Are you ready for a Hypocrisy Alert? I think we have one brewing here. Recall that the NFL played a game in London, England and there was a story that the Commissioner was ruminating on the possibility of putting a Super Bowl Game in London. We saw NFL owners there in London talking about how wonderful it was to be in London and how it was a spectacular thing for the NFL. For the whole week leading up to that game, seldom was heard a discouraging word …
I’ve been to London more than a few times; it is a wonderful city; I’ve enjoyed myself there; I plan to go back. One of the things I did notice in London – - because it is impossible to walk around the city without noticing – - is that London is full of sportsbooks. The name I recall at the moment is Ladbrokes and once inside any of their dozens upon dozens of establishments, you can wager on more sporting events than you can in any Las Vegas casino/sportsbook. Oh, yes; you can bet on NFL games right there in London and it’s all perfectly in the open and legal.
So, how come no one on ESPN or any of the other national outlets has asked the NFL to explain why it’s perfectly OK to play real NFL games in London possibly to include a Super Bowl Game – - and to have had an NFL Europe franchise there – - in the presence of hundreds of sportsbooks when, at the same time, Las Vegas is off-limits? I’d love to hear Roger Goodell asked that kind of question out of the blue at a news conference because I think he’d probably do a pretty good imitation of Ralph Kramden about then, “Hammina … hammina … hammina.”
When you look at the NFC West, it’s probably best to avert your eyes. Outside the division, the teams have a combined 3-17 record; Seattle leads the division at 4-4 but looks nothing like a team pointed to an NFC Conference Championship Game come January. At the bottom of that division rest the St. Louis Rams who have not won any of their eight games this year. But the Rams are particularly bad on the road – even by the standard of a winless team. So far, the Rams have lost all four of their road games by a combined score of 114-19. The Rams had a bye week last weekend and return with consecutive road games (at the Saints and at the Niners). If the trend continues, the Rams should be looking at 0-10 – - unless the ineptitude level in San Francisco continues to rise.
Mentioning the Rams makes me think that the halfway point in the NFL season is the proper time to identify the worst teams in the league. So here’s my bottom quartile:
Rams/Dolphins – both are 0-8; can there be any doubt they belong on this list?
Jets – currently 1-8; they just can’t score; they have the Dolphins on the schedule for another game; if they lose that one …
Denver – currently 3-5 and only one game out of the lead in the AFC West; but they have looked horrible more than once in a while this year.
Cincy – currently 2-6 but they have given up 244 points in those eight games; do the math; that’s over 30 points per game.
Philly – currently 3-5 and looking totally disorganized.
SF/Oakland – both currently 2-6; both stink; is there something in the water supply in the Bay Area that EPA doesn’t know about?
One more point as we go to the second half of the NFL season, I think there is a three-way tie for Coach of the Year at the moment – and I don’t have Tony Dungy or Bill Belichick anywhere on my list. The Colts and the Pats are teams that were supposed to be really, really good and they are. My list of coaching excellence consists of three teams that have played very well so far when not everyone thought they would.
Romeo Crennel has the Browns more than respectable.
Dick Jauron has the Bills at .500 even though the team is not scoring 17 points per game.
Rod Marinelli has the Lions at 6-2; it’s been a while since the Lions were 6-2.
I told you that Jeff George had been lobbying for a workout with the Vikings given the Vikes’ glaring needs at QB. He didn’t get his workout and the Vikes just signed – - drum roll please – - Koy Detmer to be their clipboard holder. Let me be clear; I don’t think Koy Detmer can play at the NFL QB level for two consecutive games. But the fact that the Vikes signed him instead of Jeff George speaks volumes about how George is viewed as a “person you want to have in your locker room.”
I have to say something about Don Shula and his suggestion that if the Pats go 16-0 this year – or even 19-0 – there should be an asterisk on that record. Excuse me; since the Pats got caught videotaping the Jets’ signals in the opening game of this season, I would need to be shown some evidence that any of the rule-breaking they did then had any effect on the outcome of games after the Jets’ game. It will also take some convincing for me to believe that’s why the Pats won on opening day and not the Jets. So how does the asterisk apply to this year’s achievements? Please don’t ask Shula to explain his answer to that; the logic he’d use would be so twisted that it might wind up choking him to death.
Don Shula has become a whining harpie who complains about far too many things related to football. He was a fine player and a very good coach in his time. But his time has come and it is now gone. He and his attention-starved 1972 Dolphins’ players can have their champagne toasts. But any complaining out of this group about the Pats’ achievements in 2007 is nothing but whining.
And while fawning columnists and commentators hasten to paint Don Shula as a saintly figure who never had a cloud of controversy around him, may I remind everyone that Shula’s signing with the Dolphins around 1970 involved tampering. The Dolphins were penalized a draft pick – I think it was a first round pick but it was a LONG time ago so I may be misremembering that detail. Yes, it was the team that was punished, but it’s hard for a team to get caught “tampering” if the person on the other end of the phone isn’t cooperating with the activities that are determined to violate the rules. So, do not succumb to the revisionist historians – such as Michael Wilbon – who try to portray Don Shula as a man so virtuous and so righteous that scandal would never even dare approach his name.
By the way, here’s an accomplishment that Shula has that Belichick does not. Shula has lost several Super Bowl games; Belichick has yet to match that performance.
Finally, here’s an item from the agate-type section of the paper under “Transactions”:
“Tennessee: Signed free agent DT Demetrin Veal.”
When I saw that item I thought I recalled that Emeril had prepared that dish as part of his “Holiday Feasting” programs last year on The Food Channel.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…