Quick Slants - Week 5
From the "Ouch, Babe, Very Ouch" Department: You think Buffalo losing to Dallas after having the game in hand hurt? Try reading Paul Zimmerman's comments on Buffalo's coaching in that game (he also laid the smack down on Green Bay's coaches as well).
For a guy who has to talk to those coaches occasionally, these may constitute the ballsiest comments I've ever read from a sports writer.
But, as someone who watched the drama/travesty unfold, I must agree with Z: had Buffalo's coaches reached down and grabbed a pair, Buffalo pulls off the upset of the NFL season thus far.
And before I stop beating a dead Buffalo, those of us who are Bears fans are surely smirking into our ale tankards today at the thought of a Dick Jauron-led team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...gee, not one of us ever saw that coming (snicker)...
This just in: Kris Brown just kicked another 50+ yard field goal...
Boy, that Indianapolis game was close, wasn't it?
I mean, at least it was close until they finished the national anthem...
For those paying attention, Indianapolis is continuing to hold up their end of the bargain as the best team in the NFL not named The New England Patriots. (And yes, I have November 4 circled on my calendar...that game might be the biggest non-Super Bowl football game in the last 50 years.)
Dear Michael Vick: the arbitrator just ruled on that whole bonus money thing with you and the Falcons. Next time you're in town, you might want to bring your bank book with you. Bonehead.
But keep ya head up, kid. All is not lost (I mean, except the MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars you forfeited when you decided that killing dogs was more important than playing football...but I digress). You still have hope.
After you get out of prison, too old to play football and too broke to pay attention, you can always fall back on that degree you got at Virginia Tech...oh, my bad...
Tell you what, anyone thinking that the Ravens made a mistake in trading for Willis McGahee is just not paying attention.
The guy is averaging 92 yards per game, which is 7 above the Jim Brown Standard. Any idiot (or dog-killing quarterback) can rush for 1000 yards in a 16-game season, but the per game average is 65 yards. Running backs get benched for that, unless they are named Cedric Benson (60 drive-killing yards per...but I'm bitterly digressing). When Jim Brown rushed for a grand, he did it in 12 games, at 85 per. Thus, any RB over 85 yards per game is getting it done.
And "Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout" Willis is getting it done.
No, the problem is that we have an alleged offensive coach in Brian Billick who just can't run an offense that doesn't have Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper in it. How else does any rational person explain barely beating a Trent Dilfer team by 2...when Dilfer was basically coming off the bench with his playbook still in his hands?
How else can any rational person explain just what the hell Mike Nolan was doing, anyway? Maybe that whole necktie thingy is cutting off the circulation to his head...
When all is said and done, Billick will go out like Mike Ditka did, as a coach who squandered a championship-level defense and wasted valuable Super Bowl chances in the process. Just as the 80's Bears should have won more than one, the recent Ravens should also have won more than one.
It's official: Kurt Warner has more lives than a cat.
Nothing wrong with New England, kids...nothing at all.
You know that The Belicheat has the players drinking the kool-aid when serial malcontent Randy Moss was seen actually blocking downfield for someone else, in a game in which he did not have his usual spectacular Patriot numbers.
New England barely broke a sweat beating Cleveland, Moss was silent and happy and blocking (!!) on a day that didn't see him get into the endzone, and the rest of the NFL just lost another step to the premier franchise in the league.
This just in: Kris Brown has kicked another 50+ yard field goal...
One wonders if Jack Del Rio is paying attention: when Maurice Jones-Drew gets the majority of the carries, Jacksonville wins. When Fraud, er, Fred Taylor gets the majority of the carries, Jacksonville loses.
Or maybe it's just me...
I had given my beloved Bears up for dead this past weekend. What with devastating injuries on defense and abysmal play on offense, I thought that they would die a miserable death in Cheesehead, Wisconsin.
Instead, they refused to lay down and die. They quit making excuses and started making plays, and won a game that they should have lost...indeed, a game that they were losing at halftime.
Apparently, taciturn head coach Lovie Smith blistered the paint off the walls in the locker room at the half, all Ditka-style, and the players came out in the second half snorting smoke and pawing the earth.
Good for them. If the Bears have recovered their mojo, they can still make a playoff run. Buffalo exposed Dallas (just like I said they would, by the way), Seattle just got crushed in Pittsburgh, and, aside from Washington, no one else scares anyone in the NFC.
If Tennessee can play badly and still win, what will happen when they finally put a good game together?
(And, uh, you'll note that I've been on the Keith Bulluck bandwagon all season...word is bond...)
By the way, since I'm patting myself on the back, you'll remember that you read it here first: Detroit is a fraud.
Word around the campfire is that they are considering trading Tatum Bell back to Denver, in the wake of Travis Henry's troubles (more on him in a minute).
But really, how bad is Bell? With the passing game that the Lions have, shouldn't there be a few holes for the adventurous running back to exploit?
Any team foolish enough to put 8 or 9 men in the box against Mike Martz's Aerial Daredevils risks getting burned by a very good group of receivers, and you have to figure that the words "play-action fake" still have some cachet in an offense like that...but there Bell is, doing his best Artose Pinner impression...
But back to Travis Henry, exactly how dumb is this guy?
It's bad enough that he has apparently never heard of the condom (hell, even United Airlines always pulls out on time...snicker), but he signed a contract that expressly forbade him from smoking the herb or he loses his money...at which point he gets caught smoking the herb.
Well, I guess this is why they call it "dope."
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't make NEARLY as much as Henry does and yet I wouldn't think of smoking the reefer in my current job...you know, because they FIRE you for stuff like that.
It's what I heard, anyway...
New Orleans plays St. Louis on November 11.
The world as we know it may cease to exist shortly thereafter.
And the only just thing that can happen is that they play to a tie, because there is no stinkin' way either of them will have merited a victory.
Someone needs to wrap a couple of rolls of duct tape around Priest Holmes' mouth after the former fantasy god tried offering advice to Larry Johnson.
See, I'm thinking that Larry Johnson is struggling because he's like the ONLY OFFENSIVE OPTION IN KANSAS CITY.
This is what happens when you have both Flotsam and Jetsam at quarterback.
From the "Nobody Knows Nothin'" Department: what is going on with the Giants? Can anybody explain this team to me?
They flat-out quit on Tom Coughlin a couple of weeks ago.
What, now they have a pulse again?
And speaking of pulses, be honest: none of us saw San Diego going into Denver and hanging 41 on the Broncos.
After that result, and based solely upon that result, I am officially starting my Fire Mike Shanahan crusade, and I will not rest until he is no longer employed by the Denver Broncos.
There is no excuse for his losing to a Chargers team allegedly coached by Norv The Idiot Turner, and there is even less than no excuse for losing to Norv The Idiot Turner at home, and I have to think that he deliberately allowed Norv The Idiot Turner's team to embarrass the Broncos by 38 points in Denver, because mere incompetency doesn't begin to address all that was wrong with this result.
For crying out loud, he was coaching against Norv The Idiot Turner and came off worst in the exchange. And will someone try to convince me that the same Kansas City team that just lost at home to the somnambulent Jaguars had answers for San Diego (in San Diego!!) that Shanahan didn't have in Denver?
And there I am, reading about how Denver was without Tom Nalen and Javon Walker and blah blah blah. Winners don't make excuses for injury (see Indianapolis). Losers take their worst home defeat since the Johnson Administration.
And they STILL haven't tackled Michael Turner...the way they made Turner look on Sunday, he might owe them royalties on his next huuuuuge free agent contract when he inevitably leaves SD.
This was, by far, the most dismal performance of the season, and the most inexcusable. Mike Shanahan has got to go, now.
...and I'm OUT like Matt Leinart...
For a guy who has to talk to those coaches occasionally, these may constitute the ballsiest comments I've ever read from a sports writer.
But, as someone who watched the drama/travesty unfold, I must agree with Z: had Buffalo's coaches reached down and grabbed a pair, Buffalo pulls off the upset of the NFL season thus far.
And before I stop beating a dead Buffalo, those of us who are Bears fans are surely smirking into our ale tankards today at the thought of a Dick Jauron-led team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...gee, not one of us ever saw that coming (snicker)...
This just in: Kris Brown just kicked another 50+ yard field goal...
Boy, that Indianapolis game was close, wasn't it?
I mean, at least it was close until they finished the national anthem...
For those paying attention, Indianapolis is continuing to hold up their end of the bargain as the best team in the NFL not named The New England Patriots. (And yes, I have November 4 circled on my calendar...that game might be the biggest non-Super Bowl football game in the last 50 years.)
Dear Michael Vick: the arbitrator just ruled on that whole bonus money thing with you and the Falcons. Next time you're in town, you might want to bring your bank book with you. Bonehead.
But keep ya head up, kid. All is not lost (I mean, except the MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars you forfeited when you decided that killing dogs was more important than playing football...but I digress). You still have hope.
After you get out of prison, too old to play football and too broke to pay attention, you can always fall back on that degree you got at Virginia Tech...oh, my bad...
Tell you what, anyone thinking that the Ravens made a mistake in trading for Willis McGahee is just not paying attention.
The guy is averaging 92 yards per game, which is 7 above the Jim Brown Standard. Any idiot (or dog-killing quarterback) can rush for 1000 yards in a 16-game season, but the per game average is 65 yards. Running backs get benched for that, unless they are named Cedric Benson (60 drive-killing yards per...but I'm bitterly digressing). When Jim Brown rushed for a grand, he did it in 12 games, at 85 per. Thus, any RB over 85 yards per game is getting it done.
And "Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout" Willis is getting it done.
No, the problem is that we have an alleged offensive coach in Brian Billick who just can't run an offense that doesn't have Randy Moss and Daunte Culpepper in it. How else does any rational person explain barely beating a Trent Dilfer team by 2...when Dilfer was basically coming off the bench with his playbook still in his hands?
How else can any rational person explain just what the hell Mike Nolan was doing, anyway? Maybe that whole necktie thingy is cutting off the circulation to his head...
When all is said and done, Billick will go out like Mike Ditka did, as a coach who squandered a championship-level defense and wasted valuable Super Bowl chances in the process. Just as the 80's Bears should have won more than one, the recent Ravens should also have won more than one.
It's official: Kurt Warner has more lives than a cat.
Nothing wrong with New England, kids...nothing at all.
You know that The Belicheat has the players drinking the kool-aid when serial malcontent Randy Moss was seen actually blocking downfield for someone else, in a game in which he did not have his usual spectacular Patriot numbers.
New England barely broke a sweat beating Cleveland, Moss was silent and happy and blocking (!!) on a day that didn't see him get into the endzone, and the rest of the NFL just lost another step to the premier franchise in the league.
This just in: Kris Brown has kicked another 50+ yard field goal...
One wonders if Jack Del Rio is paying attention: when Maurice Jones-Drew gets the majority of the carries, Jacksonville wins. When Fraud, er, Fred Taylor gets the majority of the carries, Jacksonville loses.
Or maybe it's just me...
I had given my beloved Bears up for dead this past weekend. What with devastating injuries on defense and abysmal play on offense, I thought that they would die a miserable death in Cheesehead, Wisconsin.
Instead, they refused to lay down and die. They quit making excuses and started making plays, and won a game that they should have lost...indeed, a game that they were losing at halftime.
Apparently, taciturn head coach Lovie Smith blistered the paint off the walls in the locker room at the half, all Ditka-style, and the players came out in the second half snorting smoke and pawing the earth.
Good for them. If the Bears have recovered their mojo, they can still make a playoff run. Buffalo exposed Dallas (just like I said they would, by the way), Seattle just got crushed in Pittsburgh, and, aside from Washington, no one else scares anyone in the NFC.
If Tennessee can play badly and still win, what will happen when they finally put a good game together?
(And, uh, you'll note that I've been on the Keith Bulluck bandwagon all season...word is bond...)
By the way, since I'm patting myself on the back, you'll remember that you read it here first: Detroit is a fraud.
Word around the campfire is that they are considering trading Tatum Bell back to Denver, in the wake of Travis Henry's troubles (more on him in a minute).
But really, how bad is Bell? With the passing game that the Lions have, shouldn't there be a few holes for the adventurous running back to exploit?
Any team foolish enough to put 8 or 9 men in the box against Mike Martz's Aerial Daredevils risks getting burned by a very good group of receivers, and you have to figure that the words "play-action fake" still have some cachet in an offense like that...but there Bell is, doing his best Artose Pinner impression...
But back to Travis Henry, exactly how dumb is this guy?
It's bad enough that he has apparently never heard of the condom (hell, even United Airlines always pulls out on time...snicker), but he signed a contract that expressly forbade him from smoking the herb or he loses his money...at which point he gets caught smoking the herb.
Well, I guess this is why they call it "dope."
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I don't make NEARLY as much as Henry does and yet I wouldn't think of smoking the reefer in my current job...you know, because they FIRE you for stuff like that.
It's what I heard, anyway...
New Orleans plays St. Louis on November 11.
The world as we know it may cease to exist shortly thereafter.
And the only just thing that can happen is that they play to a tie, because there is no stinkin' way either of them will have merited a victory.
Someone needs to wrap a couple of rolls of duct tape around Priest Holmes' mouth after the former fantasy god tried offering advice to Larry Johnson.
See, I'm thinking that Larry Johnson is struggling because he's like the ONLY OFFENSIVE OPTION IN KANSAS CITY.
This is what happens when you have both Flotsam and Jetsam at quarterback.
From the "Nobody Knows Nothin'" Department: what is going on with the Giants? Can anybody explain this team to me?
They flat-out quit on Tom Coughlin a couple of weeks ago.
What, now they have a pulse again?
And speaking of pulses, be honest: none of us saw San Diego going into Denver and hanging 41 on the Broncos.
After that result, and based solely upon that result, I am officially starting my Fire Mike Shanahan crusade, and I will not rest until he is no longer employed by the Denver Broncos.
There is no excuse for his losing to a Chargers team allegedly coached by Norv The Idiot Turner, and there is even less than no excuse for losing to Norv The Idiot Turner at home, and I have to think that he deliberately allowed Norv The Idiot Turner's team to embarrass the Broncos by 38 points in Denver, because mere incompetency doesn't begin to address all that was wrong with this result.
For crying out loud, he was coaching against Norv The Idiot Turner and came off worst in the exchange. And will someone try to convince me that the same Kansas City team that just lost at home to the somnambulent Jaguars had answers for San Diego (in San Diego!!) that Shanahan didn't have in Denver?
And there I am, reading about how Denver was without Tom Nalen and Javon Walker and blah blah blah. Winners don't make excuses for injury (see Indianapolis). Losers take their worst home defeat since the Johnson Administration.
And they STILL haven't tackled Michael Turner...the way they made Turner look on Sunday, he might owe them royalties on his next huuuuuge free agent contract when he inevitably leaves SD.
This was, by far, the most dismal performance of the season, and the most inexcusable. Mike Shanahan has got to go, now.
...and I'm OUT like Matt Leinart...
Labels: NFL
posted by van walker | 7:52 PM
1 Comments:
1) Answer to the Travis Henry question: At least as dumb as Michael Vick.
2) Bob Slowik should be fired before Shanahan.
That's all the Broncos I want to talk about. They don't deserve the wear and tear on my fingertips after last week's ennui-laden performance.
Until further notice, all Broncos will be known as "Camille;" apologies to Dumas's plucky heroine.
Side note for you: did you hear Sal Paolantonio wrote a book on the most overrated players/teams in football? Did you hear he rated the 1985 Bears as the most overrated team?
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