I just finished watching the New England Patriots keep their undefeated season alive with little to spare against the Baltimore Ravens. Kyle Boller played the best game I have ever seen him play; Willis McGahee ran the ball as well as I have seen him do that; the Ravens’ offensive line actually dominated the line of scrimmage for extended segments of the game. That’s why it was a close game but the penalties killed the Baltimore defense. At one point, there was a graphic saying they had been penalized 13 times for 100 yards; I understand that football is a game of aggression, but there needs to be a bit more control on the “aggression throttle” or a team’s aggression will cost them a game. To a large extent, that is what happened last night.
The ESPN telecast took a turn in the right direction. Even though they crowded the booth with a guest for an elongated period of the second half, that guest was Don Shula. That’s OK with me because:
1. He knows football.
2. He has ties to Baltimore where he played and coached.
3. He has a tie to the Pats’ pursuit of a perfect season.
4. Oh, did I mention that he knows football…
Would that ESPN could find it in their corporate soul to make those kind of links and knowledgeability sine qua non for guests in the booth from now on. Let it be said; let it be done.
As I have said many times here, I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. The death of Sean Taylor was big news here; and as a fan favorite here, there was a week’s worth of grief expression and mourning among Redskins’ fans. That is well and proper; that is as it should be. At every NFL game over the weekend, there was a moment of silence observed to pay respects to Sean Taylor as the NFL lost “one of its own”. And the moment of silence in the stadium in Washington was polluted by a small segment of Redskins’ fans who seemed to think that their expression of their grief was more important than the recognition of Sean Taylor.
During the moment of silence, several folks shouted out their personal feelings such as “We love you, Sean!” Then others joined in and cheered. Folks that is about as inappropriate as it gets. The moment was to honor and remember Sean Taylor not to provide a stage for the self-absorbed egotists who had to take that moment to call attention to themselves. Moreover, it all happened in the stadium where Sean Taylor was nominally most appreciated as a football player. It was a revolting display.
Memo to Self-Absorbed Fans: What can possibly be confusing about the phrase “Moment … Of … Silence”?
As the Patriots continued to march toward a perfect season, the Dolphins continued their march to perfect ignominy. They lost to the Jets by 27 points on Sunday and the Jets are a bad football team. John Beck may be the “QB of the Future” in Miami but in the recent past – like last weekend – he threw 3 INTs and lost two fumbles. There is no polite way to describe a game like that. The Jets are now 3-9 on the season but against teams not called the Miami Dolphins, the Jets are 1-9. Here is all you can rationally conclude from that game on Sunday:
The Jets aren’t nearly as miserable a team as the Dolphins at this point.
Do you realize that the McCown brothers – Luke and Josh – both won NFL games on Sunday? Luke does not start for the Bucs all that often so he does not get to win too frequently. Josh plays for the Raiders so even when he does start, he usually loses. So, this had to have been a banner weekend for Ma and Pa McCown. Between the two brothers, they were 43-58 passing for 454 yards and 5 TDs. That’s not bad by any yardstick.
Here is an interesting way to look at the performances by “The Brothers McCown” on Sunday. They threw 5 TDs; that is the same production on the same day by “The Brothers Manning”.
Even with Josh McCown leading the Raiders to a victory over the Broncos last weekend, his performance was overshadowed to some extent because Raiders’ #1 pick JaMarcus Russell actually saw the field for the first time this year. Russell played a couple of series in the first half completing four of seven passes for 56 yards before returning to the bench putting on a baseball cap. To fans in Oakland, any JaMarcus Russell sighting doing anything more athletic than jogging from the locker room to the sidelines to don a pair of earphones is a huge deal.
Speaking of the Denver Broncos, their pathetic defense is on pace to allow 440 points this season. The Broncos used to have a defense called the Orange Crush. This iteration of the Broncos’ defense plays like a pile of crushed oranges.
With the Colts’ win over the Jags on Sunday, they lead their division by 2 games and they hold the tiebreaker advantage over the Jags by virtue of a season series sweep. There are four games to play; consider the Colts as the AFC South Division winner and move on.
The Tampa Bay Bucs – led by the redoubtable Luke McCown – beat the Saints in an NFC South match-up. That gives the Bucs a 3 game lead in that division with 4 games to play and the Bucs have to wind up with the best record in division games of any team there. Count the Bucs as NFC South division champions even though they are not mathematically assured of that status.
Speaking of the Saints and their come-from-ahead-loss to the Bucs on Sunday, some people have pointed to a flubbed reverse play in the late stages of the 4th quarter as the cause for defeat and the potential undoing of the Saints’ season. That may be the icing on the cake but here is something you are unlikely to see/hear from the national media because it contradicts their adoration of Reggie Bush.
The Saints are the only team in the NFL that has not had a player rush for 100 yards in a game so far this year. Yes, Deuce McAllister has been hurt; but Reggie Bush has been healthy for every game. In fact, Reggie Bush has now played in 27 NFL games and has precisely one game with 100 yards rushing since he was anointed as the guy who should have been picked first in the 2006 NFL draft and who took down a guaranteed $31M contract in New Orleans. This season, Reggie Bush is averaging a pedestrian 3.5 yards per carry and less than 6 yards per pass reception. I think those numbers speak very loudly and very eloquently as to the reason that the Saints are still looking up at a wild card spot in the playoffs after their strong showing last season.
The NFL announced that the halftime show at the Super Bowl in February 2008 will feature Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The only reason I might be able to tell the difference between these folks and Gladys Knight and the Pips is that Gladys Knight is female and most people named Tom are male. My presumption is that the NFL mavens have scoured the performance record for Tom Petty and each and every one of the Heartbreakers to be confident there will be no wardrobe malfunctions any more severe than an untied shoelace during the act.
Finally, Greg Cote noted this ominous trend recently in the Miami Herald:
Something is wrong. O.J. Simpson has gone several days without doing anything new that is embarrassing.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports …