[Football] Pigskin Potluck

Pigskin Potluck: NFL season is half over, and it's been a strange and fascinating season. I almost wish I had my football column back. Almost.

• It started with Bountygate, and has anything ever had it's moral righteousness turned inside out so fast? At the start it was all the rage to demand action -- who were these savages trying to injure their fellow players? Roger Goodell put his hand over his heart and laid down the law; he could do no less what with the concussion problem getting so much press and all. Then the Saints, everybody's beloved puppy of a team, started to lose. Then everyone stopped to think about it. Then everyone read the details. Then the lawsuits came. A couple months later and Goodell is running for cover and suspended players are beating the rap. I realize there may have been some wrong-doing here, but I just love it when the sanctimonious get their comeuppance.
• Then we had replacement refs, who are now largely forgotten. For me this was a dose of self-awareness. I know I am an instinctive contrarian, but I never realized how severe this affliction was until I found myself thinking that even though everyone was up in arms over these guys, there really was no hard evidence that we're doing significantly worse than the pros. There are bad calls made in every game, often they are overlooked or excused away. I seriously suspected that the replacements weren't doing any worse, at least not relative to expectations given their experience level, they were just getting hammered because of perceptions and fashion. I honestly still don't know that that wasn't the case. But in the course of this I discovered one secret to lifelong happiness: Always agree with the majority and delude yourself that you have done so out of reasoned analysis. You will find the world is made for you.
• I can't remember the last time I saw an NFL game in person, but I have been to two Michigan games this year. Having given some thought to the differences between college and pro I have come to wonder whether the differences between the games are greater than generally perceived and whether that explains why it is so difficult to draft effectively over a long period of time. It has to do with the great(er) variation in athletic ability in college. This is most blatantly on display at QB where a very athletic QB will always have someone he can outrun in college. The offense only needs to design a play such that the poorer athlete ends up responsible for stopping the speedy QB and points and trophies and Heismans are in the offing. At the pro level, every player on the defense is a better athlete than anyone the QB has ever faced before. The QB may get away with depending on his athleticism for a while -- maybe even a full season -- but the defenses around the league will figure you out and you will fall flat. This is also true to a lesser extent in receivers and defensive backs. In college you can get away with just being a better athlete. Chances are your team has a receiver who will simply be outright faster than the guy covering him. Easy target. Once you get to the NFL you will no longer be fast enough to outrun the skilled and disciplined defenders, your success will depend on hitting your routes, adjusting on broken plays, and even blocking. It's entirely possible that players who don't get the big national headlines or even regular starts during their college career turn out to be the ones who are better at adapting, finding roles, and playing with their heads instead of their feet. This explains why the big NFL stars are often guys you never heard of in college. Denard Robinson (Michigan's speedy QB) is a blast to watch, but no one has deluded themselves that he is going on to much success in the NFL except as a role player. And as much fun as I have at the Michigan games, I still prefer the higher play quality of the NFL.
• Speaking of quality: Peyton Manning. He gets a knock or two for having only one ring but that's about the only knock I can think of. In fact, having that ring could be quite an argument in his favor. The one season the Colts managed to have a defense that wasn't below average he got them all rings. He was out all last year with an injury and looking at the Colts record you can get a sense for how much of their success was because of him. Now after a year off, four neck surgeries, and on a unfamiliar team, he looks like he's still elite.

  "Receiver Demaryius Thomas [says] that Manning recently installed a play during practice that included a fade-out route cornerback Champ Bailey described as "unstoppable." Manning installed another play that the Saints couldn't handle - during last night's game. And so the point is that Peyton isn't playing at this level because he has the arm strength of his younger days, but because he still has enough in his body and he has more than ever in his mind."

  I maintain he is the best QB ever and probably the best football player ever. And that's not me being a contrarian.
• Since this post is getting to be as long as my old columns, let me finish up by pointing you to my current favorite football writer, Mike Tanier, at Sports on Earth, formerly of my longtime favorite stats site Football Outsiders. He writes smart, literate and lively columns -- never descending into snarky juvenilia as is the fashion in sports writing on the web. In fact, I worry that he may have a little too high an opinion of his readers. For example, this quote from a column a couple of weeks back:

  "As usual, Julian Assange couldn't get accurate injury information out of the Patriots if you gave him a keycard, Bill Belichick's computer password and a stethoscope. [Receiver Brandon] Lloyd went down hard on his shoulder at the end of the Seahawks game Sunday and appeared to be very injured, but ask Belichick and he will just tell you that Yuri Andropov has a cold."

  It's marginally reasonable to expect Joe Football Fan would know who Julian Assange is. But Yuri Andropov? That's quite a reach. Great line though. Kudos to his editors for letting him go for it. I'm rooting for a followup reference to Konstantin Chernenko.

[Football] My Self-Indulgent Super Bowl Post

My Self-Indulgent Super Bowl Post: I've done good until now. I have resisted the urge to inflict a football post on you all year. No matter how badly I wanted to lambaste Brett Favrerer for his tomfoolery I held my tongue. No matter how desperately I wanted excoriate the bad plays, moronic coaching, and lame officiating, I stayed reticent. No matter how stupid I thought the decision to abandon the undefeated season was for the Colts, I...well, since we're talking about a team in the Super Bowl, I'll start there. Move on now if you have no interest in the NFL.

The call to take a dive had to come in from Colts team President Bill Polian. Had to. Peyton was livid about it and there is no way coach Jim Caldwell made that call because if he did Peyton would have just laughed his ass off and went back in the game. It's an open secret that Peyton is actually running the team and Caldwell is a cardboard cut-out they dust off and set up on the sideline every Sunday. It had to come from higher up and it was a horrendous decision because:

1. A team wins the Super Bowl every year but a chance to go undefeated comes along once in the lifetime of a franchise. You have to go for it. Look how long the '72 Dolphins have milked their perfect season. The Super Bowl is a career pinnacle. Going undefeated sets you up for life.
2. The NFL has a huge problem with phony games. When I wrote my football column I referred to the final week of the season as the Week of Shame -- when locked in teams lay down and played their scrubs, screwing fans and gamblers in the process. It was especially awful this year as teams like the Colts were locked in to playoff positions weeks in advance. (A related symptom is the long-running joke that is the Pro Bowl. David Garrard played in the Pro Bowl this year. David Garrard. Think about that.) This is really undermining the integrity of the NFL. If I was Roger Goodell, this would be job one...after a new labor agreement, anyway. This was a remarkably high profile example of a phony game. Ugly for a league that supposedly values integrity.
3. Worst of all, if the Colts win, it is ruined it for everybody. In the uber-cautious, superstitious NFL, every time the chance for an undefeated season comes up, every coach will take the secure way out and lay down in a late season game because it worked for the Colts where as it failed for the Patriots a couple of years earlier. Sample size = 2, but that's all you need for NFL coaches. It will be etched in stone that if you try to go undefeated you will not win the Super Bowl. "Lay down for a loss as soon as you can" will be the decision that won't get a coach fired and that's that. The '72 Dolphins are set for life and well beyond.

That said, I have to say I am rooting for the Colts. I have become a big Peyton fan. He is almost certainly the best quarterback ever. Probably the best football player ever. On every drive it just seems like he is carving up a defense like a Christmas goose. These are the kinds of performances future fans will wish they were alive to have seen. (Of course, unlike my generation, they will be able to see them. Probably at will on their iPhones.) Appreciate seeing them live. Sit your kid on your lap and say "remember this." Plus, Peyton is the best comic actor the NFL has ever produced by a mile.

And I think they will win. Back in Super Bowl XLI, the Colts came in with a newbie running back, riding a wave of late-season defensive resurgence that came from nowhere, and took the crown. This year they have a pair of newbie wide receivers and are riding a wave of late-season defensive resurgence that came from nowhere. Peyton is just too good to only have one ring.

For their part, the Saints can bite me. Oh I'm OK with Drew Brees from back when he was with San Diego and got his pants dissed off, first by a futile attempt to draft Eli Manning, then a successful attempt to get Philip Rivers. Then the Dolphins picked Daunte Culpepper over him (as a Fins fan, my eye still twitches when I write that). Brees didn't complain, didn't whine to the press, didn't ask for a government bailout. He just picked things up with New Orleans and hit the heights beyond anyone's imagination. Great work from a class act. The perfect way to make people eat crow -- by your actions on the field.

But the rest of the team, come on. Reggie Bush? Way to hammer your alma mater for years to come. Jeremy Shockey? Needs lessons from Peyton on how to be a lovable character instead of just annoying. That and a haircut. Then their defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, goes off on a live mike as to how they are hoping to give Peyton some memorable hits and if they have to take a roughing the passer call, well, he just hopes it knocks Peyton out of the game. The only thing that statement achieved was to put the refs on high alert. Any Saints pass rusher who neglects to genuflect before tackling Peyton is going to get flagged now. Good thinking, Einstein.

Worst of all, why are we still talking about Hurricane Katrina? New Orleans has had five years and untold piles of money thrown at them and they still cry about being victims. Remember that asinine wank-fest for the first post-Katrina home game in New Orleans, starring Bono? Wretch-inducing, but apparently that was just the start. A couple of years ago I went down for Mardi Gras and they were still wandering around wearing anti-FEMA t-shirts. OK, we get it. It was bad. You had a rough time. But you've had half a decade and well into the billions in aid to sort yourselves out. Why are we being subjected to this city-revives-through-its-football-team schlock? Will your football team really be your ultimate savior? It makes me long for a story about how Jerome Bettis is from Detroit. Maybe they are just setting themselves up to plead for government assistance to recover from Peyton.

Colts for the win is what I'm driving at here.

Topic change: A brief comment about the other end of the NFL spectrum. Bill Simmons recently posted a list of "tortured" sports franchises, the Chicago Cubs rightly at number one. But there is one team conspicuous by its absence: The Detroit Lions. Yep, in his list of the top twelve tortured franchises he completely omitted the single worst sport franchise extant. I don't blame Simmons. The Lions are so awful that they have simply slipped out of the consciousness of sports fans. They don't really exist. If they are on your schedule it is like bye week, you just don't even think about it as an actual game. Remember that episode of the Twilight Zone where the punishment for a crime was to be completely ignored by everyone and everything. That's what it's like to be the Lions. You don't even make Worst Of lists. You're not even good enough to be bad.

Football (With Regrets)

Football (With Regrets): I can't do it. I can't make it through the whole year without writing about football. Sorry, but the Dolphins won their division (by a tie-breaker, but still) and in the process slammed the door on that insufferable diva, Brett Favre. That cannot go unnoted.

I knew I was going to have withdrawal over giving up my NFL column, but you can't imagine the self-control it took not to go off on novel-length savaging of Lord Favre when he was doing his little golly-I-changed-my-mind-about-retiring-why-are-you-being-so-mean-to-me episode at the outset of the season. Favre has always been overrated and manipulative, but he finally reached Terrell Owens level selfishness.

In case you don't remember, the Packers, having already named Aaron Rodgers as the starting QB before the King decided to Return, did the honorable thing and kept their promise to a guy who patiently waited in the wings all those years while The Diva was padding his consecutive start streak. They offered Brett the back-up job, even though he would be a locker room cancer at that point. Playing second fiddle was, as you can guess, intolerable to Ms. Hilton...er, I mean Brett Favre.

So after all the wheedling and whinnying, His Lordship ended up on traded to the Jets. Having landed His Royal Brettness, the Jets summarily shipped their previous starting QB, Chad Pennington, to lowly 1-15 Miami, where this supposed mediocrity would mingle with existing mediocrities and offer no sort of threat to the Jets, even though they are in the same division. Favre must have been in hog heaven at that point. Not only did he have all the attention he could ever want, but he had the reputations of two other QBs (Rodgers and Pennington) hinging on his performance. Imagine the boundless self-validation of wielding such influence.

In the beginning of the season, things were going exactly as planned. The Jets were winning and sports journalists were trumpeting the glory of Lord Favre across the land. The Jets were brilliant and Favre was a true-life superhero. Still, even with Brett at his high point, there were flaws that were apparent to anyone who follows closely. You have no idea how many times I came close to punching out a column at that point, but I would have needed to new keyboard for every paragraph from hitting the keys so hard.

Readers who kept up with my erstwhile football column will remember that there are rules for having a winning football team. The first rule is: The Offensive Line is the Most Important Part of Your Team. That rule doesn't really have much bearing since the Jets O-line was marginally better than average. The second rule is: A Reliable, Consistent and Accurate Quarterback is better that a Star that Makes Big Plays. That does apply.

Another thing readers of my football column will recall is that I that place a lot of faith the cold, heartless statistical analysis that comes from Football Outsiders. That analysis indicated for most of the year, that Favre was putting up a less than middle-of the-road year at best. He was benefitting from a ridiculously easy schedule more than anything (as was all the AFC East). Meanwhile, down in Miami, where mediocrity was supposed to rule the day, the Fins were hanging in there with Jets and the Pats for the division lead, and Chad Pennington was putting together an outstanding season, albeit with roughly the same easy schedule benefit.

But it was still all about Favre -- he may throw an interception for every touchdown, but he's a game changer. You're never out of the game if Brett is your QB. Just knowing he's behind center raises the play of the entire team. God how I hate that nonsense. You can imagine how frustrating it was for me to watch that crap. And for a while it looked like injustice would be served as the Jets had the postseason in sight.

Sometimes, however, even in this chaotic world of chance and happenstance, things work out the way they are should. It seems that all the praise and puffery couldn't mask the truth forever. The Jets began to crumble. True to his history, the King of Intangibles started winging the ball to the guys in the wrong jerseys. In week 13 Favre could only manage 17 points against the Broncos, who were sporting the second worst defense in the NFL since 1995 (again, per Football Outsiders -- the 2008 Broncos are second only to the 2008 Lions). In week 16, against the craptastic Seattle Seahawks who had nothing to play for, he couldn't even manage a touchdown.

Down south, the Dolphins were still plugging away with Pennington doing what he always does (when he's not injured) -- being accurate, sticking to the plan, following his progressions, not wasting passes, and never drawing attention to himself. The Fins won four straight going into week 17, including 3 on the road. AS a result, they were in the driver's seat for the final week showdown with the Jets, a match heightened by Pennington's returning to the place he was cast out of for "someone better".

When truth, justice and beauty all coincide, it's a rare and wonderful thing to behold. The Fins played smart and steady. Chad completed 73% of his passes with 2 TDs and no interceptions. Brett completed only 50% with a single TD and 3 big ol' gunslinger interceptions. His final desperate pass of the game, and possibly his career, was an illegal forward lateral. In the immortal words of Nelson: Ha Ha.

So the Fins deservedly get the playoff berth and The Diva gets to go home and contemplate his next dramatic episode. Back in Green Bay Aaron Rodgers had a fine year, finishing as a top ten QB (per Football Outsiders), but the Pack simply didn't have anything go their way. Their play-by-play performance suggested they should have ended up with nine-ish wins -- instead they got six. Look for a big rebound next year as the statistical flukery reverts to the mean. That'll cook the Legend of Gunslinger for good.

In the fallout, the Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum, having discarded a better QB for a worse one and costing themselves a postseason berth, needed a fall guy. One of the only-hinted-at issues of the Jets season was a simmering conflict between the coach, Eric Mangini, who is a system guy, and The Diva, who didn't like to be told what to do or how to play. Mangini would sometimes question The Diva on his improvised decision-making. This is Something You Do Not Do To His Brettness and Tannenbaum had to side with Brett or admit he messed up by making the trade in the first place. Mangini was fired after the game. You live by The Brett, you die by The Brett.

The whole story is just 900 kinds of awesome. I wish I had written about it now, so I could look back at all the doubters and say "Neener, neener, neener"!