No, I did not watch the Pro Bowl. I did read that Drew Brees suffered a dislocated elbow in the game – to his non-throwing arm fortunately – and it made me wonder why fans of various teams work themselves into states of righteous indignation when one of their players is not selected to the game. The game is meaningless and of marginal entertainment value; the risk of injury is there; so why do you want to put your favorite player into that situation?
I also read somewhere that the regular season game between the NY Giants and the Miami Dolphins to be played in London next season already has 500,000 ticket requests. You’ll pardon me if I don’t actually believe that, won’t you? Yes, I know that the NFL is a big deal in the sports world and having a regular season game in England would be a “special event”, but 500,000 ticket requests? Let’s just hope that some marketing troll in the NFL offices doesn’t take that number as reality and extrapolate it to mean that there needs to be a franchise in London.
Remember, there used to be a franchise in London. Back in the early days of NFL Europe – it used to be the WLAF or the World League of American Football – they had a team called the London Monarchs. As I recall, the Monarchs played in one of the WLAF championship games. The league proceeded to “suspend operations” for a couple of seasons due to fan disinterest; and when it regrouped and came back to “active status”, the Monarchs no longer could afford to play in Wembley Stadium so they played on one of the fields used by a the London soccer team. The Monarchs couldn’t draw flies. In the franchise’s final days, it would have been an occasion of great celebration if the team could draw 15,000 folks to a game. Eventually the franchise was relocated/disbanded however you want to look at it. So, if anyone is looking at the putative “500,000 ticket requests” as more than a promotional “little-white-lie” and is thinking of a London franchise for the NFL …
The Miami Dolphins have several thousand of their club seats up for renewal next season; the ten year “contract” that people had to guarantee the right to purchase these club seats expired at the end of the 2006 season. According to a report in the Miami Herald, the price for a new contract to purchase those seats over the next ten years will more than double from the levels last year and will contain a modest “inflation factor”. Wow! You might think that the Dolphins had actually been a good team for the last five years or so instead of a team that makes its record seem less odious by winning lots of games when the games have no meaning with regard to playoff eligibility. I’m sure the Dolphins will sell those club seats at the inflated price they are asking; lots of NFL fans are like sheep.
It would appear that three NFL quarterbacks with recognizable names and histories could be available as free agents this year. Jeff Garcia’s play with the Eagles surely heightened interest in procuring his services among those teams that are quarterback-deficient. I can understand that one. Now, there are stories that David Carr may become available and he might be an interesting pick-up for a team that needs a QB and already has an offensive line that can protect a passer. Carr has not set the league on fire to be sure but he has spent all of his years in Houston either running for his life or picking himself up from the bottom of a pile of defensive pass rushers. He might be an intriguing commodity.
The “available quarterback” who is gathering interest and publicity that I just don’t understand is Jake Plummer. In addition to all of the teams who really do need QB upgrades, Plummer is supposedly the reason that Carr may become available because the story goes that Houston coach, Gary Kubiak, might want to have Plummer come to Houston and replace Carr. Kubiak and Plummer were together in Denver; that’s the basis of the story. I would think that since Kubiak was with Plummer for several years already, that would be enough to convince him not to bring Plummer to Houston but what do I know?
Here’s what I don’t understand. Plummer has been a mediocre QB for his career. Yes, he had a winning record in Denver (40-18) but he had a really good team around him. Even so, he managed to get the team exactly zero playoff wins. His overall career record happens to be 71-71 which epitomizes mediocrity in my book. Last year, he lost his job to a rookie who really was unprepared to lead a playoff caliber team because Plummer played so miserably that something had to be done. Now that he hasn’t played for a few months, people are fantasizing about his prowess as a QB. By not playing, people are now talking about Plummer as if he’s really John Unitas in disguise. Now that he hasn’t been on the field, writers and commentators are talking about Jake Plummer as the solution to a team’s problems instead of the source of problems for a team.
I just don’t get it; the only thing that Jake Plummer has accomplished in the last couple of months by sitting on the sidelines is that he hasn’t thrown any brutally ugly interceptions at the most inopportune moments of a game. How does that make him a prized commodity?
As the NBA moves toward its All-Star Game, there has been a quiet surge in the pathetic Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. For most of the year, no one in the division had a winning record; now the Toronto Raptors have surged to a 27-24 record and they lead the division by 2.5 games. If you don’t think you should get all that excited about a 27-24 record, please check your stats and you’ll notice that the Raptors won a total of 27 games for the entirety of the 2005/06 season. The pairing of Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani at forward may not make people forget about Bradley/DeBusschere or Havlicek/Heinsohn, but they seem to make the Raptors work. At least, the Atlantic Division champions seem not to be in danger of getting into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record…
Here is a public service announcement for everyone. Today begins National Flirting Week which will run through Feb 18. In what would seem to be a most fortuitous overlap, National Condom Week begins on Feb 14 and runs through Feb 21. So, now you know…
Finally, here’s a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“Hard to say which was the bigger shock: The first ever rained-out Super Bowl happening to be in sunny South Florida. Or odd-couple Jay-Z and Don Shula (Don-S?) turning up in the same Budweiser Super Bowl ad. The closest thing Shula has in common with hip hop is hip replacement.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…