which the 48th pick in the draft could be the most impactful in September, but with the sordid Steelers running back situation, Le'Veon Bell could hit the ground running for Pittsburgh and not stop. Wouldn't surprise me if he were this year's Alfred Morris, only about 400 fewer yards.
I don't like Le'Veon Bell at all. I'm not an NFL scout, so ignore my opinion if you think it is stupid (or don't ignore it and tell me I am dumb), but given the fact Bell is so tall, doesn't make people miss and he's not very speedy, it concerns me that his center of gravity is too high and he won't make the large impact at the NFL level Peter believes he will. Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster are the only two running backs over 6 feet tall that were Top 10 in the NFL in rushing last year (which is where 400 yards less than Morris would put Bell in terms of yards rushed during the 2012 season). In other words, I think Bell is too tall to be a bowling ball-type running back and he isn't elusive enough to make defenders miss. He could very well make an impact for the Steelers, but I don't expect too many 1000 yard seasons out of him.
3.I think I have three leftover thoughts about the Rams draft, from my night in the draft room:
You have done your job, Peter. Take a break. We all think the Rams did a fantastic job on draft night. No need to keep harping on it. The Demoff family still treasures you.
c. As I've done a couple of times when writing about the Rams, I want to be open about my relationships there.
I will give Peter this much. He is very open about who is agent is. The only reason I know his agent is Marvin Demoff is because Peter gives us this information. Other NFL reporters aren't quite as transparent as Peter is. I'm 50% kidding and 50% not kidding when I joke about Marvin Demoff telling Peter to write about the Rams in a positive way. I don't think admitting your potential biases is in any way admitting you don't still show these biases when writing.
Kevin Demoff is the son of my agent, Marvin Demoff. Jeff Fisher has Marvin Demoff for an agent. I understand some of you would think I am giving favorable treatment to them, and it is human nature to think that. I try my best to be impartial. Many of you think I am not.
It's not even about favorable or unfavorable treatment. It is about the perception of giving favorable or unfavorable treatment to them. Writing on a consistent basis about the Rams being a sleeping giant in the very difficult NFC West, fawning over Blake Williams during Rams training camp last year (when he was fired after one year for not being liked and over his head) and not criticizing Sam Bradford for not exactly meeting expectations yet as the #1 pick in the draft. The Rams gave up the chance to draft Robert Griffin for Sam Bradford. I don't expect Peter to eviscerate Bradford or anything like that, but as tough as Peter can be on some players, he isn't exactly taking the time to point out the opportunity cost of not drafting Griffin and sticking with Bradford.
I look at it this way: If my relationship with Kevin Demoff and Fisher helped me spend the first round inside the Rams' draft room -- and of course it didn't hurt -- then read the story and weigh whether it was worth it. I believe it was.
My bias based on the fact I think Peter has a bias made me believe the story was well-written, but also written to make the Rams look very good. After all, if Peter says something negative about the Rams then he may not be allowed in a team's draft war room again. So there is an inherent bias for continued access to the Rams war room and an inherent bias based on the NFL team whose war room Peter reported on.
But I digress -- there are times I'm going to have to write about people I am closer to than others.
(cough) Brett Favre.
7.I think the Tyson Clabo signing in a good one for Miami, but a Jonathan Martin-Clabo left-right tackle tandem won't make the Dolphins tackle situation secure. GM Jeff Ireland can't do everything in one offseason, but he'll have to enter the 2014 offseason, assuming he's still running the show, looking for tackle as a high priority.
Yes, but now the Dolphins have a pass-rusher. They may not be able to run the ball or protect their franchise quarterback sufficiently, but they will have a good pass-rush. I guess you can't fix everything in one offseason, but protecting your franchise quarterback seems like something I would prioritize fairly high on the offseason to-do list.
9.I think I'm not saying Scott Pioli has a future in the prognostication business or anything, but he did forecast on NFL Network that the Ravens would take Matt Elam and Arthur Brown 1-2 in the draft. And, of course ...
Ah yes, speaking of Peter reporting on people in the business who he is closer to than others. Scott Pioli chose Matt Elam and Arthur Brown as the Ravens top two choices. It so happens they were mocked there by several other experts and they fit two needs the Ravens had. He gets credit for making these choices, but these guys were linked to the Ravens for much of the two weeks prior to the draft. Maybe Peter will work hard to talk up Pioli in order to get him another General Manager job he can fail at.
10.I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. As I tweeted Saturday night, that was an awful showing by the Nets, and I know more about darts than I do basketball. Stop passing the ball and shoot, Deron Williams.
This is another case of Peter admitting he has no idea what he is talking about when discussing the NBA, yet he still wants us to take his opinion on the NBA seriously.
f. Not a big fan of amateur doctoring, but when Derrick Rose is cleared to play March 8 and here it is, 60 days later, and he says he's still not ready, what is that all about? I know an ACL is serious surgery, but unless there's been a setback, how is a guy not ready to do something after 51 weeks of rehab and training?
What's weird is that if Jay Cutler was in this same situation I have a feeling the Chicago and national media would absolutely roast him. I understand why Rose doesn't believe he is ready to come back, but I feel like the usual amateur doctoring isn't being used to criticize Rose's long rehab process even though from all outward appearances he is ready to go.
i. Hey, Lisa Swenson! Congrats on your 100th career hit for the Newark (N.J.) Academy softball team! You were fun to coach. Good luck in this great game, and in life.
Hey, Peter King. You could convey this message in a more personal fashion using Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, Linkedin, or through various other forms of technology. Why go with the more public and impersonal option?
k. Beernerdness: Had the Rahr and Sons Blonde Lager the other night while in Dallas. Very nice, lighter malty beer from Fort Worth. Could have had seven -- that's how drinkable it is. Stopped at three. Mature for once.
You are never supposed to stop on an odd number. Always drink an even number of beers, that's my rule. If you drink two, see if you can drink a third and then of course you have to drink a fourth.
The Adieu Haiku
Sanchez press briefing.
Why that thin green hair band, Mark?
Anyone ask that?
Yes, Peter they did.
Many people commented.
Everyone asked that.
Peter also thought the Jets should cut Mark Sanchez immediately last week, which probably isn't something required to happen right now. This week in MMQB Peter talks about which teams will control the 2014 draft, which is something he does every year and then it rarely seem to turn out like he thinks it will. For a couple years he said the Patriots would control the draft and then the Patriots ended up trading back and their control of the draft was forgotten. It's a lazy kind of writing where Peter sees which team has the most picks and then announces they control the next year's draft. Peter also has non-football related observations which we all were so eagerly not waiting for him to relate to us.
It struck me during the draft, while watching the Rams go hard after Tavon Austin and Alec Ogletree, that there are four kinds of draft strategists in football today:
This serves as your reminder that Peter wrote a column about how the Rams draft war room in the latest "Sports Illustrated." Marvin Demoff is very proud right now.
Those who mostly sit near or right where they are high in the draft (Pittsburgh, the Giants, Green Bay, Cincinnati, among many others) and let the draft come to them.
You mean sort of like how the Giants traded up to draft Eli Manning? The Giants certainly let the draft come to them that day.
(It was rightly pointed out in the comments I have misremembered. The Giants didn't trade up for the #1 pick, but that pick was made by the Chargers and then traded to the Giants. I am wrong about that. This does help reinforce the point I have made countless times when old-school baseball writers mention they recall how great Jack Morris was and that's why he should be in the Hall of Fame. They remember him being great, which is why you had to watch Jack Morris pitch to know he belongs in the Hall of Fame. The memory of humans can suck. Like how I used a semi-strawman to divert attention from my being wrong about Eli Manning onto a discussion on how my being wrong proves another point I have tried to make previously? Very sneaky.)
Those who enter the draft with an eye on specific players and use picks as capital to go buy the objects of their affection (Atlanta, St. Louis).
An amalgam of those two ways of drafting (Baltimore, Minnesota, Seattle). Drafts are snowflakes, and they decide what to do after they set their boards.
Board-users (New England, San Francisco) married to nothing other than maximizing picks as value, unafraid of either going after a player they love (Pats: Jerod Mayo; Niners: Eric Reid) or, in the Jimmy Johnson way, trading down often because future picks are currency to get players they want.
So there are NFL teams afraid of going after a player they love? If a team has the picks to go after a player they love and the trade up is right, then why wouldn't this team go after the player? In fact, the 49ers did exactly that this year in trading up to get Eric Reid, which puts them in the group of teams who have an eye on specific players and use picks as capital to go get these players. The fourth kind of team is sort of like the second kind of team. The only difference is that the fourth kind of team will also trade back, but the 49ers moved up this year to get Reid, so wouldn't that make them the second AND fourth kind of team? Or to put a team in two categories would reveal that Peter's list of the kind of draft strategies teams use is based on short-term observation and really isn't true over the long-term? When Peter writes "draft strategists in football today," he means "today" as in "this past year" and this list of four kinds of teams' draft strategies possibly won't be true for the 2014 NFL Draft.
Check out what the Vikings did in the first round. They let the draft fall to them, and they also attacked the bottom of the round when Cordarrelle Patterson fell to them.
It's almost like NFL teams adapt different strategies depending on the talent pool in each NFL Draft and there are no set "kind" of draft strategies which certain teams employ from year-to-year. It's almost like this is true, but because this would mean Peter's list isn't accurate over the long-term and that couldn't be true, could it?
"Every draft is different, but among the ones I've seen, I thought this one was unique. So little separation between five and 25, to us. So with the talent being so even, I think teams homed in on need instead of taking the best player available -- because the best player available, this year, was such a close call on player after player.
There are four kinds of draft strategies in this year's draft, but having knowledge of this doesn't help in next year's draft or the draft after that because the talent pool available is different, so teams may adopt a different strategy. So observing the types of strategy different teams used in the 2013 NFL Draft is interesting to read and understand, but may have zero applicability to the 2014 NFL Draft. There aren't certain kinds of teams who use one certain strategy, but there are teams who adopted certain strategies in this year's draft.
So Spielman wrecked the rest of his board, basically, to move up to draft the immensely talented Patterson. (Talented, yes, but some scouts question his maturity. He doesn't come without risk.)
No draft pick comes without risk, especially a draft pick who has been in trouble during his college career and even got arrested recently...but we know no team would EVER choose a player in the first round who was arrested in February.
"But as far as your theory on draft philosophy, I am right on the fence," he said.
Translation: No team adopts a certain strategy and will try to use a mix of the four strategies that Peter just listed. If a team does adopt one certain strategy and isn't the least bit malleable than that team isn't going to succeed in building a team through the draft.
You don't want to just give those picks away. You have to be careful there, and I like to be patient. But you also have to know when to go get a guy you really want and really need."
Again, it's almost like NFL teams use a combination of these strategies and will go after a player they want if they have enough picks, will trade back if there isn't a player they want, and then if the draft is falling their way will just stick to their board and have one of their favorite players hopefully fall to them. So we are right back with the knowledge we had before Peter started writing this week's MMQB.
It's easy to say a team had a good draft when the first three picks come in the first round. But they weren't 8-11-9. They were 23-25-29, and if the Vikings hit on two of them, they will have had a great day.
If they hit on none of them then they will have had a very bad day. If they hit on all three of them then they still have Christian Ponder as their starting quarterback.
It's too early to say who was right on this draft day, and there is no one correct draft philosophy.
But there are four draft philosophies, no more and no less.
But Green Bay, Pittsburgh and the Giants, all of whom have been less aggressive historically, have won five of the last eight Super Bowls. The right answer is having the right scheme on both sides of the ball, and picking players who fit them, and never panicking when you don't get the guy you want.
These three teams also have franchise quarterbacks which always helps a team win a Super Bowl. Of course if Peter thinks he is telling us anything new by saying NFL teams have to have the right scheme and must pick players who fit that scheme well then he must also believe most of his audience is really stupid. This is quite obvious.
It's early, I know, but the Rams and Niners could own the '14 draft.
They have the most picks, which gives them the most options. This doesn't mean they will own the 2014 NFL Draft.
The Rams still have the best-looking 2014 draft profile. St. Louis is the only team with an extra first-round pick, courtesy of the last of three first-rounders from the Robert Griffin III trade in 2012. Three straight years with two first-rounders (at least to start the draft) is a great way to rebuild a franchise, obviously.
Not in Gregg Easterbrook's opinion. He thinks the best way to rebuild a franchise is to sign as many undrafted free agents as possible and trade away those first round picks otherwise spent on highly-paid glory boys.
San Francisco has its own choices in the first three rounds, plus what could be three additional third-rounders. The rundown:
An extra three from Tennessee, from a deal this year in which the Titans traded from 40 to 34 in the second round.
A possible extra three as a compensatory pick for Dashon Goldson signing a rich deal with Tampa Bay, and the 49ers not signing a major free agent on Goldson's level. If not a third-, then almost certainly a fourth-round pick.
And a third- or second-rounder from Kansas City, the remnant of the Alex Smith deal. Now it can be told: The second draft choice San Francisco will receive from the Smith deal will be K.C.'s second-rounder in 2014 if the Chiefs go 8-8 or better this season. It will be a third-rounder in 2014 if Kansas City is under .500 this season.
So basically we have no idea how many second or third round draft picks the 49ers may have. There is a difference in a third or fourth round pick, so it isn't like if the 49ers are compensated at a fourth round pick then this is the same thing as being compensated a third round pick. I don't know why Peter is infatuated with the idea of a team controlling the draft, but he writes about this every year and it gets tiresome. Extra picks are obviously great, but I recall Peter talking for a couple of years how the Patriots would control the draft with their extra picks and it never quite turned out that way.
2. Knee, heal thyself. Darrelle Revis' first three starts as a Buc: vengeance game at Meadowlands, presumably against Mark Sanchez, then Drew Brees and Tom Brady. Hope the rehab is timely.
Oh sure, NOW Peter jumps on the "I hope the injury doesn't linger too long" wagon in regard to Revis. Welcome, Peter.
4. Turf monster. "I love the 'Turf,'' Tavon Austin told me with a smile last weekend. His first five NFL games, and nine of his first 11, will be on the fake stuff. I know everyone is waiting for him to get hurt, and I know they're bigger, faster, and stronger in the NFL, but remember Austin missed one practice and zero games due to injury in four years at West Virginia.
While this is a good point, let's also remember that some football players hate turf because they claim it is actually harder on their knees. I'm not saying Austin will get injured and I am sure he will be just fine, but playing on the turf isn't the same as playing on grass.
8. Welcome Matt.Matt Flynn, Oakland quarterback, gets lucky. His two opening starts, assuming he wins the Raider quarterback job, come against the 26th- and 30th-rated defenses in 2012, Indianapolis and Jacksonville.
He's also lucky he gets to play the Chiefs twice next year. That's a fortunate turn of events.
10. Taste of Honey. If Tyrann Mathieu wins the starting free safety job in Arizona (it's unlikely he'll unseat vet Yeremiah Bell), his reward would be to face two No. 1 overall passers to start -- Sam Bradford, Matthew Stafford -- and then Drew Brees in game three.
I like how Peter words this. "If Tyrann Mathieu wins the starting free safety job, which he won't do..."
If he isn't going to win the job, what's the point of speculating? It's like saying, "If Matt Barkley is able to win the Super Bowl in his rookie season, which probably won't happen, then he could end up being the greatest quarterback in NFL history."
The Niners' new 68,500-seat stadium is due to open in time for the 2014 season ... 54 years after Candlestick Park opened. Super Bowl 48 will be played in New Jersey next February, with Super Bowl 49 slated for the Cardinals' stadium in Glendale, Ariz., in February 2015. So the 49ers would have two full seasons to work out the kinks before the big game.
The city of Miami would like to once again thank Jeff Loria for being such a cheapskate, douchebag asshole so that memories of him fucking over Marlins fans were still fresh in the voter's minds when they went to vote for the 1% hotel tax increase, which was intended to be used in helping make improvements to Dolphins Stadium. Jeff Loria is the gift that just keeps on taking and keeping everyone else's gifts (luxury tax) while pretending he gives a shit about baseball in the Miami area. I believe voters in some part remembered Loria using tax payer money to build the new Marlins park and then tearing the Marlin team apart again. Voters had to remember this and I can't help but believe it played even a small part in the measure passing.
The team worked hard to make theirs the greenest stadium in major pro sports. There will be 20,000 square feet of solar panels, a charging station for electric cars, loads of bicycle parking, and a living roof full of green plants.
Stupid hippies.
So there is going to be a lot of bicycle parking for the loads of 49ers fans that will be riding their bike to home games?
The Dolphins were so desperate to get this deal done that Ross said he'd pay for the special election for it, so the people of South Florida could decide for themselves. One source told me Ross was confident the vote would pass, even after so many in south Florida were outraged at the carpetbaggery of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. Now Ross has to hope the league will risk playing a historic Super Bowl in a pretty average stadium, without upgrades. I think it's likely the league goes to the Bay Area instead.
Plus, the Dolphins won't have a living roof full of green plants. That is very important to have when hosting a Super Bowl. Sure, San Francisco will have a better stadium and a charging station for electric cars, but who wouldn't want to go to a Super Bowl in Miami? Maybe the week before the Super Bowl can take place in Miami and then move the festivities to San Francisco for the actual Super Bowl?
Happy to announce this morning that my new football-centric microsite, which we'll kick off July 22, is adding a couple of strong column voices: Andrew Brandt and Richard Deitsch.
This site still has no name. Also, I need more material so I would encourage Peter to hire Jay Mariotti so I can immediately start writing about his columns and complaining Mariotti has a job writing about sports.
Two Brandt Factoids You Did Not Know: He went on double-dates in high school with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss (she with a friend of his). And he repped Ricky Williams out of Texas -- before Williams left him for the rapper Master P. Really looking forward to Brandt's insights for us.
I didn't know Brandt repped Williams out of Texas. Maybe he can start repping some St. Louis Rams and Peter can write about what great players these Rams players are and there can be corporate synergy within the new football-centric microsite Peter is kicking off on July 22.
The Vikings drafted a punter, Jeff Locke, in the fifth round of the draft, the first punter or kicker drafted this year. Chris Kluwe, Minnesota's 31-year-old incumbent, met with Vikings GM Rick Spielman last week, and Spielman told me the team wanted to get through the weekend's rookie minicamp before making any decisions on the future of the punting position. But it seems pretty clear the team is giving strong consideration to going to training camp with only one punter -- Locke.
And of course the idea of Chris Kluwe losing his job makes everyone in the media sad because he says and writes what he means. He's so outspoken and the media loves that. They probably believe Kluwe deserves to keep his job simply because of how active he is in giving his opinion.
If the decision is made on performance, it's hard to see Kluwe not having a place as an NFL punter.
And this is the part where some people in the media will start to go to bat for Kluwe to find another job simply because they like him so much.
Four numbers why:
This is otherwise known as "four numbers presented without any context" why:
Kluwe has punted for eight years in the NFL, all of them with the Vikings. His 39.7-yard net average in 2012 was a career-best. His 45.0-yard gross average was the third-best in his career.
Kluwe's career-best average was only good for 17th in the NFL. At his career-best, he is an average punter in terms of net average. His third-best gross average was good for 22nd in the NFL. He's an average punter even at his best when determined by both of these metrics.
The numbers say Kluwe's just as good, or even a little better, punting outside. Over the last two seasons, his outdoor average punt -- 45.83 yards -- is better than his 45.30 yards-per-punt indoors. (That includes the playoff game at Green Bay last season.)
These numbers mean very little without context on how well other NFL punters performed indoors and outdoors.
With a scheduled $1.4 million salary this year, Kluwe is not among the top-12-paid punters in the NFL.
It's a good thing he isn't paid in the Top-12 because he isn't a Top-12 punter. The fact Kluwe isn't overpaid really doesn't speak to why he should have a job in the NFL.
Kluwe had a better net average than the famous Shane Lechler last year, and more punts inside the 20 than Mike Scifres two years ago.
One year Kluwe beat Lechler in one category and this is supposed to impress General Managers everywhere. Also, Kluwe was 31st in the NFL in terms of punts inside the 20 last year. 31st. Only Matt McBriar was worse. Again, one year of performing better than one other punter in one category isn't going to be impress General Managers (or shouldn't).
Not that Peter is shading statistics to make Kluwe look better of course. The only reason Peter would do that is if Marvin Demoff asked him to do it. Peter is just reciting cherry-picked statistics without the proper context.
Kluwe likely is toast in Minnesota. But he'll have a major gripe if he's not signed to be someone's punter this year, or at least to come in and compete equally for a job.
No, he actually won't have a major gripe. These are Kluwe's net punting and gross average rankings over the last six seasons:
2012: 17th, 22nd
2011: 22nd, 13th
2010: 10th, 21st
2009: 18th, 15th
2008: 21st, 4th
2007: 14th, 8th
Kluwe has been consistently average over the past four seasons and never been in the Top-10 in net punting average. He probably should get a look in a team's training camp, but I won't be shocked if he doesn't.
If he isn't punting somewhere in late July, there will be no question in my mind that NFL teams want their punters to be seen and not heard.
Or the question in Peter's mind could be whether teams want distractions in their locker room to the point they are willing to bring in a consistently average punter to compete for a job. Maybe Kevin Demoff and the Rams need a punter. Peter should recommend Chris Kluwe to Les Snead. After all, Jeff Fisher is great at taking guys with personality quirks and issues and making them productive.
Traveling back from Dallas to the East Coast Thursday night, my American Airlines flight had a slightly bumpy approach and landing. Nothing too unusual, except to the 12ish-year-old boy across the aisle in row 32. As I stood up to stretch, the boy, without warning from the window seat, projectile-vomited. He caught some of it, but a chunk of it, yogurty in feel, BB'ed into my right ear, with another couple of splashes on my shirt.
Good shot. This is kind of gross, but I like how Peter included "without warning" as if the boy would ordinarily warn everyone around him that he was about to throw up on all of them. Kids tend to throw up without warning.
A flight attendant, duly attentive, rushed up and asked the mom if she needed a bag -- no thanks, it seems to be over now -- and some towels. While they cleaned up, I went into the lavatory and washed my ear like I'd never washed it in my life, which was tough to do in an airplane lav.
I knock Peter's travel notes, but this is pretty disgusting. Clearly the boy did not like the smell of Peter's cologne or Peter was traveling with his shoes off.
Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think there aren't many years in which the 48th pick in the draft could be the most impactful in September, but with the sordid Steelers running back situation, Le'Veon Bell could hit the ground running for Pittsburgh and not stop. Wouldn't surprise me if he were this year's Alfred Morris, only about 400 fewer yards.
I don't like Le'Veon Bell at all. I'm not an NFL scout, so ignore my opinion if you think it is stupid (or don't ignore it and tell me I am dumb), but given the fact Bell is so tall, doesn't make people miss and he's not very speedy, it concerns me that his center of gravity is too high and he won't make the large impact at the NFL level Peter believes he will. Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster are the only two running backs over 6 feet tall that were Top 10 in the NFL in rushing last year (which is where 400 yards less than Morris would put Bell in terms of yards rushed during the 2012 season). In other words, I think Bell is too tall to be a bowling ball-type running back and he isn't elusive enough to make defenders miss. He could very well make an impact for the Steelers, but I don't expect too many 1000 yard seasons out of him.
3.I think I have three leftover thoughts about the Rams draft, from my night in the draft room:
You have done your job, Peter. Take a break. We all think the Rams did a fantastic job on draft night. No need to keep harping on it. The Demoff family still treasures you.
c. As I've done a couple of times when writing about the Rams, I want to be open about my relationships there.
I will give Peter this much. He is very open about who is agent is. The only reason I know his agent is Marvin Demoff is because Peter gives us this information. Other NFL reporters aren't quite as transparent as Peter is. I'm 50% kidding and 50% not kidding when I joke about Marvin Demoff telling Peter to write about the Rams in a positive way. I don't think admitting your potential biases is in any way admitting you don't still show these biases when writing.
Kevin Demoff is the son of my agent, Marvin Demoff. Jeff Fisher has Marvin Demoff for an agent. I understand some of you would think I am giving favorable treatment to them, and it is human nature to think that. I try my best to be impartial. Many of you think I am not.
It's not even about favorable or unfavorable treatment. It is about the perception of giving favorable or unfavorable treatment to them. Writing on a consistent basis about the Rams being a sleeping giant in the very difficult NFC West, fawning over Blake Williams during Rams training camp last year (when he was fired after one year for not being liked and over his head) and not criticizing Sam Bradford for not exactly meeting expectations yet as the #1 pick in the draft. The Rams gave up the chance to draft Robert Griffin for Sam Bradford. I don't expect Peter to eviscerate Bradford or anything like that, but as tough as Peter can be on some players, he isn't exactly taking the time to point out the opportunity cost of not drafting Griffin and sticking with Bradford.
I look at it this way: If my relationship with Kevin Demoff and Fisher helped me spend the first round inside the Rams' draft room -- and of course it didn't hurt -- then read the story and weigh whether it was worth it. I believe it was.
My bias based on the fact I think Peter has a bias made me believe the story was well-written, but also written to make the Rams look very good. After all, if Peter says something negative about the Rams then he may not be allowed in a team's draft war room again. So there is an inherent bias for continued access to the Rams war room and an inherent bias based on the NFL team whose war room Peter reported on.
But I digress -- there are times I'm going to have to write about people I am closer to than others.
(cough) Brett Favre.
7.I think the Tyson Clabo signing in a good one for Miami, but a Jonathan Martin-Clabo left-right tackle tandem won't make the Dolphins tackle situation secure. GM Jeff Ireland can't do everything in one offseason, but he'll have to enter the 2014 offseason, assuming he's still running the show, looking for tackle as a high priority.
Yes, but now the Dolphins have a pass-rusher. They may not be able to run the ball or protect their franchise quarterback sufficiently, but they will have a good pass-rush. I guess you can't fix everything in one offseason, but protecting your franchise quarterback seems like something I would prioritize fairly high on the offseason to-do list.
9.I think I'm not saying Scott Pioli has a future in the prognostication business or anything, but he did forecast on NFL Network that the Ravens would take Matt Elam and Arthur Brown 1-2 in the draft. And, of course ...
Ah yes, speaking of Peter reporting on people in the business who he is closer to than others. Scott Pioli chose Matt Elam and Arthur Brown as the Ravens top two choices. It so happens they were mocked there by several other experts and they fit two needs the Ravens had. He gets credit for making these choices, but these guys were linked to the Ravens for much of the two weeks prior to the draft. Maybe Peter will work hard to talk up Pioli in order to get him another General Manager job he can fail at.
10.I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
c. As I tweeted Saturday night, that was an awful showing by the Nets, and I know more about darts than I do basketball. Stop passing the ball and shoot, Deron Williams.
This is another case of Peter admitting he has no idea what he is talking about when discussing the NBA, yet he still wants us to take his opinion on the NBA seriously.
f. Not a big fan of amateur doctoring, but when Derrick Rose is cleared to play March 8 and here it is, 60 days later, and he says he's still not ready, what is that all about? I know an ACL is serious surgery, but unless there's been a setback, how is a guy not ready to do something after 51 weeks of rehab and training?
What's weird is that if Jay Cutler was in this same situation I have a feeling the Chicago and national media would absolutely roast him. I understand why Rose doesn't believe he is ready to come back, but I feel like the usual amateur doctoring isn't being used to criticize Rose's long rehab process even though from all outward appearances he is ready to go.
i. Hey, Lisa Swenson! Congrats on your 100th career hit for the Newark (N.J.) Academy softball team! You were fun to coach. Good luck in this great game, and in life.
Hey, Peter King. You could convey this message in a more personal fashion using Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, Linkedin, or through various other forms of technology. Why go with the more public and impersonal option?
k. Beernerdness: Had the Rahr and Sons Blonde Lager the other night while in Dallas. Very nice, lighter malty beer from Fort Worth. Could have had seven -- that's how drinkable it is. Stopped at three. Mature for once.
You are never supposed to stop on an odd number. Always drink an even number of beers, that's my rule. If you drink two, see if you can drink a third and then of course you have to drink a fourth.
The Adieu Haiku
Sanchez press briefing.
Why that thin green hair band, Mark?
Anyone ask that?
Yes, Peter they did.
Many people commented.
Everyone asked that.
Monday, September 3, 2012
11 comments TMQ Features Great Ideas from High School Football That May Not Translate to the NFL
Gregg Easterbrook wrote his AFC Preview-that-isn't-really-a-preview last week in TMQ and this week he previews the NFC, even though he doesn't really do much previewing. The good (bad) news is that while Gregg got rid of his creepy "Cheerleader of the Week" feature and the incredibly craptastic "Christmas Creep" feature, he has added a "Friends Don't Let Friends Punt" feature where he will selectively choose one team each week who shouldn't have punted in a certain situation while ignoring the teams who did go for it on fourth down and don't succeed in picking up the first down. Gregg has also become bored with criticizing science-fiction shows for their lack of realism and has now started picking on police procedurals for their lack of realism. At some point Gregg needs to be informed that 100% of all television shows are fake in some way, whether it is through the editing of a reality show or the overall lack of realism in a drama/comedy television show.
In 2005, your columnist chatted at a cocktail party with Don Shula, asking him if there was any fundamental football innovation yet to be tried. "Someday," Shula said with a twinkle in his eye, "there will be a coach who doesn't punt."
Shula had a twinkle in his eye? Who is he, Santa Claus?
Turns out 2005 was the very year the idea was tried. Kevin Kelley, head coach of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark., stopped sending in the punt unit, and his charges reached the state quarterfinals. The next year Pulaski didn't punt once, and reached the state championship.
While this is an interesting tactic to not punt, Gregg fails to mention the Pulaski Academy had a pretty good football program prior to deciding he was no longer going to punt. Pulaski Academy won the 3A Arkansas state title in 2003. So while Gregg wants it to appear Kelley and Pulaski stopped punting and this helped lead the team to more success than the team had experienced prior, the football program was already successful prior to Kelley refusing to punt. Pulaski Academy was already a good football program prior to the change of heart when it comes to punting. Gregg conveniently leaves this out in order for his readers to gain a less clear picture of where the program was in terms of competitiveness prior to 2005.
Kelley holds other unorthodox views of kicking downs. He almost always has Pulaski onside kick, reasoning that the roughly one-in-three chance of recovering (thus creating a turnover) is worth the two-in-three chance of surrendering field position.
While I won't deny this statistic probably being true for high school football, as of 2009 the odds of recovering an onside kick was 26% in the NFL and much of this number being so high was attributed to whether the kick was a surprise or not. I'm not denying this strategy in high school football, but in the NFL I would doubt the onside kick would work 33% of the time, especially when the opposing team learns to expect an onside kick. In the NFL much of the success of an onside kick is because of the surprise aspect of it.
"In high school the average opponent start after a regular kickoff is the 33-yard line. After a failed onside it is the 47," he says. "So you are risking 14 yards of field position in return for a good chance of a turnover. If there was a blitz action that would risk a 14-yard gain by the offense versus a turnover for your defense, you'd call it constantly. That is the equation for an onside, yet the play is hardly ever called."
I don't know where these numbers come from, but this rationale does seem to make a bit of sense in high school football. In the NFL, the average kickoff position in 2011 was the 22.1 yard line. I am using tenths of a yard, which would drive Gregg Easterbrook crazy because I am being hyper-specific.
In the NFL, a kickoff happens at the 35 yard line and an onside kick would have to go at least ten yards for the kicking team to recover it, so I would guess most failed onside kicks end up at the 47 yard line (just to keep it consistent with the high school yardage line). So instead of 14 yards of field position, an NFL team would be giving up 25 yards of field position (from the average starting yardage marker) in a league where fewer onside kicks are successful. I would be interested to see how this strategy works through an entire season in the NFL or college, but Gregg can't blatantly ignore the differences in the NFL and high school game when discussing this topic. I'm not sure how these tactics would translate to the NFL.
When the other team punts, Pulaski rarely has a returner on the field. Kelley reasons that a muffed or fumbled punt is about as likely as a long return, and so is content simply to let the punt roll, in order to ensure his side takes possession.
Again, in the NFL where there are professional punters who can kick a ball 40- 50 yards in the air at times, I'm not sure how this strategy would work. I would be interested to see it, but I don't know how applicable to the NFL this strategy seems to be. A punter in the NFL can kick the ball 40-50 yards in the air and that doesn't include if the kicking team got a good bounce. A football team who has the opposing team punting out of their end zone could give up 20+ yards in field position by not sending a returner on the field.
Kelley rarely sends a rush after a punter, reasoning that a roughing-the-kicker penalty is more likely than a block.
If a coach doesn't send a rush after the punter, then what will the Jets do with Ex-Backup QB Punt Protector Jets? Coaches can't just stop sending a rush after a punter. Think about Ex-Backup QB Punt Protector Jets, what he is going to do, play quarterback if this happens?
"Everyone says football is a game of field position, but it's not," Kelley maintains. "It's a game of scoring points, which only happens when you possess the ball.
Yes, but good field position means a team has less territory on the field to cover when trying to score points. I think in the NFL football is a game of field position many times. I'm not saying this is a reason to be conservative or not go for it on fourth down, but in the NFL field position can be very important since it reduces or increases the yardage an offense has to gain in order to score points.
Kelley's logic about onside kickoffs and not returning punts may apply more to high school than the college and pro levels of the sport, where muffs are less frequent and touchbacks more common.
"May apply?" No shit. I guess the big question this raises for me is why Gregg is bringing this topic up if it may not relate to the NFL? So for high school football, these are principles I can get behind, but in the NFL I am not sure it is applicable. NFL punters are too talented, kick returners in the NFL don't muff the ball as much as high school kids do, and because there is a more even level of talent on each team in the NFL as compared to high school field position is pretty important. Kelley is all about scoring points, but it is easier to score points if you have good field position.
But his argument for going for it on most fourth downs seems sound across all levels of football.
Advanced NFL Stats did a study that said coaches should go for it in situations like this. Call me risk adverse, but the position on the field would influence whether I went for it or not. If I am at the 50 yard line, I would probably go for it on fourth down (but use a lot of motion and never call a running play that goes straight ahead since Gregg Easterbrook has told us that's the key to converting fourth down), but I wouldn't go for it on fourth down if I am on my own 25 yard line.
The Accuscore computer simulated thousands of NFL games for TMQ using NFL stats, and found that at the pro level, rarely punting made victory 5 percent more likely. In a 16-game NFL season, that means one additional victory per year.
I'm not entirely sure the math on this makes sense. I don't know if a 5% greater chance of victory in 16 individual games really does add up to one additional victory per year.
Consider that the Giants-versus-Bills Super Bowl in 1991 came down to a 47-yard field goal attempt on grass as the clock expired. When the kicker missed, he was blamed for the loss, though 47 yards on grass is 50/50 for the best place-kickers.
The Bills should have gone for it on fourth down and that way the clock would have run out and the Giants definitely would have won the game?
Earlier in the game, Buffalo punted on fourth-and-1 from midfield and on fourth-and-2 from the Giants' 44. The Bills were the league's highest-scoring team that year, averaging 6.3 yards per offensive snap. Had Buffalo gone for it on those fourth-and-short situations, victory was likely.
Victory was likely, huh? Other than having to convert this fourth down, the Bills would have had to get another first down in order to be in field goal range and Scott Norwood would have had to make the kick. Again, this is all likely to happen.
I think "possible" is the word Gregg should be using here. It very well could have happened, but the Giants played pretty good defense in that Super Bowl, so I wouldn't call it "likely" to happen.
This season, Tuesday Morning Quarterback will track Pulaski's progress with weekly items on every fourth down that the Bruins face, what Kelley calls, and what the play and game results are. Pulaski opens its season Friday night, so the first weekly item about the program -- Friends Don't Let Friends Punt -- will run next Tuesday.
I am sure this strategy will work perfectly fine in high school. The idea of no-punting should not be revolutionary when you have a good team like Kelley has at Pulaski Academy. Whether this strategy can work at the high school level is not in doubt, but this won't prove anything until it is seen to work at the college and NFL-level. So Gregg constantly beating his readers over the head with how successful this no-punt strategy at the high school level can be is pointless. We know it can work in high school.
Though TMQ believes football coaches should go for it more often on fourth down, that does not, of course, mean the tactic will work.
So per the usual TMQ policy, if going for it on fourth down will work, then go ahead and do it, but if going for it on fourth down won't work, then don't do it. Whatever the result of the play was, that determines whether a coach should have gone for it or not.
Despite the show put on by their prize rookie, the Panthers finished 6-10 and a weak 1-6 versus teams that made the playoffs. Defense was the main reason: poor overall, and an NFC-worst 143 points allowed in the fourth quarter. New head coach Ron Rivera is a former defensive coordinator, so presumably will have something to say about the tackling.
Perhaps Rivera will also find a way to make sure four linebackers, including two starters, don't go on Injured Reserve this year.
Perhaps he also will break Carolina of its recent habit of cannibalizing future drafts. In the past three years, the Panthers have traded future first-, second- and third-round choices for second-, third- and fourth-round selections right away. The net of those transactions was to swap a first-round draft choice for a fourth-round draft choice.
This a division problem where a second-round pick cancels another second-round pick, so the net isn't a fourth round pick for a 1st round pick. To move up one round in the draft the starting price is usually a pick one round earlier in the next year's draft. The Panthers traded the first round pick for the next year to make a pick in the second round during the current year, traded a second round pick for the next year to take a pick in the third round during the current year, and traded a third round pick for the next year to take a pick in the fourth round during the current year. While Gregg has in the past criticized the Patriots for stockpiling picks, he is now criticizing teams for not stockpiling picks. Apparently the only way to please Gregg Easterbrook is to never make a trade during the NFL Draft.
But many touchdown catches are short plays that begin near the opponent's goal line,
Really? Like how short of a play are these touchdown catches? This statement somewhat confuses me.
Green Bay: The Packers were a league-best 15-1 in 2011, then honked their home playoff opener. A heartbreaking death in the family was one reason.
I know Gregg is talking about Joe Philbin, but he never makes this clear and never explains it. In fact, Gregg's next sentence is this one:
On the field, the Packers had been masking a weak defense -- Green Bay dropped from fifth in defense in 2010 to last in 2011.
Give your readers some context when saying things like this. Not everyone may not know what you are talking about.
Green Bay: The Packers were a league-best 15-1 in 2011, then lost their playoff opener at home. Who knew alien invasions had such bad timing?
Last season the Vikings were 1-2 when rushing for at least 200 yards, which may mean the run is overrated in the contemporary pass-wacky NFL.
Or it may mean this is a sample size taken from the win-loss record over three games played by one NFL team during one NFL season. Is this reliable data? Possibly not.
The Vikes' 3-13 record definitely shows that sacks are overrated. Minnesota was first in the NFL for sacks with 50, and had the league's top sack artist, Jared Allen, with 22. The Vikings also were outscored by 109 points, finished 26th against the pass, and were eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving.
Or it may mean the Vikings secondary was terrible. There are players who have a job to do other than the defensive linemen when it comes to a team playing defense.
Here are "procedurals" lowlights from the offseason:
(bangs head on desk repeatedly)
On "NCIS: Los Angeles," a mad scientist is said to be about to release enough weaponized smallpox to kill a third of the world's population. Yet the entire United States government has only nine people working on the problem, mostly from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. No FBI, no LAPD, no California State Police, no CDC personnel.
It's almost like this is a television show and not based entirely on reality.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service can declare martial law? Sure, it's just a preposterous show. But last year it was the No. 2-rated drama on American television.
Americans are idiots. We already know that. "Two and a Half Men" is still on the air and few people have figured out "Glee" is one of the most racist shows full of ignorant stereotypes on network television.
Crime shows drastically overstate both the incidence of murder and the frequency of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. This summer in one of the final episodes of "The Closer," a priest is murdered. The chief detective wants to charge into the famed Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to seek evidence. The LAPD police chief tells her, "This place must be treated with respect; there were five memorial services here last year alone for our officers killed in the line of duty." No LAPD officer died in the line of duty in 2011.
Obviously Gregg should email the creator of "The Closer" so they can re-shoot this entire episode, which was obviously supposed to accurately reflect real life much like other network television shows accurately reflect real life.
Always on the cutting edge of cheesecake technology, the Eagles cheerleaders -- first pro sports dance squad to advance from swimsuit calendars to lingerie calendars -- this year offer "eco-friendly" bikinis with a theme of reducing water consumption in energy production.
Beside this comment is included a picture of an Eagles cheerleader holding her bikini. I guess Gregg isn't doing the "Cheerleader of the Week" feature, but he is fully dedicated to maintaining his "creepy old man" attitude towards NFL cheerleaders.
The Rams have been active this summer in granting lucrative contract extensions to players. The gang that just went 2-14, we want to make sure we keep them together!
Right, because having their starting quarterback injured for most of last year didn't negatively affect the Rams team at all. Why does Gregg find it entirely unfathomable for a 2-14 team to have players worth re-signing?
This year's wide receiver corps includes the me-first Randy Moss, the me-first Michael Crabtree, me-first top draft choice A.J. Jenkins and Mario Manningham, who left the Giants because he wasn't getting the ball enough.
Where is the proof that A.J. Jenkins is a me-first player? There is none that I can find. Here goes Gregg just throwing out criticism that has no basis, much like he did last year when he called Julio Jones a "diva."
Manningham left the Giants because he got paid more to play for the 49ers. If CNNSI.com offered Gregg more money than ESPN offers when his contract with ESPN runs out, does that make Gregg selfish or does that mean he is maximizing his value on the open market?
What could possibly go wrong? In all, the Niners will field five receivers who were first-round draft selections.
You mean highly-paid glory boys. Those guys suck because they are only in it for the money and the glory and don't work as hard as undrafted free agents. Amirightorwhat?
Isn't this everything offensive about institutional Washington in a nutshell? Preventing the opposition from recording a victory often is more important than improving the country. The Democrats did it to George W. Bush over clean air; the Republicans are now trying to return the favor to Barack Obama on several fronts.
It's all about winning and if your opponent has a good idea then you have to be against that idea or else the public might see your opponent has having a good idea. Progress always comes after partisanship.
Last season Tampa was last in the NFL in sacks despite using its first and second draft choices in both 2010 and 2011 on defensive linemen.
Sacks don't matter though, do they? After all, sacks are overrated says Gregg Easterbrook from earlier in this column...
The Vikes' 3-13 record definitely shows that sacks are overrated. Minnesota was first in the NFL for sacks with 50,
Typical Easterbrook. Sacks are overrated until they aren't overrated anymore. His position depends solely on the point he is trying to prove.
In just two years at Washington, Shanahan has spent a net of three No. 1 draft choices, a second-round and a third-round pick on the quarterback position.
I mean, yeah, that is sort of true. The Redskins haven't actually drafted a quarterback with three first round picks, one second round pick and one third round pick, so simply saying they spent a net of those draft picks on the quarterback position is factually correct, but a bit misleading since most of those picks came from the Robert Griffin III trade.
Next Week: Still America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions.
Haikus, Gregg Easterbrook...who says "no" to this?
In 2005, your columnist chatted at a cocktail party with Don Shula, asking him if there was any fundamental football innovation yet to be tried. "Someday," Shula said with a twinkle in his eye, "there will be a coach who doesn't punt."
Shula had a twinkle in his eye? Who is he, Santa Claus?
Turns out 2005 was the very year the idea was tried. Kevin Kelley, head coach of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark., stopped sending in the punt unit, and his charges reached the state quarterfinals. The next year Pulaski didn't punt once, and reached the state championship.
While this is an interesting tactic to not punt, Gregg fails to mention the Pulaski Academy had a pretty good football program prior to deciding he was no longer going to punt. Pulaski Academy won the 3A Arkansas state title in 2003. So while Gregg wants it to appear Kelley and Pulaski stopped punting and this helped lead the team to more success than the team had experienced prior, the football program was already successful prior to Kelley refusing to punt. Pulaski Academy was already a good football program prior to the change of heart when it comes to punting. Gregg conveniently leaves this out in order for his readers to gain a less clear picture of where the program was in terms of competitiveness prior to 2005.
Kelley holds other unorthodox views of kicking downs. He almost always has Pulaski onside kick, reasoning that the roughly one-in-three chance of recovering (thus creating a turnover) is worth the two-in-three chance of surrendering field position.
While I won't deny this statistic probably being true for high school football, as of 2009 the odds of recovering an onside kick was 26% in the NFL and much of this number being so high was attributed to whether the kick was a surprise or not. I'm not denying this strategy in high school football, but in the NFL I would doubt the onside kick would work 33% of the time, especially when the opposing team learns to expect an onside kick. In the NFL much of the success of an onside kick is because of the surprise aspect of it.
"In high school the average opponent start after a regular kickoff is the 33-yard line. After a failed onside it is the 47," he says. "So you are risking 14 yards of field position in return for a good chance of a turnover. If there was a blitz action that would risk a 14-yard gain by the offense versus a turnover for your defense, you'd call it constantly. That is the equation for an onside, yet the play is hardly ever called."
I don't know where these numbers come from, but this rationale does seem to make a bit of sense in high school football. In the NFL, the average kickoff position in 2011 was the 22.1 yard line. I am using tenths of a yard, which would drive Gregg Easterbrook crazy because I am being hyper-specific.
In the NFL, a kickoff happens at the 35 yard line and an onside kick would have to go at least ten yards for the kicking team to recover it, so I would guess most failed onside kicks end up at the 47 yard line (just to keep it consistent with the high school yardage line). So instead of 14 yards of field position, an NFL team would be giving up 25 yards of field position (from the average starting yardage marker) in a league where fewer onside kicks are successful. I would be interested to see how this strategy works through an entire season in the NFL or college, but Gregg can't blatantly ignore the differences in the NFL and high school game when discussing this topic. I'm not sure how these tactics would translate to the NFL.
When the other team punts, Pulaski rarely has a returner on the field. Kelley reasons that a muffed or fumbled punt is about as likely as a long return, and so is content simply to let the punt roll, in order to ensure his side takes possession.
Again, in the NFL where there are professional punters who can kick a ball 40- 50 yards in the air at times, I'm not sure how this strategy would work. I would be interested to see it, but I don't know how applicable to the NFL this strategy seems to be. A punter in the NFL can kick the ball 40-50 yards in the air and that doesn't include if the kicking team got a good bounce. A football team who has the opposing team punting out of their end zone could give up 20+ yards in field position by not sending a returner on the field.
Kelley rarely sends a rush after a punter, reasoning that a roughing-the-kicker penalty is more likely than a block.
If a coach doesn't send a rush after the punter, then what will the Jets do with Ex-Backup QB Punt Protector Jets? Coaches can't just stop sending a rush after a punter. Think about Ex-Backup QB Punt Protector Jets, what he is going to do, play quarterback if this happens?
"Everyone says football is a game of field position, but it's not," Kelley maintains. "It's a game of scoring points, which only happens when you possess the ball.
Yes, but good field position means a team has less territory on the field to cover when trying to score points. I think in the NFL football is a game of field position many times. I'm not saying this is a reason to be conservative or not go for it on fourth down, but in the NFL field position can be very important since it reduces or increases the yardage an offense has to gain in order to score points.
Kelley's logic about onside kickoffs and not returning punts may apply more to high school than the college and pro levels of the sport, where muffs are less frequent and touchbacks more common.
"May apply?" No shit. I guess the big question this raises for me is why Gregg is bringing this topic up if it may not relate to the NFL? So for high school football, these are principles I can get behind, but in the NFL I am not sure it is applicable. NFL punters are too talented, kick returners in the NFL don't muff the ball as much as high school kids do, and because there is a more even level of talent on each team in the NFL as compared to high school field position is pretty important. Kelley is all about scoring points, but it is easier to score points if you have good field position.
But his argument for going for it on most fourth downs seems sound across all levels of football.
Last year the typical NFL offensive play gained 5.4 yards. If it's fourth-and-3 or less, going for the first is likely to result in keeping possession.
Advanced NFL Stats did a study that said coaches should go for it in situations like this. Call me risk adverse, but the position on the field would influence whether I went for it or not. If I am at the 50 yard line, I would probably go for it on fourth down (but use a lot of motion and never call a running play that goes straight ahead since Gregg Easterbrook has told us that's the key to converting fourth down), but I wouldn't go for it on fourth down if I am on my own 25 yard line.
The Accuscore computer simulated thousands of NFL games for TMQ using NFL stats, and found that at the pro level, rarely punting made victory 5 percent more likely. In a 16-game NFL season, that means one additional victory per year.
I'm not entirely sure the math on this makes sense. I don't know if a 5% greater chance of victory in 16 individual games really does add up to one additional victory per year.
Consider that the Giants-versus-Bills Super Bowl in 1991 came down to a 47-yard field goal attempt on grass as the clock expired. When the kicker missed, he was blamed for the loss, though 47 yards on grass is 50/50 for the best place-kickers.
The Bills should have gone for it on fourth down and that way the clock would have run out and the Giants definitely would have won the game?
Earlier in the game, Buffalo punted on fourth-and-1 from midfield and on fourth-and-2 from the Giants' 44. The Bills were the league's highest-scoring team that year, averaging 6.3 yards per offensive snap. Had Buffalo gone for it on those fourth-and-short situations, victory was likely.
Victory was likely, huh? Other than having to convert this fourth down, the Bills would have had to get another first down in order to be in field goal range and Scott Norwood would have had to make the kick. Again, this is all likely to happen.
I think "possible" is the word Gregg should be using here. It very well could have happened, but the Giants played pretty good defense in that Super Bowl, so I wouldn't call it "likely" to happen.
This season, Tuesday Morning Quarterback will track Pulaski's progress with weekly items on every fourth down that the Bruins face, what Kelley calls, and what the play and game results are. Pulaski opens its season Friday night, so the first weekly item about the program -- Friends Don't Let Friends Punt -- will run next Tuesday.
I am sure this strategy will work perfectly fine in high school. The idea of no-punting should not be revolutionary when you have a good team like Kelley has at Pulaski Academy. Whether this strategy can work at the high school level is not in doubt, but this won't prove anything until it is seen to work at the college and NFL-level. So Gregg constantly beating his readers over the head with how successful this no-punt strategy at the high school level can be is pointless. We know it can work in high school.
Though TMQ believes football coaches should go for it more often on fourth down, that does not, of course, mean the tactic will work.
So per the usual TMQ policy, if going for it on fourth down will work, then go ahead and do it, but if going for it on fourth down won't work, then don't do it. Whatever the result of the play was, that determines whether a coach should have gone for it or not.
Despite the show put on by their prize rookie, the Panthers finished 6-10 and a weak 1-6 versus teams that made the playoffs. Defense was the main reason: poor overall, and an NFC-worst 143 points allowed in the fourth quarter. New head coach Ron Rivera is a former defensive coordinator, so presumably will have something to say about the tackling.
Perhaps Rivera will also find a way to make sure four linebackers, including two starters, don't go on Injured Reserve this year.
Perhaps he also will break Carolina of its recent habit of cannibalizing future drafts. In the past three years, the Panthers have traded future first-, second- and third-round choices for second-, third- and fourth-round selections right away. The net of those transactions was to swap a first-round draft choice for a fourth-round draft choice.
This a division problem where a second-round pick cancels another second-round pick, so the net isn't a fourth round pick for a 1st round pick. To move up one round in the draft the starting price is usually a pick one round earlier in the next year's draft. The Panthers traded the first round pick for the next year to make a pick in the second round during the current year, traded a second round pick for the next year to take a pick in the third round during the current year, and traded a third round pick for the next year to take a pick in the fourth round during the current year. While Gregg has in the past criticized the Patriots for stockpiling picks, he is now criticizing teams for not stockpiling picks. Apparently the only way to please Gregg Easterbrook is to never make a trade during the NFL Draft.
But many touchdown catches are short plays that begin near the opponent's goal line,
Really? Like how short of a play are these touchdown catches? This statement somewhat confuses me.
Green Bay: The Packers were a league-best 15-1 in 2011, then honked their home playoff opener. A heartbreaking death in the family was one reason.
I know Gregg is talking about Joe Philbin, but he never makes this clear and never explains it. In fact, Gregg's next sentence is this one:
On the field, the Packers had been masking a weak defense -- Green Bay dropped from fifth in defense in 2010 to last in 2011.
Give your readers some context when saying things like this. Not everyone may not know what you are talking about.
Green Bay: The Packers were a league-best 15-1 in 2011, then lost their playoff opener at home. Who knew alien invasions had such bad timing?
Last season the Vikings were 1-2 when rushing for at least 200 yards, which may mean the run is overrated in the contemporary pass-wacky NFL.
Or it may mean this is a sample size taken from the win-loss record over three games played by one NFL team during one NFL season. Is this reliable data? Possibly not.
The Vikes' 3-13 record definitely shows that sacks are overrated. Minnesota was first in the NFL for sacks with 50, and had the league's top sack artist, Jared Allen, with 22. The Vikings also were outscored by 109 points, finished 26th against the pass, and were eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving.
Or it may mean the Vikings secondary was terrible. There are players who have a job to do other than the defensive linemen when it comes to a team playing defense.
Here are "procedurals" lowlights from the offseason:
(bangs head on desk repeatedly)
On "NCIS: Los Angeles," a mad scientist is said to be about to release enough weaponized smallpox to kill a third of the world's population. Yet the entire United States government has only nine people working on the problem, mostly from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. No FBI, no LAPD, no California State Police, no CDC personnel.
It's almost like this is a television show and not based entirely on reality.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service can declare martial law? Sure, it's just a preposterous show. But last year it was the No. 2-rated drama on American television.
Americans are idiots. We already know that. "Two and a Half Men" is still on the air and few people have figured out "Glee" is one of the most racist shows full of ignorant stereotypes on network television.
Crime shows drastically overstate both the incidence of murder and the frequency of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. This summer in one of the final episodes of "The Closer," a priest is murdered. The chief detective wants to charge into the famed Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to seek evidence. The LAPD police chief tells her, "This place must be treated with respect; there were five memorial services here last year alone for our officers killed in the line of duty." No LAPD officer died in the line of duty in 2011.
Obviously Gregg should email the creator of "The Closer" so they can re-shoot this entire episode, which was obviously supposed to accurately reflect real life much like other network television shows accurately reflect real life.
Always on the cutting edge of cheesecake technology, the Eagles cheerleaders -- first pro sports dance squad to advance from swimsuit calendars to lingerie calendars -- this year offer "eco-friendly" bikinis with a theme of reducing water consumption in energy production.
Beside this comment is included a picture of an Eagles cheerleader holding her bikini. I guess Gregg isn't doing the "Cheerleader of the Week" feature, but he is fully dedicated to maintaining his "creepy old man" attitude towards NFL cheerleaders.
The Rams have been active this summer in granting lucrative contract extensions to players. The gang that just went 2-14, we want to make sure we keep them together!
Right, because having their starting quarterback injured for most of last year didn't negatively affect the Rams team at all. Why does Gregg find it entirely unfathomable for a 2-14 team to have players worth re-signing?
This year's wide receiver corps includes the me-first Randy Moss, the me-first Michael Crabtree, me-first top draft choice A.J. Jenkins and Mario Manningham, who left the Giants because he wasn't getting the ball enough.
Where is the proof that A.J. Jenkins is a me-first player? There is none that I can find. Here goes Gregg just throwing out criticism that has no basis, much like he did last year when he called Julio Jones a "diva."
Manningham left the Giants because he got paid more to play for the 49ers. If CNNSI.com offered Gregg more money than ESPN offers when his contract with ESPN runs out, does that make Gregg selfish or does that mean he is maximizing his value on the open market?
What could possibly go wrong? In all, the Niners will field five receivers who were first-round draft selections.
You mean highly-paid glory boys. Those guys suck because they are only in it for the money and the glory and don't work as hard as undrafted free agents. Amirightorwhat?
Isn't this everything offensive about institutional Washington in a nutshell? Preventing the opposition from recording a victory often is more important than improving the country. The Democrats did it to George W. Bush over clean air; the Republicans are now trying to return the favor to Barack Obama on several fronts.
It's all about winning and if your opponent has a good idea then you have to be against that idea or else the public might see your opponent has having a good idea. Progress always comes after partisanship.
Last season Tampa was last in the NFL in sacks despite using its first and second draft choices in both 2010 and 2011 on defensive linemen.
Sacks don't matter though, do they? After all, sacks are overrated says Gregg Easterbrook from earlier in this column...
The Vikes' 3-13 record definitely shows that sacks are overrated. Minnesota was first in the NFL for sacks with 50,
Typical Easterbrook. Sacks are overrated until they aren't overrated anymore. His position depends solely on the point he is trying to prove.
In just two years at Washington, Shanahan has spent a net of three No. 1 draft choices, a second-round and a third-round pick on the quarterback position.
I mean, yeah, that is sort of true. The Redskins haven't actually drafted a quarterback with three first round picks, one second round pick and one third round pick, so simply saying they spent a net of those draft picks on the quarterback position is factually correct, but a bit misleading since most of those picks came from the Robert Griffin III trade.
Next Week: Still America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions.
Haikus, Gregg Easterbrook...who says "no" to this?
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
8 comments MMQB Review: Eli Manning Can't Perform Miracles Edition
Last week in MMQB, Peter told us a little bit about this Tim Tebow fella. Two weeks ago, Peter said it didn't matter how the Broncos, led by this Tebow fella, kept winning games because it didn't matter since it was happening. It is still happening. Like I said last week, I fully expect teh Broncos to never lose another game and win the Super Bowl for the rest of Tebow's career. This week Peter passes up his typical Patriots stat of the week for a Tebow-related stat of the week, because apparently no one is tired of talking about the Broncos, a team that combines the most amount of skill and good fortune to win games that I probably have ever seen. It is remarkable really. The Broncos are playing well while staying in games, and then the other team does something stupid or something fortunate happens and the Broncos win the game.
The real world intercedes on the fun and games this morning:
What fun and games does Peter believe his readers are having on Monday? does Peter think the rest of the world does on Monday morning, other than work or go to school?
That's about all I know, other than this: Smith's 52, has always seemed healthy to me,
Peter King, Visual M.D.
(Tony Dungy) "I have been feeling tired lately. I wonder if it is because I haven't gotten much sleep?"
(Peter King stares at Tony Dungy intently) "I am showing your red blood cell count is low and you probably should go visit your doctor because I am seeing your lethargy is caused by something medically related. You don't seem healthy to me."
(Tony Dungy one week later talking to Peter) "There was nothing wrong with me when I went to the doctor. I guess I was just tired."
(Peter King stares at Tony Dungry intently) "I am showing you indeed are tired, but there is another cause. You just don't seem healthy to me (Peter drinks three beers, eats two sandwiches and an entire bag of Doritos)."
But he's one of those occasionally volcanic coaches; once or twice a game you say, "Settle down, now." It's a stressful job. A fun job, but stressful, and full of the kind of pressure that most jobs don't have.
Coaching in the NFL has stresses most jobs don't have. Being a head coach doesn't have stresses like "how I'm going to pay my mortgage this month," and "If I get fired, will my family be able to survive financially until I get another job."
I'm being dramatic in a way, but every job has certain stresses most other jobs don't have. So while being an NFL head coach is tough, it does have its advantages as well.
I'm sure Smith won't mind if we get on with the news of the day. A playoff coach having a significant health scare. That's news ... but it pales in comparison to the force of nature of all Tebow, all the time.
Sarcasm? Probably. I would much prefer if this wasn't sarcasm though.
If Merriam-Webster could add the definition of "Tebow,'' I predict it would go something like this:
Tebow. TEE-bow. Verb.
I imagine the Merriam-Webster definition of "Tebow" would be this:
"Shut up, stop saying this in any context and never use this word again." This word would exist solely so it wouldn't be used. That's my dream.
To defeat an opponent while overcoming a major impediment.
Tebow's major impediment? The ability to play quarterback at the NFL level. I'm kidding, sort of.
Ex.: Despite having a 102-degree fever, Lucy managed to Tebow her competition for the Miss America pageant through her great determination.
I swear, if this Tebow definition catches on, I am going to go insane. I really will. I'm already nearing the end of my rope after hearing Chris "Blowhard Fat-ass" Berman (catchy nickname) and Tom Jackson act like Tim Tebow cured cancer after the Bears game yesterday. Eli Manning did the same thing against Dallas (coming back from a bigger deficit) and all he gets is appreciation for how well he played, while Tebow is talked like he has the ability to create miracles. The difference in the two quarterbacks is Manning didn't play shitty for the rest of the game prior to the comeback.
Apparently it is more impressive to be really shitty at your job and then be really good at it for a short period of time, than to be really good at your job for a long period of time. So while Eli is rightfully being considered a quarterback who is either elite or somewhat elite, Tebow is given mysterious miracle powers. Manning is skilled, but Tebow, he performs miracles. I think this is similar phenomenon to how David Eckstein guts out base hits while Matt Holliday is just a really good baseball player.
He had help. An incredible sequence of events got the Broncos undisputed possession of first place in the AFC West.
This could go for a lot of the Broncos victories. The Broncos have been very good and very fortunate a lot this year. It's really amazing...but not a miracle.
Tebow got the quarterback job and has gone 7-1, and this one, in so many ways, was the weirdest -- and a game Chicago will kick itself over for weeks. Years, maybe.
Decades probably. Thousands of years from now, Bears fans will be talking about that one game where they lost to the really mediocre left handed white quarterback. What was his name again? I'm kidding. We will never forget Tebow's name since if he keeps this pace up I am pretty sure a chapter of the Bible will be added after Revelations to specifically document Tebow's exploits.
Okay. Tebow was 3 of 18 in the first three quarters, and Chicago led 10-0 midway through the fourth
"Okay. So Tebow didn't play well at all for most of the game. But he did such a great job of keeping the Broncos in the game by singlehandedly giving up 10 points midway through the fourth quarter. Maybe we shouldn't give Tebow so much credit, but let's do it anyway."
Tebow got hot, though, against a semi-prevent defense and found a wide-open Demaryius Thomas in the end zone for a touchdown to make it 10-7 with 2:08 to go. But the Broncos had no timeouts left. By the time they got the ball back with two minutes left, all the Bears had to do was make one first down to end the game ... and even if they didn't get it, all they had to do was run it three times and stay inbounds.
But Marion Barber ran out of bounds.
These are the type of things I consider extraordinary which the Broncos have benefited from this year. This happens, but the Broncos have been good and fortunate this year. This can't be overlooked.
And the wind shall be calm, and it shall be warm, and Matt Prater shall be able to kick one from 75.
The only thing less interesting than constantly associating Tebow with his religion is to pretend to write fake Bible verses to describe a field goal attempt.
Bears win the toss. Marion Barber, with the Bears probably a couple of yards yards from winning field-goal position, fumbles. Broncos recover
Marion Barber started because Matt Forte was injured. Marion Barber had not fumbled the ball in 107 touches this year...until this touch at this point in overtime.
Mayhem in the crowd. Tebow silences the faithful, drives the Broncos 34 yards, and Prater comes on to try his second field goal of longer than 50 yards in seven minutes.
Prater was 1-2 on the season from 50+ yards and 8-11 from 50 yards or more at this point in his career. Naturally, he hit these two 50+ yard field goals while missing field goal closer than 50 yards out earlier in the game. Football is a funny game.
"You know what's fun about this?'' said Prater. "Everyone keeps saying what Tim can't do. And he goes out every week and we win. We love the guy. He's so real. Now we just feel like anything's possible.''
I don't like the Patriots. I like Tim Tebow. I want the Patriots to win 45-0 next week because I won't be able to stand the media if Tebow (singlehandely, of course) beats Bill Belichick. I couldn't handle it. There are some things I can handle. This is not one of those things.
Fun to see Belichick match wits with Tebow in Denver -- I hope for the first of many meetings.
Not match wits with Mike McCoy or John Fox, but Belichick is matching wits with Tim Tebow.
In New England, Manning led the Giants on drives of 88 and 80 yards in the final seven minutes; both ended in touchdown passes. In Dallas, Manning led the Giants on touchdown drives of 80 and 58 yards to erase a 12-point deficit in the final six minutes.
Of course this isn't a miracle and since Manning had erasing late deficits before Tebow started doing this, Merriam-Webster will naturally call it a "Tebow" and not a "Manning."
The difference between Tony Romo and Manning was pretty clear in the final minutes. Romo needed a completion to a wide-open Miles Austin inside of three minutes to play to ice the game -- and overthrew it.
Of course Romo also put up 34 points against the Giants and put his team in position to win or tie the game for the second straight week. Let's forget that though, because his team didn't win the game. 34 points should be enough to win the game. Because Romo's kicker can't make a game-winning/tying kick he isn't a clutch player.
It's the simple recognition that right now, today, I think Eli Manning's the most clutch quarterback playing. How much more do you need to see?
I need to see him do it against the Denver Tebows. That's really the only way to measure how good a player/team is, isn't it? Match wits with the offensive genius Tim Tebow? Let's see Manning try to go against a Tebow-led defense. Tebow thinks God has a plan for Eli Manning when Denver plays the New York Giants. That plan is a lot of pain.
Things you should know about how the NFL schedules TV games
Whichever games will get the most ratings and make the most money for the network is how the games are scheduled. Glad we covered this so quickly.
Let me explain first why the league did that, then I'll tell you a few things about the gymnastics of which games go where.
If Gregg Easterbrook is reading this column, he just read the word "gymnastics" and probably got an erection at the thought of high school gymnasts or high school cheerleaders. Pervert.
Also, putting the game on CBS would mean it wouldn't be a national game. The New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Phoenix CBS affiliates will show their local teams' games and not Tebow-Brady.
And really, does any football fan in those cities care to see their local team? Probably not. I know Eagles, Giants/Jets, Browns, and Cardinals fans don't care enough to see their teams play. Everyone wants to see Tebow-Brady. Since everyone wants to see Tebow-Brady, I don't even know why everyone doesn't have to be subjected to this game.
Now, in the aftermath of the decision, it's been assumed that one of the league's powerful owners, Robert Kraft of the Patriots, had a major hand in keeping the game in the afternoon. An afternoon game in Mountain Time means the Patriots would get back to New England at about 2 a.m. If the game had been moved, their charter would return at about 6 a.m. Monday.
Robert Kraft is just afraid of losing to the Denver Tebows on national television! Kraft and his group of cheating at football, heathen, model-marrying, out-of-wedlock-child-having players don't want to face down the wrath of Tebow on national television.
The Browns should build around Colt McCoy, not draft a quarterback in 2012 to replace him.
I'm not sure I could agree with this. McCoy hasn't been great, but overly mediocre. The Browns should at least draft a quarterback in the 2nd or 3rd round. McCoy is in his second season and hasn't done anything (at least to me) that says he is franchise quarterback material. We can blame his supporting cast and that could be partially valid reasoning. Peter seems to think McCoy's decision making is a problem. With better players around him, is it a guarantee his decision making would get better?
And I came away thinking the Browns should stick with him and use a rich 2012 draft to finally build the kind of offense around McCoy that any quarterback would need to succeed.
I can agree with this. Still, the Browns need to draft another quarterback. Maybe not in the first round, but in later, but not too much later rounds.
Now, I realize he made two or three idiotic throws in the second half -- and you're not going to win doing that consistently. But one of the bad throws came after he was concussed and should never have been put back in the game. And those throws have to be addressed.
Oh I didn't know McCoy made bad throws after he had a concussion. Well, a history of concussions combined with his mediocre play demands the Browns not have a solid backup plan for McCoy on the roster. What could go wrong?
But he did enough good things that I came away thinking: Use the three picks in the top 40 next April (Cleveland has its own first- and-second-round picks, plus Atlanta's first-rounder from the Julio Jones deal last April) to help McCoy, not replace him. Three plays showed a mature quarterback making good decisions:
So in summary...Colt McCoy made two or three idiotic throws and three great plays. This comes out as a positive in Peter King's opinion because he is assuming the idiotic plays will decrease while the great plays will only increase.
Of course, we wouldn't be talking about any of this if McCoy didn't make some brain-fart throws. But I believe he can be coached out of those -- it's what Bill Walsh would believe, watching him -- and I believe some of that stems from the fact that the Browns are a poor offensive team as a whole.
I'm not anti-Colt McCoy, but Peter's belief that McCoy is making bad throws because of the team around him doesn't necessarily make sense. Maybe putting a better team around would help out, but a bad throw is a bad throw. Ask Rex Grossman. It doesn't always matter how good the team around the quarterback making the throw is.
9. Denver (8-5). At some point you just have to go along for the ride, sit back, enjoy it and realize you're witnessing one of the greatest stories we've seen in the NFL in a long, long time.
I agree. A rookie like Von Miller just coming to a team and making such a huge difference...you don't see that very often.
12. Tennessee (7-6). The most impressive loser of them all Sunday. My Lord, where did this Karl Klug come from? (From Iowa. Fifth-round rookie. Another great and underrated product from the Kirk Ferentz School of NFL Development.) Plays like the Tasmanian devil. Six sacks bounding inside and outside.
Ok...so here is a list of players from this Kirk Ferentz School of NFL Development. It's not a bad list, but I don't know if has star players on it. A lot of the guys are very useful players in the NFL. I'm not sure it is a list worthy of an official capitalized school name. I nitpick.
13. Detroit (8-5). The mystery team of the next three weeks. Could see them go 0-3, 3-0 or anything in between (at Oakland, San Diego, at Green Bay). I mean, predict that.
1-2. Oakland looked bad this week, San Diego has momentum, and Green Bay isn't going to want to lose the game that brings them to 16-0.
15. Chicago (7-6). The Bears have a path to the playoffs, but it would be best if Caleb Hanie drove the bus there instead of playing quarterback.
That's a pretty brutal statement about Hanie. Especially for a guy who just advocated strongly for Colt McCoy.
Goats of the Week
Chicago RB Marion Barber. Are you kidding me? Running out of bounds inside of two minutes left, with Denver having no timeouts left and down three? Pure idiocy. Barber's move allowed the Broncos a last chance to tie the game, getting it with 56 seconds left at the Denver 20 ... instead of getting the last-ditch chance with maybe 22 seconds left and no timeouts. And then he fumbled in overtime, allowing Tim Tebow to keep the miracles flowing.
Those miracles by Tim Tebow. Peter did name Matt Prater his "Special Teams Player of the Week," but I find it interesting about how Prater's kicking causes Tebow's miracles to happen. Tony Romo has led the Cowboys to field goal attempts the past two weeks, these are attempts shorter than 50 yards away, and Peter seemed to indicate Romo didn't step up in the clutch essentially because his kicker couldn't make those kicks. Prater makes kicks in regulation and overtime and now Tebow is performing miracles. It's weird of an analysis of how good a quarterback played at the end of a game relies so much on the players around that quarterback performing well also.
"Can you say a prayer for Cutler's thumb?''
-- Final question for Denver quarterback Tim Tebow, a very religious man, on his conference call with Chicago reporters last Wednesday. Bears quarterback Jay Cutler had recent thumb surgery, and it's unknown whether he'll play again this year.
You have to be freaking kidding me. See how the media treats Tebow? Asking him to say a prayer for Cutler's thumb...does the media actually think Tebow is God or has a direct conduit to God more than other people do? How about Tebow saying a prayer for idiot Chicago reporters who ask stupid questions? Sure, maybe this was a joke, but it is a pretty stupid joke in my mind.
Also, does Peter need to tell us Tebow is "a very religious man"? Is this necessary? Tebow's religion is brought up constantly and anyone with rudimentary knowledge of Tebow knows he is a very religious person.
"There's too much glorification of all of sports in our society. The fact is, guys are here to get an education. They represent institutions of higher learning. Xavier has been a great school for years. We are trying to cure cancer at Cincinnati. I go to school at a place where they discovered the vaccine for polio and created Benadryl. I think that's more important than who wins a basketball game. And our guys need to have appreciation for the fact they are there on a full scholarship. And they're there to represent institutions with class and integrity ... I have never been this embarrassed.''
-- University of Cincinnati basketball coach Mick Cronin, after a full-scale brawl, one of the worst in college sports history, ended the UC-Xavier game Saturday in Cincinnati.
Good for Cronin, who suspended four players Sunday, three for six games each.
Yeah, great for Cronin. This is the same guy who wants his players to represent the institution with class and integrity, yet he recruited and gave a scholarship to Lance Stephenson. In high school, Stephenson had an altercation with a teammate in which he was suspended from school for five days and had been accused and charged with sexual assault of a classmate. This is the kind of guy Cronin believes brings class and integrity to Cincinnati basketball, along with Cronin's 58% graduation rate in 2011.
Bomani Jones breaks it down pretty well here. Cronin isn't the worst coach in college basketball, but a lot of his talk can simply be seen just as empty talk.
Then Peter breaks down Tim Tebow's schedule and figures out Tebow doesn't take up too much of his time with media requests. Riveting stuff.
A comedy of errors (but I'm not laughing) led to this column being posted so late today. I regret making you wait.
But as long as you tell us exactly and in great detail what happened, then all is forgiven. Just don't leave out a detail.
I've caught a little bug in the last few days somewhere, and I've been trying to fight that off. I had to travel for a story early this morning, flying out of JFK at 6:55 a.m., and so at about 1:30 this morning, I lay down to sleep for three hours, unusual for my Sunday night. Woke up at 5. Rushed to get ready, got in the car to the airport and in five minutes discovered two very bad things: I left my cell phone in the car, and my flight, which I was told would have WiFi, did not.
No WiFi on the plane? When did the United States turn into poverty-stricken Africa?
So I got on line quickly at the airport, tweeted my delay, informed my editors I was an idiot, and, with two hours of work left on the column, finished it on the plane and sent upon landing.
Clutchiness. That word should be changed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary to "Kinging."
I can't figure out why I have this splitting headache.
Perhaps you accidentally read your column this week? Sometimes it gives people headaches and this one with approximately 900 Tebow mentions potentially qualifies as headache-inducing.
Then three of Peter's "Tweets of the Week" are about Tebow. Enough already.
4. John Fox, Denver. Remade his offense, willingly, in midseason when it was obvious Tim Tebow was a better option quarterback than pro-style pocket quarterback. Good coaches adjust to their talent. Fox is the poster child for that this year, and the Broncos are contending because of it.
This is so ironic considering Fox refused to adjust his offense or defense at times in Carolina to the talent on the roster.
a. Pittsburgh's ferocious rush. I thought Jason Worilds was supposed to be a big disappointment. He looked terrific Thursday night against Cleveland.
I know! Why can't reality match our self-created perceptions of athletes?
l. Carson Palmer trade's looking really good for Oakland, eh?
Well, the good news is the 2nd round pick won't turn into another first round pick. The Raiders are only going to give up a 1st and 2nd round pick for Palmer. So there's that.
Every owner who's thinking about firing his coach should ask himself if the team is really very far away, and if it isn't, what's going to be gained by firing the coach? In some cases, I can see the intelligence in changing coaches. But in some places -- Minnesota, Washington, Philadelphia, most notably -- I see good coaches having bad years with the ability to turn things around next year.
Mike Shanahan needs just a little more time to turn the Redskins around. That's all he needs. He's had a losing record in his last four seasons of being a head coach, but he just needs more time to turn it around. Because at 5 years for $35 million to be the Redskins head coach, it isn't too much to ask for more time to have a winning record. You pay a coach that much money, you should give him more time to get his shit together and win more games.
I would think if a coach gets paid $7 million per year he could be expected to turn team around in less than two years. I must have excessively high expectations.
6. I think Tennessee has more good players that we don't know than any other team in the league.
"We" means "Peter King doesn't know and he assumes everyone else only pays attention to just a few NFL teams like he does." Anyone who reads this blog knows I hate it when columnists lump fans' ignorance into that columnist's own ignorance.
e. Beernerdness: A shame. I've been living on Vitamin Water and regular water for four or five days, mostly. So I'm sorry, I have no fun beer news to report. Will make it up to you over the holidays. Promise.
As long as you promise to make it up to me. My life isn't complete without knowing exactly what interesting beers Peter King tries on a weekly basis.
f. Smart move by the Cardinals, not upping the ante on their 10-yard, $220-million contract offer to Albert Pujols. I don't blame Pujols for migrating to the American League for $3.4 million more per year
Plus, as a 38-42 year old Albert Pujols can be the DH. I'm not sure the Cardinals wanted a 38-42 year old Pujols manning first base. You gotta love the designated hitter.
g. "I am completely innocent,'' Ryan Braun told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, after it was revealed by ESPN that he tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in October, making him subject to a 50-game ban to start 2012. All of Wisconsin is saying the same thing this morning: You'd better be.
Actually all of Wisconsin is saying, "That's great. The Packers are 13-0 right now, so we'll worry about Braun later and focus on our history-making Packers team."
The real world intercedes on the fun and games this morning:
What fun and games does Peter believe his readers are having on Monday? does Peter think the rest of the world does on Monday morning, other than work or go to school?
That's about all I know, other than this: Smith's 52, has always seemed healthy to me,
Peter King, Visual M.D.
(Tony Dungy) "I have been feeling tired lately. I wonder if it is because I haven't gotten much sleep?"
(Peter King stares at Tony Dungy intently) "I am showing your red blood cell count is low and you probably should go visit your doctor because I am seeing your lethargy is caused by something medically related. You don't seem healthy to me."
(Tony Dungy one week later talking to Peter) "There was nothing wrong with me when I went to the doctor. I guess I was just tired."
(Peter King stares at Tony Dungry intently) "I am showing you indeed are tired, but there is another cause. You just don't seem healthy to me (Peter drinks three beers, eats two sandwiches and an entire bag of Doritos)."
But he's one of those occasionally volcanic coaches; once or twice a game you say, "Settle down, now." It's a stressful job. A fun job, but stressful, and full of the kind of pressure that most jobs don't have.
Coaching in the NFL has stresses most jobs don't have. Being a head coach doesn't have stresses like "how I'm going to pay my mortgage this month," and "If I get fired, will my family be able to survive financially until I get another job."
I'm being dramatic in a way, but every job has certain stresses most other jobs don't have. So while being an NFL head coach is tough, it does have its advantages as well.
I'm sure Smith won't mind if we get on with the news of the day. A playoff coach having a significant health scare. That's news ... but it pales in comparison to the force of nature of all Tebow, all the time.
Sarcasm? Probably. I would much prefer if this wasn't sarcasm though.
If Merriam-Webster could add the definition of "Tebow,'' I predict it would go something like this:
Tebow. TEE-bow. Verb.
I imagine the Merriam-Webster definition of "Tebow" would be this:
"Shut up, stop saying this in any context and never use this word again." This word would exist solely so it wouldn't be used. That's my dream.
To defeat an opponent while overcoming a major impediment.
Tebow's major impediment? The ability to play quarterback at the NFL level. I'm kidding, sort of.
Ex.: Despite having a 102-degree fever, Lucy managed to Tebow her competition for the Miss America pageant through her great determination.
I swear, if this Tebow definition catches on, I am going to go insane. I really will. I'm already nearing the end of my rope after hearing Chris "Blowhard Fat-ass" Berman (catchy nickname) and Tom Jackson act like Tim Tebow cured cancer after the Bears game yesterday. Eli Manning did the same thing against Dallas (coming back from a bigger deficit) and all he gets is appreciation for how well he played, while Tebow is talked like he has the ability to create miracles. The difference in the two quarterbacks is Manning didn't play shitty for the rest of the game prior to the comeback.
Apparently it is more impressive to be really shitty at your job and then be really good at it for a short period of time, than to be really good at your job for a long period of time. So while Eli is rightfully being considered a quarterback who is either elite or somewhat elite, Tebow is given mysterious miracle powers. Manning is skilled, but Tebow, he performs miracles. I think this is similar phenomenon to how David Eckstein guts out base hits while Matt Holliday is just a really good baseball player.
He had help. An incredible sequence of events got the Broncos undisputed possession of first place in the AFC West.
This could go for a lot of the Broncos victories. The Broncos have been very good and very fortunate a lot this year. It's really amazing...but not a miracle.
Tebow got the quarterback job and has gone 7-1, and this one, in so many ways, was the weirdest -- and a game Chicago will kick itself over for weeks. Years, maybe.
Decades probably. Thousands of years from now, Bears fans will be talking about that one game where they lost to the really mediocre left handed white quarterback. What was his name again? I'm kidding. We will never forget Tebow's name since if he keeps this pace up I am pretty sure a chapter of the Bible will be added after Revelations to specifically document Tebow's exploits.
Okay. Tebow was 3 of 18 in the first three quarters, and Chicago led 10-0 midway through the fourth
"Okay. So Tebow didn't play well at all for most of the game. But he did such a great job of keeping the Broncos in the game by singlehandedly giving up 10 points midway through the fourth quarter. Maybe we shouldn't give Tebow so much credit, but let's do it anyway."
Tebow got hot, though, against a semi-prevent defense and found a wide-open Demaryius Thomas in the end zone for a touchdown to make it 10-7 with 2:08 to go. But the Broncos had no timeouts left. By the time they got the ball back with two minutes left, all the Bears had to do was make one first down to end the game ... and even if they didn't get it, all they had to do was run it three times and stay inbounds.
But Marion Barber ran out of bounds.
These are the type of things I consider extraordinary which the Broncos have benefited from this year. This happens, but the Broncos have been good and fortunate this year. This can't be overlooked.
And the wind shall be calm, and it shall be warm, and Matt Prater shall be able to kick one from 75.
The only thing less interesting than constantly associating Tebow with his religion is to pretend to write fake Bible verses to describe a field goal attempt.
Bears win the toss. Marion Barber, with the Bears probably a couple of yards yards from winning field-goal position, fumbles. Broncos recover
Marion Barber started because Matt Forte was injured. Marion Barber had not fumbled the ball in 107 touches this year...until this touch at this point in overtime.
Mayhem in the crowd. Tebow silences the faithful, drives the Broncos 34 yards, and Prater comes on to try his second field goal of longer than 50 yards in seven minutes.
Prater was 1-2 on the season from 50+ yards and 8-11 from 50 yards or more at this point in his career. Naturally, he hit these two 50+ yard field goals while missing field goal closer than 50 yards out earlier in the game. Football is a funny game.
"You know what's fun about this?'' said Prater. "Everyone keeps saying what Tim can't do. And he goes out every week and we win. We love the guy. He's so real. Now we just feel like anything's possible.''
I don't like the Patriots. I like Tim Tebow. I want the Patriots to win 45-0 next week because I won't be able to stand the media if Tebow (singlehandely, of course) beats Bill Belichick. I couldn't handle it. There are some things I can handle. This is not one of those things.
Fun to see Belichick match wits with Tebow in Denver -- I hope for the first of many meetings.
Not match wits with Mike McCoy or John Fox, but Belichick is matching wits with Tim Tebow.
In New England, Manning led the Giants on drives of 88 and 80 yards in the final seven minutes; both ended in touchdown passes. In Dallas, Manning led the Giants on touchdown drives of 80 and 58 yards to erase a 12-point deficit in the final six minutes.
Of course this isn't a miracle and since Manning had erasing late deficits before Tebow started doing this, Merriam-Webster will naturally call it a "Tebow" and not a "Manning."
The difference between Tony Romo and Manning was pretty clear in the final minutes. Romo needed a completion to a wide-open Miles Austin inside of three minutes to play to ice the game -- and overthrew it.
Of course Romo also put up 34 points against the Giants and put his team in position to win or tie the game for the second straight week. Let's forget that though, because his team didn't win the game. 34 points should be enough to win the game. Because Romo's kicker can't make a game-winning/tying kick he isn't a clutch player.
It's the simple recognition that right now, today, I think Eli Manning's the most clutch quarterback playing. How much more do you need to see?
I need to see him do it against the Denver Tebows. That's really the only way to measure how good a player/team is, isn't it? Match wits with the offensive genius Tim Tebow? Let's see Manning try to go against a Tebow-led defense. Tebow thinks God has a plan for Eli Manning when Denver plays the New York Giants. That plan is a lot of pain.
Things you should know about how the NFL schedules TV games
Whichever games will get the most ratings and make the most money for the network is how the games are scheduled. Glad we covered this so quickly.
Let me explain first why the league did that, then I'll tell you a few things about the gymnastics of which games go where.
If Gregg Easterbrook is reading this column, he just read the word "gymnastics" and probably got an erection at the thought of high school gymnasts or high school cheerleaders. Pervert.
Also, putting the game on CBS would mean it wouldn't be a national game. The New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Phoenix CBS affiliates will show their local teams' games and not Tebow-Brady.
And really, does any football fan in those cities care to see their local team? Probably not. I know Eagles, Giants/Jets, Browns, and Cardinals fans don't care enough to see their teams play. Everyone wants to see Tebow-Brady. Since everyone wants to see Tebow-Brady, I don't even know why everyone doesn't have to be subjected to this game.
Now, in the aftermath of the decision, it's been assumed that one of the league's powerful owners, Robert Kraft of the Patriots, had a major hand in keeping the game in the afternoon. An afternoon game in Mountain Time means the Patriots would get back to New England at about 2 a.m. If the game had been moved, their charter would return at about 6 a.m. Monday.
Robert Kraft is just afraid of losing to the Denver Tebows on national television! Kraft and his group of cheating at football, heathen, model-marrying, out-of-wedlock-child-having players don't want to face down the wrath of Tebow on national television.
The Browns should build around Colt McCoy, not draft a quarterback in 2012 to replace him.
I'm not sure I could agree with this. McCoy hasn't been great, but overly mediocre. The Browns should at least draft a quarterback in the 2nd or 3rd round. McCoy is in his second season and hasn't done anything (at least to me) that says he is franchise quarterback material. We can blame his supporting cast and that could be partially valid reasoning. Peter seems to think McCoy's decision making is a problem. With better players around him, is it a guarantee his decision making would get better?
And I came away thinking the Browns should stick with him and use a rich 2012 draft to finally build the kind of offense around McCoy that any quarterback would need to succeed.
I can agree with this. Still, the Browns need to draft another quarterback. Maybe not in the first round, but in later, but not too much later rounds.
Now, I realize he made two or three idiotic throws in the second half -- and you're not going to win doing that consistently. But one of the bad throws came after he was concussed and should never have been put back in the game. And those throws have to be addressed.
Oh I didn't know McCoy made bad throws after he had a concussion. Well, a history of concussions combined with his mediocre play demands the Browns not have a solid backup plan for McCoy on the roster. What could go wrong?
But he did enough good things that I came away thinking: Use the three picks in the top 40 next April (Cleveland has its own first- and-second-round picks, plus Atlanta's first-rounder from the Julio Jones deal last April) to help McCoy, not replace him. Three plays showed a mature quarterback making good decisions:
So in summary...Colt McCoy made two or three idiotic throws and three great plays. This comes out as a positive in Peter King's opinion because he is assuming the idiotic plays will decrease while the great plays will only increase.
Of course, we wouldn't be talking about any of this if McCoy didn't make some brain-fart throws. But I believe he can be coached out of those -- it's what Bill Walsh would believe, watching him -- and I believe some of that stems from the fact that the Browns are a poor offensive team as a whole.
I'm not anti-Colt McCoy, but Peter's belief that McCoy is making bad throws because of the team around him doesn't necessarily make sense. Maybe putting a better team around would help out, but a bad throw is a bad throw. Ask Rex Grossman. It doesn't always matter how good the team around the quarterback making the throw is.
9. Denver (8-5). At some point you just have to go along for the ride, sit back, enjoy it and realize you're witnessing one of the greatest stories we've seen in the NFL in a long, long time.
I agree. A rookie like Von Miller just coming to a team and making such a huge difference...you don't see that very often.
12. Tennessee (7-6). The most impressive loser of them all Sunday. My Lord, where did this Karl Klug come from? (From Iowa. Fifth-round rookie. Another great and underrated product from the Kirk Ferentz School of NFL Development.) Plays like the Tasmanian devil. Six sacks bounding inside and outside.
Ok...so here is a list of players from this Kirk Ferentz School of NFL Development. It's not a bad list, but I don't know if has star players on it. A lot of the guys are very useful players in the NFL. I'm not sure it is a list worthy of an official capitalized school name. I nitpick.
13. Detroit (8-5). The mystery team of the next three weeks. Could see them go 0-3, 3-0 or anything in between (at Oakland, San Diego, at Green Bay). I mean, predict that.
1-2. Oakland looked bad this week, San Diego has momentum, and Green Bay isn't going to want to lose the game that brings them to 16-0.
15. Chicago (7-6). The Bears have a path to the playoffs, but it would be best if Caleb Hanie drove the bus there instead of playing quarterback.
That's a pretty brutal statement about Hanie. Especially for a guy who just advocated strongly for Colt McCoy.
Goats of the Week
Chicago RB Marion Barber. Are you kidding me? Running out of bounds inside of two minutes left, with Denver having no timeouts left and down three? Pure idiocy. Barber's move allowed the Broncos a last chance to tie the game, getting it with 56 seconds left at the Denver 20 ... instead of getting the last-ditch chance with maybe 22 seconds left and no timeouts. And then he fumbled in overtime, allowing Tim Tebow to keep the miracles flowing.
Those miracles by Tim Tebow. Peter did name Matt Prater his "Special Teams Player of the Week," but I find it interesting about how Prater's kicking causes Tebow's miracles to happen. Tony Romo has led the Cowboys to field goal attempts the past two weeks, these are attempts shorter than 50 yards away, and Peter seemed to indicate Romo didn't step up in the clutch essentially because his kicker couldn't make those kicks. Prater makes kicks in regulation and overtime and now Tebow is performing miracles. It's weird of an analysis of how good a quarterback played at the end of a game relies so much on the players around that quarterback performing well also.
"Can you say a prayer for Cutler's thumb?''
-- Final question for Denver quarterback Tim Tebow, a very religious man, on his conference call with Chicago reporters last Wednesday. Bears quarterback Jay Cutler had recent thumb surgery, and it's unknown whether he'll play again this year.
You have to be freaking kidding me. See how the media treats Tebow? Asking him to say a prayer for Cutler's thumb...does the media actually think Tebow is God or has a direct conduit to God more than other people do? How about Tebow saying a prayer for idiot Chicago reporters who ask stupid questions? Sure, maybe this was a joke, but it is a pretty stupid joke in my mind.
Also, does Peter need to tell us Tebow is "a very religious man"? Is this necessary? Tebow's religion is brought up constantly and anyone with rudimentary knowledge of Tebow knows he is a very religious person.
"There's too much glorification of all of sports in our society. The fact is, guys are here to get an education. They represent institutions of higher learning. Xavier has been a great school for years. We are trying to cure cancer at Cincinnati. I go to school at a place where they discovered the vaccine for polio and created Benadryl. I think that's more important than who wins a basketball game. And our guys need to have appreciation for the fact they are there on a full scholarship. And they're there to represent institutions with class and integrity ... I have never been this embarrassed.''
-- University of Cincinnati basketball coach Mick Cronin, after a full-scale brawl, one of the worst in college sports history, ended the UC-Xavier game Saturday in Cincinnati.
Good for Cronin, who suspended four players Sunday, three for six games each.
Yeah, great for Cronin. This is the same guy who wants his players to represent the institution with class and integrity, yet he recruited and gave a scholarship to Lance Stephenson. In high school, Stephenson had an altercation with a teammate in which he was suspended from school for five days and had been accused and charged with sexual assault of a classmate. This is the kind of guy Cronin believes brings class and integrity to Cincinnati basketball, along with Cronin's 58% graduation rate in 2011.
Bomani Jones breaks it down pretty well here. Cronin isn't the worst coach in college basketball, but a lot of his talk can simply be seen just as empty talk.
Then Peter breaks down Tim Tebow's schedule and figures out Tebow doesn't take up too much of his time with media requests. Riveting stuff.
A comedy of errors (but I'm not laughing) led to this column being posted so late today. I regret making you wait.
But as long as you tell us exactly and in great detail what happened, then all is forgiven. Just don't leave out a detail.
I've caught a little bug in the last few days somewhere, and I've been trying to fight that off. I had to travel for a story early this morning, flying out of JFK at 6:55 a.m., and so at about 1:30 this morning, I lay down to sleep for three hours, unusual for my Sunday night. Woke up at 5. Rushed to get ready, got in the car to the airport and in five minutes discovered two very bad things: I left my cell phone in the car, and my flight, which I was told would have WiFi, did not.
No WiFi on the plane? When did the United States turn into poverty-stricken Africa?
So I got on line quickly at the airport, tweeted my delay, informed my editors I was an idiot, and, with two hours of work left on the column, finished it on the plane and sent upon landing.
Clutchiness. That word should be changed in the Merriam-Webster dictionary to "Kinging."
I can't figure out why I have this splitting headache.
Perhaps you accidentally read your column this week? Sometimes it gives people headaches and this one with approximately 900 Tebow mentions potentially qualifies as headache-inducing.
Then three of Peter's "Tweets of the Week" are about Tebow. Enough already.
4. John Fox, Denver. Remade his offense, willingly, in midseason when it was obvious Tim Tebow was a better option quarterback than pro-style pocket quarterback. Good coaches adjust to their talent. Fox is the poster child for that this year, and the Broncos are contending because of it.
This is so ironic considering Fox refused to adjust his offense or defense at times in Carolina to the talent on the roster.
a. Pittsburgh's ferocious rush. I thought Jason Worilds was supposed to be a big disappointment. He looked terrific Thursday night against Cleveland.
I know! Why can't reality match our self-created perceptions of athletes?
l. Carson Palmer trade's looking really good for Oakland, eh?
Well, the good news is the 2nd round pick won't turn into another first round pick. The Raiders are only going to give up a 1st and 2nd round pick for Palmer. So there's that.
Every owner who's thinking about firing his coach should ask himself if the team is really very far away, and if it isn't, what's going to be gained by firing the coach? In some cases, I can see the intelligence in changing coaches. But in some places -- Minnesota, Washington, Philadelphia, most notably -- I see good coaches having bad years with the ability to turn things around next year.
Mike Shanahan needs just a little more time to turn the Redskins around. That's all he needs. He's had a losing record in his last four seasons of being a head coach, but he just needs more time to turn it around. Because at 5 years for $35 million to be the Redskins head coach, it isn't too much to ask for more time to have a winning record. You pay a coach that much money, you should give him more time to get his shit together and win more games.
I would think if a coach gets paid $7 million per year he could be expected to turn team around in less than two years. I must have excessively high expectations.
6. I think Tennessee has more good players that we don't know than any other team in the league.
"We" means "Peter King doesn't know and he assumes everyone else only pays attention to just a few NFL teams like he does." Anyone who reads this blog knows I hate it when columnists lump fans' ignorance into that columnist's own ignorance.
e. Beernerdness: A shame. I've been living on Vitamin Water and regular water for four or five days, mostly. So I'm sorry, I have no fun beer news to report. Will make it up to you over the holidays. Promise.
As long as you promise to make it up to me. My life isn't complete without knowing exactly what interesting beers Peter King tries on a weekly basis.
f. Smart move by the Cardinals, not upping the ante on their 10-yard, $220-million contract offer to Albert Pujols. I don't blame Pujols for migrating to the American League for $3.4 million more per year
Plus, as a 38-42 year old Albert Pujols can be the DH. I'm not sure the Cardinals wanted a 38-42 year old Pujols manning first base. You gotta love the designated hitter.
g. "I am completely innocent,'' Ryan Braun told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, after it was revealed by ESPN that he tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance in October, making him subject to a 50-game ban to start 2012. All of Wisconsin is saying the same thing this morning: You'd better be.
Actually all of Wisconsin is saying, "That's great. The Packers are 13-0 right now, so we'll worry about Braun later and focus on our history-making Packers team."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)