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Mayor of Green Bay is looking for a way to welcome Favre back
By MJD
October 20, 2009
On Nov. 1, Brett Favre will return to Green Bay for his first away game against the Packers, and the mayor of Green Bay is looking for a way to welcome him. He's asking fans to send in ideas, and he'll pick his favorite four on Oct. 28.
One gentleman has already suggested making the world's largest waffle in the shape of a "4." I like that idea, and I humbly offer seven of my own below. The mayor has asked that the ideas be "respectful" and "tasteful," but I think some of these might fall short of that. Sorry, mayor.
• Turn this T-shirt into a billboard, placing one at every major entryway into Lambeau Field
• Change the name of "Brett Favre Pass" to "When We Really Needed You In the Fourth Quarter Against the Giants in the NFC Championship Game, You Threw A Really Great Pass."
• Wrangler jeans are declared illegal in the state of Wisconsin.
• Remember the goat that was painted like Brett Favre and locked in the trunk of some lady's car? Find it, dye it greener than a Chia Pet, put it in a customized goat-cut Aaron Rodgers jersey, and have it on the sidelines for the game. Also, if we could do this without it being considered cruelty to animals, feed it Taco Bell and Ex-Lax all day, while lining its cage with pictures of Favre's face.
• Burn Brett Favre's Steakhouse to the ground. Locals can throw their own Favre merchandise into the special fire for $1 an item. All proceeds benefit the local fire department.
• Declare the Thursday before the game "Brett Favre Day," where everyone in Green Bay is encouraged to tell lies all day, quit their jobs, and then show up at their jobs on Friday like nothing ever happened. Also, between the hours of 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., it would be perfectly legal to stab a resident of Green Bay, so long as they're stabbed in the back with a purple knife.
• Offer Eric Mangini $1 million to change his son's middle name to "Aaron."
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Traffic jam for Pro Bowl-caliber QBs
By Michael Silver
October 20, 2009
Drew Brees is headed to South Florida this weekend on the heels of what he told me Sunday was his and his team’s best performance since he joined the Saints in 2006 – a 48-27 thrashing of the Giants that left little doubt as to which NFL team is the most impressive to date.
An early MVP frontrunner (along with the Colts’ Peyton Mannin, Brees and his undefeated team will face the Dolphins at Land Shark Stadium on Sunday. And barring injury or a freakish dropoff in play, Brees will be returning to the same stadium in three months or so to cap a successful season.
Either he’ll play in the Pro Bowl, which takes place in South Florida instead of Hawaii a week before the Super Bowl this season, or, if the Saints (5-0) keep playing at this insanely high level, Brees will charge through the tunnel as the last New Orleans player introduced before Super Bowl XLIV.
The question is this: Who else is headed for a similar fate? Given that Manning and the Patriots’ Tom Brady are also all but certain to play in one of the two games, it’s a much tougher ticket than you might expect.
In the NFC, the Cardinals’ Kurt Warner is continuing his career revival by putting up big numbers for the defending conference champs. An even older quarterback, Brett Favre, appears headed for big things as the driving force behind the 6-0 Vikings. Throw in Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan, Jay Cutler and Aaron Rodgers, and it’s scary how many premium passers are competing for two or three spots.
Things are only slightly less log-jammed in the AFC, where Peyton Manning and Brady will be virtual Pro Bowl locks for the rest of their careers. If you’re Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, Joe Flacco, Kyle Orton (yep, it’s time to start wrapping your head around that) or Matt Schaub (currently second in the NFL in passing yards and sixth in passer rating), getting to Miami without a conference title will be a challenging endeavor.
On a positive note, there’s little chance of being beaten out by JaMarcus Russell.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the Pro Bowl quarterback derby as the weeks go by, and as the drama unfolds, it’s reasonable to expect that the players throwing passes for the teams at the top of these rankings are the most likely to be basking in Land Shark love come late January and early February.
Six weeks into a wild season in which last year’s best September-through-December team, the Titans, just lost 59-0 to the Patriots to fall to 0-6, we have a lot of questions about the current NFL landscape.
Here are 32 of them, for your inquisitive enjoyment:
1. New Orleans Saints: Is their offensive line indomitable, or do Brees and Sean Payton just make it seem that way?
2. Indianapolis Colts: Am I just imagining things, or did Peyton throw four more touchdown passes during the bye week?
3. Denver Broncos: Now that Eddie Royal has been unearthed – and they just essentially clinched the AFC West title – are there any remaining questions about these guys?
4. Minnesota Vikings: With all due respect to the great Jared Allen, should a man with a mullet be making cracks containing references to hair?
5. Atlanta Falcons: When you make Matt Forte fumble on consecutive plays near the goal line, is it fair to say you have a much-improved defense?
6. New York Giants: Who feels more degraded: a coed who shows up on a “Girls Gone Wild” video following a drunken Mardi Gras rampage or Tom Coughlin and his defensive assistants watching film of Sunday’s undressing at the Superdome?
7. New England Patriots: When the Pats scored that eighth touchdown on Jeff Fisher’s Titans, did senior football advisor Floyd Reese become so aroused that he had to excuse himself?
8. Cincinnati Bengals: How much will Antwan Odom’s absence hurt this team?
9. Pittsburgh Steelers: When Troy Polamalu threw away that knee brace before Sunday’s game, was there a doctor on the Steelers’ sidelines – or, for that matter, on earth – brave enough to order him to put it back on?
10. Green Bay Packers: How cool is it that Donald Driver just became the franchise’s all-time receptions leader, and isn’t he one of the more improbable success stories of his era?
11. Baltimore Ravens: Yo, Ozzie Newsome, having any second thoughts about getting rid of Matt Stover?
12. Philadelphia Eagles: Did Andy Reid just fall into a Black Hole – and how quickly can the big fella find his way out?
13. Arizona Cardinals: Did Sunday mark the unofficial end of their extended preseason?
14. Dallas Cowboys: Is it just me, or was the most offensive thing about that Tony Romo/Jessica Simpson-themed Burger King commercial is how stupendously unfunny it was?
15. Chicago Bears: Have any of the people who are all excited about the acquisition of Gaines Adams spent much time watching him play over the past two-plus seasons?
16. New York Jets: Could Steve (Father Time) Weatherford have picked a worse time to mishandle a snap?
17. San Francisco 49ers: Was Michael Crabtree intent on making his debut in Texas all along?
18. Houston Texans: After his free-flowing moment at Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday, does guard Chris (Yellowish) White realize he’s the 21st century’s answer to former Redskins and Broncos lineman Mark (Stink) Schlereth?
19. Miami Dolphins: Yo, breathless TV commentators – is it possible that the Wildcat is neither a trend that’s revolutionizing pro football nor an absolute travesty of a gimmick that will soon fall by the wayside?
20. San Diego Chargers: After two years of flailing through the first few months of the season before turning it on at the last moment, they don’t really think they’re getting out of this mess, do they?
21. Carolina Panthers: Did Dante Wesley temporarily lose his mind on Sunday, or do he and Clifton Smith have a thing over a woman or something?
22. Jacksonville Jaguars: Perhaps Maurice Jones-Drew should have spoken up sooner?
23. Oakland Raiders: Can JaMarcus Russell, Darrius Heyward-Bey and some of the Raiders’ other offensive players please exhibit one-eighth of the passion displayed by rookie wideout Louis Murphy?
24. Buffalo Bills: Is it fair to say that Dick Jauron is No. 1 on the billboard charts – with a bullet?
25. Seattle Seahawks: After Darnell Dockett spent half of Sunday’s game in the Seattle backfield, is Matt Hasselbeck all too aware of the genesis of the Cardinals defensive tackle’s nickname?
26. Kansas City Chiefs: Did Dwayne Bowe have his best game of the season because Todd Haley threatened to trade him, or because the coach threatened not to?
27. Washington Redskins: Will Vinny Cerrato’s next demand be that Jim Zorn wear a Bose noise-canceling headset during Monday night’s game against the Eagles?
28. Tennessee Titans: Who’s more pathetic in the snow – these guys or the “Fargo” criminals?
29. Detroit Lions: Don’t you get the feeling that Matthew Stafford’s knee injury might be more serious than they’re letting on?
30. Cleveland Browns: If Joshua Cribbs really wants to force the issue, shouldn’t he stop five yards short of the end zone on his next breakaway kickoff return and demand his contract be negotiated?
31. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: To honor the locals, will Carnell Williams ask that he be referred to as “Rolls Royce” during Sunday’s game at Wembley?
32. St. Louis Rams: If Donnie Avery decides to bust out the “Stanky Leg” toward the end of next Sunday’s blowout defeat to the Colts, how awesome would it be to see Peyton fire a football at the receiver’s non-stanky leg?
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Unproven quotes cloud Limbaugh debate
By Jason Cole
October 20, 2009
Jack Huberman is an idiot.
For those who don’t know, Huberman is a central figure in the latest Rush Limbaugh controversy. Huberman attributed two quotes to Limbaugh that were circulated days after news broke that Limbaugh was part of an ownership group that wanted to buy the St. Louis Rams.
At this point, it’s not worth repeating the quotes because they don’t appear to be accurate. In fact, they may simply be fabricated. In nearly a week since Limbaugh denied making those quotes, Huberman has yet to verify their authenticity and they have been pulled from sites such at The Huffington Post.
Huberman may have made an honest error (one of which he seemingly hasn’t attempted to publicly acknowledge). Or he could have done something malicious because it served his purpose (Huberman is the author of two anti-right wing books and was a harsh critic of President George W. Bush). Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Either way, Huberman was wrong and he gave Limbaugh a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Rather than have an intelligent discussion of why Limbaugh’s statements are or aren’t incendiary, he got to divert the subject from real issues. He got to do that rather than explain why he once compared the NFL to watching gang violence.
“Let me put it to you this way,” Limbaugh said, according to an Associated Press report. “The NFL often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
Then, of course, there’s the Donovan McNabb remark from 2003.
“I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,” Limbaugh said on ESPN at the time. “They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of the team that he really didn’t deserve.”
Here’s the rub: When Limbaugh injected race into the evaluation of the media and McNabb, did he actually talk to any sports reporters or research their writing to gauge how they were evaluating McNabb? Over the weekend, 17 long-time NFL reporters (including Peter King of Sports Illustrated, Jarrett Bell of USA Today and Armando Salguero of The Miami Herald) were asked if they had ever been contacted by Limbaugh or a representative of Limbaugh regarding McNabb. Further, they were asked if they knew any sports writers who had been contacted by Limbaugh or one of his reps regarding McNabb.
All 17 said “no” and “no”.
So apparently, Limbaugh made an assumption based on no research about sports writers and how we think. (Note: An email was sent to Limbaugh on Monday asking several questions about this subject. As of publication, Limbaugh had yet to respond).
The fact is that through McNabb’s first four seasons (he was drafted in 1999 and Limbaugh made the comment early in the 2003 season), his statistics and accomplishments were on par with current Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Troy Aikman and John Elway, and future Hall of Famer Brett Favre. In fact, he had a better touchdown pass-to-interception ratio (71-38) than all four of those quarterbacks through their first four years (Favre was 70-53, Montana 52-32, Aikman 54-60 and Elway 66-65).
As for team accomplishments, McNabb led the Eagles to the consecutive NFC championship games following the 2001 and ’02 seasons. Of the four aforementioned fellow quarterbacks, only Montana had won a Super Bowl during that stage of his career.
In terms of race, while it’s hard for anyone to ignore another person’s skin color, that doesn’t mean that we all fall into some social trap of judging someone based on that fact. For instance, I can confidently say that I consider McNabb one of the top five or six quarterbacks in the game today. By contrast, I can also confidently say that I think Vince Youn will never make it as a quarterback in the NFL.
Do I say that about McNabb because he’s black? No, I simply look at his ability, numbers and accomplishments and make an assessment. Do I say that about Young because he’s black? No, I simply look at his ability, numbers and accomplishments and make an assessment.
Furthermore, do I get some satisfaction out of saying that McNabb is one of the top five or six quarterbacks in the league? No. Likewise, I don’t get any pleasure out of saying I don’t think Young is going to make it. It’s just an evaluation.
In both cases, it simply is what it is. I don’t need to make something up, like Huberman. I don’t need to inject race into the issue, like Limbaugh.
Personally, I don’t really care if Limbaugh had gotten a chance to own a team. In fact, it might have actually been good for him to be around some NFL players, particularly black ones. He might have learned something. He might have even had an epiphany about what’s going on in the world.
Stupid play of the week: Carolina Panthers safety Dante Wesley is the easy winner for his egregious hit on special teams against Clifton Smith of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, it’s sometimes hard to fault guys who make mistakes like that in the heat of battle. Players will tell you that sometimes they just lose their minds while in action. Considering that, the aforementioned McNabb and Philadelphia coach Andy Reid get credit for the biggest botch of the weekend when they screwed up the timeout situation at the end of the first half at Oakland in a 13-9 loss. Mostly, McNabb gets dinged on this for forgetting that the Eagles were out of timeouts. However, Reid gets some blame for wasting the timeouts prior to that in situations that didn’t call for using timeouts.
Speaking of Young: I don’t understand why Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher isn’t playing him. At this point, even people on his coaching staff and in the locker room have to be supportive of Young getting a chance. Everybody knows that Kerry Collins isn’t the solution and should go back to being a backup. What’s worse is that Fisher is making a bigger problem for himself by not playing Young. Ultimately, the Titans need to know whether Young can play. If they (and, more importantly, owner Bud Adams) can come to that conclusion, it makes all the decisions the team must make for the NFL draft that much easier.
Moore takes exception: In the rash of emails I received last week from folks on both sides of the Limbaugh issue, there was one unique on that came from Michael Moore of Michigan. Yep, that Michael Moore. The filmmaker took issue with my contention that the NFL wouldn’t really be all that interested in having him own an NFL team anymore than it wants Limbaugh. Essentially, I said that Moore is not much different from Limbaugh in the eyes of the NFL. Replied Moore: “Actually, there’s a big difference between Mr. Limbaugh and me. I don’t make racist comments about black football players. He does. Also, I don’t have a record of being arrested for illegal possession of drugs. He does. The truth is, I would guess most players in the NFL would welcome my participation. The first thing I would do, as an owner, is divide up the profits evenly amongst all the players. You see, there’s no profit if they don’t play. In addition, those profits should be used for building stadiums if necessary [not taxpayer dollars], lowering ticket prices, youth programs, community improvements, and donations to research facilities for head and spinal injuries. And really – it’s ok just to say you don’t think Rush should own an NFL team. You don’t need to mention me because you’re afraid of the dittoheads coming after you.”
Upon a second exchange of emails, Moore generally agreed that his ownership would be questioned and got to the heart of his real frustration. “I only wish people who go crazy at the sound of my name would watch one of my movies. If they did, they may not agree with all of my policies, but they would learn three things: 1) I love my country, 2) I have a heart, and 3) I’ll give you a good laugh every now and then!” Moore wrote. That’s fair enough. In fact, you don’t really have to even plunk down money to get a sense of who Moore is (if you’ve never seen one of his movies). Watch the interview Charlie Rose did with Moore earlier this month. If you listen carefully, you might even hear some stuff from Moore that faintly resembles conservatism (imagine that).
Top five
1. New Orleans Saints: When Drew Brees is on, he’s scary good.
2. Indianapolis Colts: Peyton Manning vs. Brees for MVP is a great debate
3. Minnesota Vikings: Narrowly survived an odd defensive meltdown.
4. Denver Broncos: Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan is getting some serious mileage from aging players.
5. New England Patriots: How’d Tom Brady learn to play in the snow as a kid in San Mateo, Calif.?
Bottom five
28. Washington Redskins: Why is Dan Snyder putting a man like Jim Zorn through this?
29. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Made it close with a kickoff and INT return.
30. Cleveland Browns: If they have decide to jettison Brady Quinn after the season, that’s idiotic.
31. Tennessee Titans: At least this could be a good year to draft a quarterback.
32. St. Louis Rams: If they don’t beat Detroit on Nov. 1, 20 straight losses loom.
This and that
• Give Ravens rookie Michael Oher a lot of credit for how he played in the second half against Vikings defensive end Jared Allen as the Ravens nearly pulled out a victory. Oher was making his first start at left tackle and showed that he could easily be a great one soon (and allow the Ravens to move Jared Gaither to the right side when he’s healthy). Last week, New England coach Bill Belichick raved about Oher’s work, particularly in run blocking. On Sunday, Allen had a good game with seven tackles, including four for losses and one sack. However, Oher virtually erased Allen on a couple of key plays, including a 23-yard completion to tight end Todd Heap and then on 33-yard TD run by Ray Rice that was right at Allen.
• Speaking of Baltimore, its defense is in trouble and is just a shadow of the unit it was last year with Rex Ryan as coordinator and linebacker Bart Scott clearing space for middle linebacker. Over the past two weeks, the Ravens have allowed Minnesota to gain 167 yards on 31 carries and Cincinnati hit them up for 142 yards on 34 carries the week before. Granted, the Ravens were facing Adrian Peterson and Cedric Benson in consecutive weeks (the No. 1 and No. 3 rushers in the league), but this is a long fall for the Ravens, who were dominant against the run last year. The problem? It’s clear that the Ravens are getting beat on the edge, where middle linebacker Ray Lewis has been slow getting to the outside.
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Pats’ record-setting rout likely no coincidence
By Dan Wetzel
October 19, 2009
A little more than two years ago, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was immersed in a spying scandal that would cost him a $500,000 fine, a first-round NFL draft pick and a chunk of reputation.
Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher issued, at least by the standards of the closed-rank culture of NFL coaches, one of the strongest condemnations.
“There’s no place for it,” Fisher said. “Everybody clearly understands the rules.” He went onto discuss the importance of the NFL protecting “the integrity of the game.”
Fisher stood silently in the Massachusetts snow Sunday and watched Belichick’s team deliver a record 59-0 beating on his Titans.
Was it revenge? Was Belichick piling on in response to those comments? Was he driving a stake into Fisher, whose team is now 0-6 and who answered questions after the game about his job security? Or was it some shot at Tennessee after Belichick hired football advisor Floyd Reese, whose departure from the Titans was less than amicable?
Only Belichick knows for sure. For the Patriots, the best part of the debate is that there is a debate.
In one afternoon, the talk about a rusty offense, a gun-shy Brady and the potential end of a championship era was silenced. It’s like 2007 all over again. New England (4-2) isn’t going 18-0, but being capable of causing running-up-the-score debates again isn’t so bad.
“Look, we’re not trying to do anything but run our offense,” Belichick said. “We went into the game with a game plan and I know the score got out of hand, but we were just trying to run our offense.”
The Patriots ran their offense to the tune of franchise records for points scored, margin of victory and total net yards (619). Tom Brady produced the outrageous stat line of 29 of 34 for 380 yards and six touchdowns. He had five touchdown passes in the second quarter alone. The winning margin tied the record for the largest since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970.
Let’s gets one thing clear: Even if the Patriots were purposely pouring on the humiliation, the team most responsible for the scoreboard margin was Tennessee. The Titans all but quit on this game, another warm-weather team buried by the Foxborough weather.
No one should have any problem with one professional football team running up the score on another professional football team. This isn’t high school or college.
These are grown men, all well-paid professionals, with huge coaching staffs and equal resources. The Titans may be winless this year, but they went 13-3 last season. In the NFL, if you don’t want to get embarrassed like that, you should do something about it.
Belichick was adamant that he wasn’t up to anything. Fisher, for his part, agreed.
“That was their plan going in,” he said of the play-calling. “Why are they going to change their plan?"
They didn’t, at least not much. At the end of the first half, leading 38-0, the Patriots ran a no-huddle offense so they could punch in another TD. Rather than sit Brady with a 45-point lead, he led a second-half drive to make the score 52-0.
Later, with backup Brian Hoyer at QB, the Patriots went for it on a fourth-and-six at the Titans 31-yard line, converted and soon scored another TD for the final margin. In mop-up duty, Hoyer completed 9 of 11 passes – it wasn’t like he was just handing the ball off.
“What we wanted to give Brian a chance to do was to run the plays he’s going to have to run at some point if he plays, whether they’re passes, third-down plays, check-with-me plays, whatever they are,” Belichick said.
Belichick’s defense is reasonable. He did take Brady out in the middle of the third. And what exactly do you want a football team to do, take a knee on every play? He could’ve tried a field goal on a couple fourth downs if he just wanted points.
Sure, it was total destruction, but if Belichick chose, he could’ve gone for the NFL record, Chicago’s 73-0 win over Washington in the 1940 title game.
This isn’t Belichick’s first Spygate-related margin of victory debate, though. In the wake of the scandal, he spent much of the ’07 season rolling huge margins in a show of force that drove New England to an 18-0 record before being upset in the Super Bowl.
When Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips was quoted as saying that Spygate may have tainted the franchise’s three Super Bowl titles, New England pounded the Cowboys 48-27, including a final TD with just 23 seconds left. A couple weeks later, the Patriots converted two fourth-down plays in the fourth quarter en route to beating the Washington Redskins 52-7.
Belichick can go gangster like that. It’s what makes him the coach he is, the master of passive-aggressive paybacks, a guy capable of motivating his players against enemies real or imagined. They love him for it.
So maybe Sunday’s game just innocently got out of hand. Maybe the Titans are that terrible. Maybe 59-0 just happened to happen. Or maybe it just happened to happen to one of New England’s biggest critics a couple years back.
The Patriots should just enjoy still being capable of creating so many maybes.
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