Posts filed under 'Football'
Continue Reading September 7th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in.
Today: The Philadelphia Eagles. Your author is A.J. Daulerio.
A.J. Daulerio currently lives in Philadelphia.
Last year, in early October, Les Bowen, the venerable Philadelphia Eagles beat writer sent me a nasty email ending with “good luck with getting a real writing job someday.” Before that he called me a “fucking fraud” and typed with a level of invective and anger most often executed by teenage boys toward their cheating girlfriends. The reason was because I whole-heartedly believed a rumor that Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid, beleaguered by the troubles caused by his drug-addled sons, was finally ready to step off the sidelines and tend to his family. This speculation was there all season, but after the Giants defensive line played havoc with an under-prepared Winston Justice, sacking McNabb eight times on a Sunday night game that was somewhat less painful thanks to the Phillies miraculously clinching the National League East, the rumor became more factual. Kind of.
But Reid stayed. Thanks to myself and the other little Italian guy who runs Pro Football Talk, the rumor of Reid’s demise became buckshot for plenty of mainstream media folks in Philadelphia about the utter worthlessness and scary irresponsibility of bloggers. In fact, Big Red himself ended up having to call a press conference about the whole thing, letting the world know that, no, he’s not leaving until the Eagles don’t want him anymore and he has no idea what a blog is. Actually, Reid said he’s not “blog efficient“, which is just hilarious.
Throughout most of the 2007 season, I was writing for Philadelphia magazine’s Daily Examiner and, admittedly, gave the Eagles a hard time. The Birds’ PR flack Derek Boyko would call every week about a post I did or to answer one of my inane (but probing!) questions: “So, is it true that Jeremiah Trotter was cut from the team because he owns fighting dogs?” or “Hey, did Harold Charmichael lift up some Asian photographer by the throat?” were just a couple of examples. Most often, he would spit out an exasperated “No comment” then hang up immediately. (Or some times, just to let me know who was in charge, he’d send his own message.)
This year it’s all different. I’m no longer at Philadelphia magazine, Bowen and I are e-mail buddies, and Andy Reid is 100% focused on football and content to let his sons dry out in prison. Even the in-house stuff that would be distracting (Westbrook’s contract, no star receivers — actually no experience receivers, today, and the ongoing saga of the overcrowded secondary) doesn’t seem as turbulent as it has in season’s past. Give credit to Andy Reid for that. Last year he weathered through his most challenging season, missed the playoffs, but still somehow has this town (and major media outlets) thinking this team is once again a Super Bowl contender.
McNabb is healthy, the defense is better, and even though the offense begins and ends with Brian Westbrook, there seems to be a confident efficiency about them this season that hasn’t existed since he Super Bowl year. Plus, there’s DeSean Jackson, the tiny mite with the game-break speed and the fancy footwork that might be an answer to all of the playmaker prayers both McNabb and this town has been looking for since T.O. walked out on us. Maybe this is a team on it’s last arthroscoped legs and the expectations are just too lofty for one without the Pro Bowl roster of the Cowboys or the Super Bowl swagger of the Giants. But this is a year that all of those things don’t seem to matter anymore because, for once, I actually believe that Andy Reid knows what he’s doing.
Continue Reading September 7th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in.
Today: The Seattle Seahawks. Your author is Seth Kolloen.
Seth Kolloen is the executive editor of Sports Northwest Magazine. Just like Stephen A., Kolloen filed this preview from his Blackberry on Friday night while at the Mariners/Yankees game.
The fact that I’m looking at about 10000 empty seats at a Friday night Yankees/ Mariners game on as gorgeous a night as Seattle’s going to get in September tells me this: the Seahawks are the only hope for saving a dismal sports year in my town.
Consider: the Mariners were a complete bust, the Sonics fucking left, and we don’t have an NHL team.
(*Aw crap, there goes Brandon Morrow’s perfect game. No hitter still intact*)
As you’ll no doubt hear 86000 times during a Seahawks telecast, this is Mike Holmgren’s final year as Seahawk coach.
There’s a school of thought that Holmgren will “coach for broke” this year because he has “nothing to lose.” While I’d like nothing more than a steady diet of first-down double-reverses and halfback passes, I suspect Holmgren will continue his traditional West Coast offense stylings.
(*Ooh! Marques Tuiasosopo’s little brother just got his first major league hit!*)
Not least because, unlike last year, he has a running back who can catch.(cough.Shaun Alexander, cough) and a tight end born after the Nixon administration (enjoy your AARP benefits, Marcus Pollard).
Holmgren’s leaving his job as coach—he already lost his job as GM in 2005. In February of that year, the Hawks hired Tim Ruskell to pick the players. His charge: to rebuild the Seahawks defense. After first picking Lofa Tatupu and Leroy Hill in his first draft as GM, Ruskell has steadily built a speedy and talented (if small) defense.
The Hawks new commitment to defense was further proved when they named secondary coach Jim Mora Jr. as Holmgren’s successor. Along the way they refused to guarantee qb coach Jim Zorn a job in the new
administration—sealing Zorn’s decision to take the Redskins OC job, and eventually become the head coach. That now seems like a good choice as well.
The one black mark on Ruskell’s tenure—permitting the Vikings to sign away LG Steve Hutchinson—has been somewhat fixed now with the signing of free agent guard Mike Wahle to protect Matt Hasselbeck’s blind side with Walter Jones.
(*Brandon Morrow now has a no-hitter through five innings. There are about 10 millon guys in the tri-state area screaming “who da fuck is dis guyyy?” at their Yes Network”*)
Protecting Hasselbeck will be more important than normal, since #8 is beginning the season dinged up. Hasselbeck’s balky back caused him to miss most of the exhibition season (though Hasselbeck claims he’s “100 percent”.)
Would’ve been nice if Hasselback had had time to throw to the young receivers the Hawks are counting on—after a rash of injuries, the receivers after Nate Burleson are Courtney Taylor, Logan Payne, and Ernie Kent’s son Jordan. They are calling themselves, charmingly, in my view, “The Mystery Men “
(*strikes out jeter! No hitter through six! And the green boat wins the
between-innings hydro race!*)
A new running back rotation fills the other skill spot, with some combo of Maurice Morris, Julius Jones, and T.J. Duckett filling the sparklely ballet shoes of Shaun Alexander.
The ongoing story will be: can the Hawks send Holmgren out a winner? God, your going to get some sappy soft-focus crap if the Hawks make the playoffs. But throw us a bone, won’t you? We’ve had a tough year.
(*Though a 2009 pitching rotation with Felix Hernandez. Erik Bedard, and Morrow at the front end is suddenly sounding very nice.*)
Continue Reading September 7th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in.
Today: The New York Jets. Your author is Thomas Roberge.
Thomas Roberge is a Jets fan, but not a sports writer. He’s a book review writer. Close enough.
Behold the Pale Horse: The Gunslinger
Brett Favre. There, I said it, got it out of the way. Henceforth he shall be referred to as the Gunslinger. When the deal went down, I was utterly confused about how to feel. I like to imagine that if I were in a bar with my whiskey-honey voiced girlfriend and the Gunslinger was sitting at the next table, I’d have this conversation:
Me: And you must be Brett Favre. Look, darling, Brett Favre. The deadliest pistoleer since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?
Girlfriend: You don’t even know him.
Me: Yes, but there’s just something about him. Something around the eyes, I don’t know, reminds me of… me. No. I’m sure of it, I hate him.
On the one hand, he holds just about every passing record there is to be held (ahem, apart from career passing accuracy, currently held by Stand Up Guy Chad Pennington). On the other hand, he’s been around long enough to set just about every passing record there is. He also comes with the kind of baggage (hyperbolic accolades from the likes of Peter King, Chris Berman, and John Madden) that turns a sane fan insane. Instead of losing because Pennington/Clemens couldn’t put together a fourth-quarter drive of more than nine yards, we’ll lose because the Gunslinger will throw an interception fifty yards downfield. I’m withholding judgment, but I’m not optimistic.
And Hell’s Coming with Me: The Supporting Cast
The Gunslinger’s supporting cast is decent, bordering on pretty good. Blocking for him is a revamped line that features a pair of old guys no one else wanted to pay (Faneca and Woody), a pair of young guys who are still finding their footing (D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Mangold), and a man who I can only describe as serviceable (Moore). They could protect him like the Earp brothers protected Wyatt, or they could protect him like Wyatt protected his brothers. And in terms of run production it’d be almost impossible to do worse than the ’07 line did (19th in the league).
Thomas Jones needs to have a big year. Nothing else to say.
Catching the majority of the Gunslinger’s heat from his smoke wagon will be Cotchery (coming off of a career year in ’07 with 82 recs and 1130 yds) and Coles (who’s itching to recreate his ’06 output: 91 recs, 1098 yds, and 6 TDs). Watering the horses and ducking behind whores when the shooting starts will be a converted QB with a penchant for dropping balls (Brad Smith) and a second year guy who missed his entire rookie season with a foot injury (Chansi Stuckey). Your guess about the TE situation is as good as mine: no one seems to really like Baker; Bubba Frank is old but might be rejuvenated now that the Gunslinger has rolled into town; and rookie Dustin Keller is, well, a rookie.
Overall production will be up: when the Gunslinger comes to town, the local help falls in line.
You’re No Daisy! You’re No Daisy at All: The Defense
The Jets spent some serious capital in the off-season in an attempt to improve on their 18th best defense (29th against the run!), bringing in tackle Kris Jenkins and linebacker Calvin Pace, and drafting Ohio State linebacker Vernon Gholston. I’m lukewarm to all three of these potentially (probably) overrated guys, even Gholston, and I’m OSU alum. The backfield is anchored by Justin Miller and safety Kerry Rhodes, the one guy you cannot possibly find fault with if you’re a Jets fan. This is a man who would accept a deputy’s badge, and all of the responsibility it entails, without hesitation if you suddenly found yourself the sheriff of a small, lawless town flush with silver money and Latin-speaking outlaws.
The D will improve, but the question is: how much? I boldly say: maybe enough.
I’m Your Huckleberry: The Mangenius
I remember thinking, shortly after the Gunslinger rode into town, that this year represents a free pass for Mangini. If the Gunslinger establishes order, it’s to the Gunslinger’s credit, not Mangini’s. And if the Gunslinger can’t hit the broad side of Ike’s ten-gallon hat, it’s the Gunslinger who will get strung up in the North Jersey wasteland. Sure, there will be a billion opportunities for bad coaching to cost the Jets a game, but since Herm left I barely recognize them because Mangini tends to prefer winning to conducting experiments with the notions of fluid time.
Nonsense, I Have Not Yet Begun to Defile Myself: This Fan’s Hopes
A winning season. More TDs than INTs. Frequent utterances of “D’Brickashaw”, “creating a hole”, and “touchdown Jones” in rapid succession. And to never, ever see fourth-string QB Erik Ainge throw a pass.
Thanks for reading (assuming you have), and thanks for the whoever backed out of doing this originally—forcing AJ to email me.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in. So, for the next few days, expect a lot of these. Actually, let’s see how many we can get out in one day.
Today: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Your author is Josh Zerkle.
Josh Zerkle is one of the weekend contributors here, and also does his thing on KSK and occasionally for With Leather. He lives in the Palmetto State, home of the most overrated rivalry in all of sports, Clemson vs. South Carolina.
Only recently was I certain of how to spell Buccaneer (that’s with two Cs and two Es), which might be all the blinding insight you’d need into a team that you’ll probably never talk about, wager on, or even see on TV. But the NFL is one of those sports where if you follow one team, to some degree, you’re following every team. So let’s brush up on what makes this team relevant, both historically, and today.
—The Bucs had American sport’s first openly gay mascot.
Say bonjour to “Bruce,” as he was affectionately called when the expansion Bucs began play in 1972. And to ensure that Tampa Bay would be remembered as the Mecca for man-love, their uniforms were Some people called him “faggoty” and “a bad influence on hetero children everywhere,” but he was proud! And, sadly, when the Buccaneers updated their uniforms in 1997, poor Bruce suffered a miserable and undeserved fate. Rest in peace, Bruce.
Some speculate that the real reason Tampa Bay changed uniforms was to make way for the league’s first openly gay team — the Dallas Cowboys.
—The Buccaneers have a fucking pirate ship in their stadium!
Well, hang on. It’s not a REAL pirate ship. It doesn’t sail the stormy seas, it partakes in neither raping nor pillaging, and I’m quite certain that no timbers have been shivered to date. But it is 103 feet long, and the fake cannons on board fire when the home team scores. Still, it’s not like the Cowboys have a replica of the Alamo in their new digs. That’s because the Cowboys are neon-nightclub-flaming gay.
— The Buccaneers have players and coaches with whom you’re actually familiar.
They signed head coach Jon Gruden to an extension in the offseason. They signed 362 quarterbacks in 2007, but all of them combined were still cheaper than Donovan McNabb. Out of that fray emerged Jeff Garcia, who completed 64% of his passes in the 13 games that he played.
And anyone playing fantasy football this year is by now familiar with the meteoric rise of Earnest Graham last season, with his 10 TDs in a 13-game span. Graham restructured his deal so that he received $1 million just for getting into camp. Oh, and his 2008 salary is guaranteed. Dexter Jackson, one of those speed demons coming out of Appalachian State, was taken by the Bucs in the second round of the draft, and he expects to contribute on offense and special teams right away.
—The Bucs won their division last year; they’re good!
They did shit the bed at home against the Giants in the wild card round last year. But, as you know, that Giants team ran the table for their third Super Bowl victory just weeks later. The meat and potatoes of this team has returned for 2008 (plus they got rid of Chris Simms! Fist pump!) and they’ll look to repeat as division winners in a relatively weak NFC South.
For many decades now, the state of Florida has been a haven for retirees looking to escape the unpleasant changing of seasons in the northern states. If you’re a fan of one of the 29 teams that aren’t located in the Sunshine State, or one of the other two that are, give this team some consideration for you time and attention.
Or you can watch the Dallas Cowboys up until they buttfuck themselves out of the playoffs in January. Your call.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in. So, for the next few days, expect a lot of these. Actually, let’s see how many we can get out in one day.
Today: The Chicago Bears. Your author is Tommy Craggs.
Tommy Craggs is an Illinoisan, Urbana-born, who now lives in New York and contributes to Slate and Play and other magazines.
So it appears that the Bears are indeed serious about starting this Kyle Orton fellow, who every year looks less like a quarterback and more like a guy who wandered out of a dinner theater production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. In any other city, he would’ve long since been laughed off the field and onto the Toronto Argonauts’ two-deep. Not in Chicago. In Chicago, he is, in the words of poor Olin Kreutz (the center who’s had more mediocrities on his ass than Lana Turner), “the guy.”
I don’t mean to pick on Orton. It’s just that the state of Chicago quarterbacking — from Dave Krieg on through Cade McNown and Shane Matthews and Henry Burris and Craig Krenzel and Kyle Orton 1.0 and many, many others — offers what I think is a perfect fractal of the city’s great native pathology: pessimism. This is no mere pessimism, either. This is not like Boston’s, pre-2004, which in retrospect was just a lot of flakey stuff dished up by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dan Shaughnessy whenever they had a book to sell. Nor is it that generic Midwestern sort of pessimism, whose primary exponent can be heard on NPR and which therefore doesn’t count. And it is most definitely not Philadelphia-style pessimism, which is just the aggrieved reaction of a city that thinks it deserves better after all it’s done for the country.
In Chicago, pessimism is a different beast entirely. It’s the conviction that the fix is in, that fate is dealing from the bottom, that the formal structures of the world are inherently corrupt and that the stars are all aligned against you. And more than that, it’s an eager acceptance of this sad lot, whether the subject is Aldermanic corruption, or the shuttering of the steel mills, or the guy throwing four picks against the Vikings. Chicago, wrote A.J. Liebling, “has the personality of a man brought up in the expectation of a legacy who has learned in middle age that it will never be his.”
It wasn’t always like this. Once, Chicago was the city of Jane Addams and Hull House and the World’s Columbian Exposition and a Tribune that styled itself the “World’s Greatest Newspaper,” which begat the radio station WGN and eventually the TV station, on which one could spend a great deal of one’s childhood, three hours south of the city, watching Leon Durham botch a slow roller to first.
But somewhere along the line, roughly 1930 if you believe Liebling, Chicago ran off its tracks. It became the city of that old windy misanthrope, Colonel McCormick, the Tribune publisher whose animating philosophy was that the world was going to the dogs. McCormick’s pessimism extended beyond the pages of his newspaper. It was “a miasmic influence, discernible in the conviction of every Chicagoan that he is being done,” wrote Liebling, who also saw it in Chicago women’s fashion and even in the food (he had plenty of first-hand experience with the latter and I hope not too much with the former). This sort of cynicism went hand-in-hand with the old Chicago tendency to wildly exaggerate the mob influence thereabouts, turning it into a straw man for everything that was wrong with the city, though as often as not the true culprits could be found in boardrooms and City Hall (as Liebling noted in 1952 and as the Daley machine soon made plain). Later, the spirit of McCormick could be found in the vile Chicago open-housing protests, in which even the nuns went in for verbal abuse (”Whores!”), and maybe even in some of the sour fruits of Saul Alinsky (Save Our Neighborhoods/Save Our City, for example). In the 1980s, Wisconsin Steel shut down in a hail of torts, forever altering the fabric of the city. I’m too young to remember the closing in any detail, but the official version of the story seems to regard the event as an inevitability in the age of Reagan and de-industrialization — the fickle hand of bottom-dealing fate — rather than the deeply criminal act it really was.
Which brings us back, in a weird, roundabout way, to Kyle Orton, whose elevation once again to the starting lineup, despite his demonstrable incompetence, has been greeted with a great citywide meh. This is just the nature of things in Chicago. It was inevitable that Orton would be “the guy,” just as it was inevitable the Bears would draft a left tackle with the sort of back problems one finds in men who spent a half-century in the Brookside coal mine. A season after their Super Bowl run, the Bears have 5-11 written all over them. No need for outrage. It’s just how it is. That’s the Chicago way. The City of Shrugged Shoulders.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in. So, for the next few days, expect a lot of these. Actually, let’s see how many we can get out in one day.
Today: The St. Louis Rams. Your author is “Slow Jerk”.
Slow Jerk from StreakingTheQuad, a college sports blog run by four assholes from Missouri. Slow Jerk has been a Rams Fan since Jerome Bettis forgot how to play football for a season to get out of St. Louis.
I remember it clear as day. Mike Jones made the tackle that pretty much got me laid that night. The Rams won the Super Bowl (the effing Rams, man!). Being a native of St. Louis, I clung to the Rams right off the bat. We had season tickets, so we would go see our brand new team get absolutely embarrassed by real NFL teams. But we dug it. It was NFL football. I was able to make fun of Carl Pickens in person! It was a novelty at first, and then you just started feeling bad for Isaac Bruce. Fast forward to the fragile Trent Green snapping his leg in a preseason game. I thought I had been shot. He was our chance, man.
“Well, I guess we can watch the other teams we play.”
Enter a religious grocery boy from somewhere in Iowa. The Super Bowl was ours – I couldn’t believe it. We had risen to grace at a speed unlike anything the SEC has ever seen. Then comes along that piece of shit Tom Brady. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good QB. But I hate him. With every fiber of my being I want him and that kicker that shall not be named to somehow wind up armless and legless. After that, the fall from grace was as staggering as David Caruso’s career. Yes – the Rams are the damn David Caruso of this league.
Now, I know I’m writing this piece in lofty company (Will Leitch? Some guy who blogs and works for a paper? That Fatsis guy?), and I hope to live up to their similarly lofty expectations. I’m just a simple dude who blogs about college sports but LOVES football. Deadspin readers, humor me as I try to take you on the Willy Wonka Boat Ride that is the St. Louis Rams. I swear this piece will have more atmosphere than a Rams’ home game.
So what does that mean for this season? After 3 whole wins last year (THREE WINS), there has to be improvement. Sure, Linehan is still sketchy at best as a head coach. There are plenty of question marks. But, we play in a terrible division. Looking at it piece by piece – let me run down the Rams for you:
Coaching
Scott Linehan always looks like he’s unsure his role in life. The vibe I get is that he has some life threatening decision to make at every second of the day. His gameday coaching seems uninspired and sometimes unprepared. Sure, we bitched about Mike Martz. But dude had balls, bro. He would look you in the eye, call you a homo, and then pass the ball until he could pass no more. Why do you think he always had guys like Trung Canidate back in the backfield? Because he never used ‘em! Now, Linehan has one of the best RB’s in the game, and he somehow thinks throwing a short out to Randy McMichael is a better option? I’m all about TE’s getting in the mix, but sometimes the gameplan makes as much sense as the Jonas Brothers’ popularity (seriously, have you listened to that shit?). Al Saunders is about 399 years old and I wouldn’t be surprised if he were aware that no one uses the Run and Shoot anymore. Linehan is vanilla – and until he gets smarter on the frontlines, this team will suffer. Defensively, Haslett came in as a specialist. His defense last year was more special ed, and he has a lot of work to do to utilize the talent this team has.
Offense
The skill players have always been the Rams’ calling card. And there seems to be a revolving door of talent – until now. The RB situation is fine with Steven Jackson reporting to camp. I’d like to see more out of him this year than last, but we’ll get to why that would happen later. The TE position has always been kind of weird for the Rams. Not like the guy at work who is always chewing on a tack weird, but like Keith Richards falling out of a tree weird. It begs the question Why? The Rams have drafted a TE fairly high on more than one occasion, yet rarely do they throw to him. McMicheal is a solid pass catching TE – I’d like to see him see get more catches. Which this offense will need because the WR core is lighter than Michael Jackson. Torry Holt is still one of the best WR’s in the league, and he doesn’t have to change his name to let you know that. But after that? Drew Bennett? I think I have more catches and yards than he does. Dante Hall? The X-Factor hasn’t really been a factor since his KC days. He can still return the occasional kickoff, but has trouble holding on to that pesky slant. Dane Looker has always been a sleeper guy to make a big impact, but hasn’t really been able to harness his speed. Remember Kevin Curtis and Mark Furrey? They were both better than Looker, and they prove to be so on other teams. And the name Dane Looker just plain annoys me. Look out for Rookie Donny Avery. Kid can blaze. The Rams definitely need these guys to step it up, because Holt can’t do it on his own. At QB, the Rams have two veterans who are made of porcelain. They both look about as tough as the Olson Twins. Marc Bulger is an outstanding QB, when he’s on his feet. Which hasn’t been much lately. As much as he’s on his back you’d expect to see “Spears” on the back of his jersey. And at backup? The aforementioned concussed wonderboy Trent Green. They have potential to succeed – and it all hinges on what was the worst O-Line in the history of modern sports. Note to Richie – how can you be Incognito when you have those ugly-ass tattoos? Anyway, if the line can stay healthy – it takes pressure off of Bulger and Company – and this team can score points.
Defense
Leonard Little still drunkenly kills opposing players. Throw in Rookie Chris Long on the line with Glover and Carriker, and you have yourself a nice little D-Line. The secondary has been an issue in the past not only due to injury but due to the Rams’ propensity to draft short guys with long dreadlocks. This year could be different – Atogwe and Chavous are proven solid players, and Witherspoon and Tinoisamoa are two of the harder hitting LB’s in the league. This defense was on the field far too much last year, stemming back to the O-Line fiasco. If they can balance themselves out, again, this division is not that hard.
Other Stuff
I’m not going to bore you with special teams. What I will do is give you a quick version of how this season will play out. The Rams will be on the bubble for the playoffs. How is that possible? Well, have you ever trusted Arizona, San Francisco, or Seattle to live up to expectations? Linehan’s job is on the line – and maybe he’ll actually wake up and coach a few games. So, back to David Caruso. He’s doing OK now, right? I mean, CSI Miami is pretty popular, and despite his giant douchebaggery and overacting, people seem to kind of like him. He’s kind of a star again, right? So there it is – the Rams are back to kinda being stars even if their Coach is a giant douchebag.
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in. So, for the next few days, expect a lot of these. Actually, let’s see how many we can get out in one day.
Today: The Atlanta Falcons. Your author is Zach Hislip who writes at TakeThatSatan.
Where does one begin to discuss the clusterfuck that is the Atlanta Falcons? Should I start at the beginning and discuss how the Falcons started as an expansion franchise in 1966 in an effort to bring substandard football to the people of Georgia and have failed to produce back-to-back winning seasons ever since? Should I bring up the fact that the Falcons traded a young Brett Favre for a bag of wishin’ beans? Should anyone, anywhere ever speak of the “Dirty Bird” again. No. As you and I both know, you cannot discuss the current state of the Atlanta Falcons without first speaking of two men: Michael Vick and Bobby Petrino.
A Brief History in NFL Douchebaggery
Part 1: Ron Mexico is a bad, bad man
In 2001, the Falcons were a couple of bad seasons removed from their improbable appearance in Super Bowl XXXIII (a 34-19 “squeaker” that the Broncos eventually won when they showed up for the opening kickoff and then most of the Atlanta secondary was arrested for soliciting prostitutes during the halftime show). Desperate to get back to Show, the Falcons made a blockbuster trade for the #1 pick in the Draft. With it, they selected future Hall of Fame RB LaDanian Tomlinson. Sorry. I can dream, can’t I? In reality, the Falcons front office traded several high picks and a bit of their souls to get Michael Vick.
From the beginning Vick was filled with promise (and apparently marijuana, herpes, and an inexplicable hatred for man’s best friend). He had a rocket arm, unreal speed and agility, and an uncanny ability to elude tacklers. We fell in love with him, in a football sense. Arthur Blank, however, seemed to literally fall in love with Vick to the point where one could imagine Blank sitting in his office late at night, doodling Vick’s name in his trapper keeper. As a result, Blank signed Vick to a record breaking contract (if memory serves, it was something in the neighborhood of 20 years, $3 trillion, $500 billion guaranteed) By all indications, the endorsement of Vick’s new contract came with an exchange of friendship bracelets and an official signing of yearbooks. Regardless of the particulars, Vick was essentially made the managing partner of this crazy little enterprise we like to call the Falcons.
Soon thereafter, Vick decided that he wanted to become more than just a running quarterback. This apparently meant becoming more of a refined pocket passer and also a gigantic asshole. Sadly, he only accomplished one of his goals. In the years following the signing of the contract (and Vick’s official designation as Blank’s BFF), Vick unleashed a veritable torrent of bad behavior and uncatchable passes. He and/or members of his posse were busted for weed. We found out that Vick was in the habit of picking up girls under an assumed name and giving them STDs: Ron Mexico and herpes, respectively (it’s still mind-boggling that a grown man would choose to call himself Ron Mexico and that a grown woman would have sex with a man that she believed was named Ron Mexico)
Then Vick gave the hometown crowd the finger. (You stay classy, Ron Mexico). But the worst insult of all was the fact that Vick couldn’t hit a receiver on a simple slant pattern! He couldn’t even dump it off to his running back without throwing it at his feet or sailing the ball five feet over his head. I can’t tell you how many times I saw a receiver drop a ball because they were running an underneath route and Vick fired the ball as hard as possible at them.
And finally, in 2007, the final bombshell landed. Unless you’ve spent the last few years in a hut somewhere in Montana plotting the overthrow of the government, you probably already know that Michael Vick, the starting quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, was arrested, charged and pled guilty to several counts of felonious dog fighting. Too much has been written and too many emotion-filled debates have been had on this topic for me to even want to touch it anymore. I’ll just say this, I, for one, felt betrayed. It was like finding out that your uncle isn’t really your uncle; he’s just some guy that likes to watch you sleep. . .and he also brutally kills dogs.
Ultimately, we’ll remember Vick as a superior athlete that left us all with a few meaningless records, a crippling lack of cap space and the bad taste in our mouths that for most of us is disillusionment and bitterness, but for a few of us is also herpes.
Part 2: The Devil Came Down to Georgia. . .And Then Left 13 Games Into His First Season
Bobby Petrino is a dick. Pure and simple. You know it. I know it. Hell, Bobby Petrino probably even knows it. The man is an evil, greedy, cowardly buttfuck. He couldn’t treat the players like indentured servants, so he ran away with his tail between his legs. I’m not even mad anymore. I’m just. . .what’s the word?. . .filled with rage. I simply want the man to die, choking on his own excrement. Okay, I was just kidding with those last few sentences. I was never really mad. I was actually happy he left, no matter how bad it made our organization look. He was running the team into the ground. It was near revolt. If it were possible to have a mutiny on a football team, I’m pretty sure we would have seen it by seasons end. Imagine a Gatorade shower, but instead of a shower it’s more like a glass aimed to the face and instead of Gatorade, it’s acid. Yeah. That’s the kind of loathing we’re talking about.
In the end, Bobby Petrino’s brief stint as an NFL head coach will leave a lasting legacy. No college coach will be hired by an NFL franchise ever again. Ever. At least not until the last of the current owners dies off (which is a long way off. I hear that Jerry Jones sleeps in a cryogenic chamber and feasts upon the souls of the damned) Also, it has made the Atlanta Falcons into a laughingstock – the kind of laughingstock where a lumpy, man-boobed ego-manic (*cough -Bill Parcels – cough*) foregoes ridiculous money and the chance to run your organization like a black-hearted tyrant, to take the same job with a team that was one win away from becoming the absolute worst team in the history of professional football for the simple reason that he thought that that team had more potential. That’s as low as it gets, right? It can’t get worse than this, can it?!?
Can I just take a moment here and ask if it would be possible to apply for an official “Curse” designation like the Cubs have and the Red Sox used to have? Only this time, for an entire city? The Braves suck right now, sitting at approximately 60 games behind the Mets. And the Hawks just lost Josh Childress to the Greek League! Didn’t even know that was an option. Now I have to live in fear that they’re going to trade Josh Smith to the Harlem Globetrotters for $97 and the prop bucket filled with confetti. Oh, yeah, and someone told me recently that Atlanta now has a professional hockey team, but I’m pretty sure that that’s just the diseased ramblings of a madman. Anyway, doesn’t this qualify us for a “curse” – the kind that makes people in other states root for you for no apparent reason and makes your merchandise triple in price? We could really use it right now.
2008 Atlanta Falcons
So how bad has it gotten? A few days ago I drafted my fantasy team and did not select a single Falcon. Maybe I’m a homer, but I always found a way to justify taking at least one Falcon. (One year, in a fit of preseason induced delirium, I picked the Falcon Defense and Special Teams. True story. Oh, my league still laughs about it) But as I looked at this year’s roster, I didn’t find one guy worth the pick. Not because there is no talent on Falcons this year. There might be. But we don’t know. Not yet, anyway. As I looked at the “Expert Projections” for the Falcons, I had to laugh. How the hell did they accomplish that feat? Has there ever been a non-expansion team with more question marks than this one? A rookie head coach, a rookie quarterback, a starting running back that spent the last four years as LTs backup, an inexperienced offensive line, and a defense that has lost several key veterans and consists of about half rookies or second year players? I honestly felt bad for those guys trying to make their stat projections. Did they just randomly select digits? Was it Ouija board? Or was there a room full of computers crunching numbers for days at a time?
Head Coach
By all accounts Mike Smith is a fine head coach. From what I’ve read he’s got a good idea of what he’s doing, communicates well with his players and has a plan for this team. But this is Atlanta and frankly we’ve been burned before. We just never know what we’re getting. He could end up being the second coming of Lombardi or we could be watching him sob uncontrollable for the entire 4th Quarter by Week 10. It’s a crap shoot. All I can ask is that you please be tender with us, Mr. Smith.
Quarterback
At least throughout all of the Vick ordeal, Arthur Blank and the Falcons front office learned a valuable, all-be-it, painful lesson: You don’t give a player a huge contract unless he is a proven winner and you certainly don’t give him the kind of guaranteed money Vick received without absolute assurance. Wait a second. . .wait just one second. . .Yep, the Falcons signed rookie quarterback Matt Ryan to unheard of $72 million/$34.75 guaranteed contract. WTF, Blank?!? Is this a cry for help from a desperate man?!? Why would you do that? How can this happen again? And in a stroke of genius, the coaching staff decided to put their 72 Million Dollar Man behind a line that gave up 47 sacks last year. Yes, let’s do try and end his career in his first season. But at least you know exactly what you’re getting with Matt Ryan. After all, he did go against the toughest defenses in the country playing in the ACC! The ACC!! “He played Wake Forest, Maryland, AND Duke!! In the same year, you say!! Sign him immediately!! Pay him whatever he wants!! Of course I’m not concerned that he threw a ton of interceptions. Why would I be?!” Is that what happened, Blank?! Is it?! Is it?! But, Zach, you might ask, isn’t this kid the perfect person to build an organization around? I would say yes, if my organization was some sort of Christian folk singing group. I mean look at him. He looks like he came straight from a Norman Rockwell painting. He looks like some gargantuan Opie or Howdy-Doody. He’s going to be great at rebuild the Falcons’ reputation in the community. But on the football field? No idea.
I rest easy at night, though, knowing that we have such quality options at backup quarterback if Ryan were to go down. They’re like a good insurance policy. . .because you can never have enough insurance, can you? If you or someone you love is interested in obtaining more information about affordable insurance, just see our friendly associate, Chris Redman. . .Oh wait, that’s right, Chris Redman is no longer selling insurance, he’s the Falcons backup quarterback.
Running back
During the off-season, Atlanta signed career back-up Michael Turner to a hefty contract. And why the hell not? Why would you want to know what you’re getting into when you’re trying to rebuild a franchise? Just sign someone and fast! “What, he’s got only 225 career carries? But he was backing up LT! He’s just got to be good!” Am I getting closer, Blank?! Turner has looked good in the preseason, but then again its only preseason. And as for his stats, they don’t really tell me anything considering that he got most of his snaps in junk time when LT had already worn defenses out. I pray he’s good. I mean, I like Jerious Norwood. Had him on my bench all last year. But he is not an every-down back and I think we all know that.
Tight End
Apparently no one told the Falcons that it was advisable to have a tight end on their roster, so they didn’t bother. Seriously, though, I just looked at the depth chart and their starting TE is some guy named Ben Hartsock. I’m pretty sure that’s a made-up person. Good thing you released Crumpler in the off-season to make room for this Chaz Thrustbone character. Wouldn’t want to have a sure handed, big bodied tight end for your rookie QB to throw to or anything. . .
O-Line
The Falcons will be starting a second year player, last year’s second round pick, Justin Blalock, and a rookie, this year’s other first round pick, Sam Baker, on their offensive line. Depending on how you look at two fresh, inexperienced faces on a line that gave up 47 sacks last year, this could be a really good or a really bad thing.
Defense
Atlanta lost some talented defenders during the off-season, CB DeAngelo Hall and DT Rod Coleman. And they have replaced them with. . .well, they haven’t replaced them. I’m not sure if they were planning on it and just didn’t get around to it or if they spent all of their money on their new handsome, dog-loving quarterback. I guess they’ll have to make do with what they have. They did get Grady Jackson back anchoring the defensive line (or anything else that he stands on or around) which means that they should be stout against the run. . .provided that opposing teams decide to run straight into Jackson’s enormous gut. The pass rush should be. . .well. . .who knows. Former first round pick, DE Jamaal Anderson (not sure if they drafted him based solely on his name but it’s looking like another of a long line of bad draft picks) needs to vastly improve on his rookie season in which he recorded exactly zero sacks. The good news is that seems almost impossible not to do. RDE John Abraham is due for his next serious injury in about two weeks, so that should be fun. See you in 2009, John!
The one strength for this team should be their linebackers. Michael Boley is a solid player, Keith Brooking moves back to his natural position at OLB, and rookie Curtis Lofton looks like he could be the answer at MLB that Edgerton Hartwell never was. Conversely, the secondary looks like a veritable who’s who of unknown veterans and rookies or second year players. . .all except Lawyer Milloy who seems to be channeling Deon Sanders these days – in the off-the-field distractions and contract demands, not in the football skill department.
All-in-all, it should be one hell of a season!
What to Look For in ‘08
1. Arthur Blank’s relationship with Matt Ryan – will they start going steady immediately or will they just play it cool for a while? Will Arthur need some time after his messy breakup with Michael or will he just jump back into the dating scene right away? Tune in and find out!
2. 6th Pro Bowl for Brooking? Will he amass 250 or so tackles when no one else on the defense seems willing or capable of tackling anyone?
3. Which used car dealership will Joey Harrington be working in by season’s end? After being cut by the Falcons, several used car lots expressed interest in Harrington with Ted’s Pre-Owned Autos in Phoenix, AZ making a strong offer to “give him a shot” if Harrington could avoid the major screw-ups that hampered his NFL career. Or will Joey want to remain closer to home?
4. What will be the next scandal that throws the team into a tailspin and shakes the faith of the fan base? Will Roddy White punch a baby in a supermarket? Will new kicker, Jason Elam, be caught robbing graves by torchlight? Will head coach, Mike Smith, fake his own death and flee to Honduras?
Predictions
The Falcons end the season 2-14, rallying behind Chris Redman (who replaces Matt Ryan in Week 8 when Ryan goes down with a fractured pelvis and lacerated spleen) to win the last game of the season to avoid equaling the worst win total in team history. Also Joey Harrington throws everyone a curveball and decides to sell carpet in Michigan City, Indiana.
Go Dawgs!!
Continue Reading September 5th, 2008
The NFL season has officially started, so it’s time to fucking finish the impassioned season previews from various writers, bloggers, diehard fans, cooks, TV personalities, and numerous other walks of life whom consider football the only sport worth watching. Clearly, these previews will be running until, oh, the first round of the wild card playoffs based on how quickly they’ve been coming in. So, for the next few days, expect a lot of these. Actually, let’s see how many we can get out in one day.
Today: The Indianapolis Colts. Your author is BigBlueShoe.
BigBlueShoe is not your typical Colts fan, but like all fans he’s just a regular guy who knows his team is great and your team is puke. Despite what you may think or hear about him, he gets along very well with many Patriots fans. BigBlueShoe blogs for SB Nation’s Indianapolis Colts blog, Stampede Blue. He feels his community of Colts fans at Stampede Blue are the best in the U.S. of A., and he thinks anyone who ever questioned Peyton Manning’s greatness (Bill Simmons) is a clueless moron (Bill Simmons) who knows as much about sports as a blind, dimwhitted chimp who whores himself out for crack (Bill Simmons).
Your typical Colts fan is not me. He’s typically a pretty nice guy. He wears pulled up white socks, tan shorts, and he stares at you with that “golly gee” twinkle in his eye; the Ned Flanders of NFL fans. You see him walk into the sports bar, “okily dokily” making his way to the section showing his beloved Colts. He says “hi-diddly neighbor” to the other fans wearing Patriots, Jets, and Bears jerseys. They promptly tell him to get raped. But, as Jesus (and by extension, Tony Dungy) said, “Turn the other cheek.” So, Ned Colts Fan orders his Budweiser, sits alone in his section of the bar, and smiles from ear-to-ear as his team crushes the other teams, like the Patriots, Jets, and Bears.
After the game, Ned Colts Fan pays his bar tab and walks over to the other fans. He extends his hand and says “Hey, your team looked good. I know the score was 52-3, but they played hard and that’s what counts.” Ned truly means what he says, but the other fans simply insult Ned’s mother and toss beer in his face. Ned reigns in his anger, wipes his face with a bar napkin, and asks the bartender to give the other fans a drink on him.
“Turn the other cheek.” “What would Jesus do?” That’s all Ned Colts Fan thinks.
The bartender quietly tells Ned that he’s cut off those other fans. They’ve been drinking since 6am yesterday morning, and five hours ago they stopped using the rest room and are content to just piss in their pants. Ned turns and is confronted by Bawby Pats Fan. His hair, face, and eyes are red. His nose, teeth, and spine yellow. He opens his mouth and starts speaking in a language only South Bostonians and Klingons can understand. Ned can’t quite make all of it out, but he gets enough to know that Bawby Pats Fan thinks very highly of Ned’s wife, and would like to show her his “Big Papi.”
“Turn the other cheek.” “What would Jesus do?”
Ned Colts Fan smiles and suggests that Bawby Pats Fan, Louie Jets Fan, and Mikey Bears Fan walk with Ned to the bar next door. The four of them can watch the 4pm game, and Ned will buy everyone dinner… and a new pair of shorts.
Bawby Pats Fan responds by vomiting in Ned’s face. Bawby walks back to his boys, laughing, urinating himself, and wiping puke from his mouth with his #37 Rodney Harrison jersey. Ned Colts Fan, humiliated and berated just for trying to be nice, stands there smelling like stale beer and clam chowder.
It’s at this point in the story that I walk into the bar.
With the double barreled, NRA-approved shotgun of holy Colts fan righteousness, I blow away Bawby Pats Fan. He explodes like a zit in a fountain of green puss and cheese whiz. I knee cap Mikey Bears Fan, and I let Louie Jets Fan go so he can tell his friends (because seriously, why waste holy righteous ammo on a friggin’ Jets fan?).* I then walk over to Ned and calmly remind him that this is football fanhood, and it ain’t got nothing to do with Jesus and being “nice.” In fact, on Sundays from August to February, Jesus is a very distant second to football.
For years, we Colts fans were the butt of all NFL jokes. We were the K.C. Royals of the AFC East, getting the crap kicked out of us by quarterbacks named Grogan, O’Brien, and Zollak. We were the little brothers of the Bears, who were always good even though their coach was a clueless moron who’d taken way too many hits during his playing career. The Patriots would unretire players just to play the Colts, just for the sick pleasure of it. Even the Jets (THE JETS!) would beat Indy in playoff games.
Now, things are different. But, for some reason, after we’ve kicked the hell out of the NFL for six-plus years, fans from other teams still treat us like garbage. We extend a hand in friendship after games rather than taunt, and we get spit on. We offer a free beer. It gets tossed in our faces. We say, “Hope to see you in the playoffs!” We get answered, “Hope to see your momma later tonight?”
Not anymore.
We own you NFL, and it isn’t going to let up anytime soon. Despite what moronic peons at ESPN think, the Colts have one of the youngest teams in football. They have the #1 scoring defense in football returning all of their starters, and most of the key players on that defense are locked up long term and have only played for 4 years. Peyton Manning is only 32. Favre is 39 and still playing at a high level. So, if you think Peyton is going away, enjoy looking stupid. Marvin Harrison, who despite crappy reporting from National Inquirer wannabes like Mike Florio, didn’t shoot anyone last May. However, he is going to blow up NFL DBs this season though. I attended Colts camp and watched the preseason. Marvin Harrison now is the same as Marvin Harrison 3 years ago. Guys like Joseph Addai, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, and Anthony Gonzalez are all still young and all still very good.
So, if you were hoping and praying the Colts were going to go away this season, just remember that Jesus doesn’t listen to you. He listens to Tony Dungy, and his faithful flock of Ned Colts Fans. Enjoy watching the Colts kick the “dang-didly” out of your favorite team in 2008.
*No real fans were shot in the writing of this story. If you or anyone else thinks it is ok to go and shoot opposing fans, you were sick in the head long before reading this, and need to get put someplace where the walls are white and the jackets straight. Go Colts!
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