MMTMQR: Yeah, I Started Reading TMQ Again

Why? Because I needed to find out whether or not that new "The Event" show that NBC is cramming down my throat is scientifically accurate or not. (SPOILER ALERT: Gregg did not address that topic this week.) (OTHER SPOILER ALERT: He also didn't identify the Wacky Wine of the Week. Fingers crossed that that item returns later this fall.)

Not only is Oregon scoring 54 points per game; the Ducks are snapping the ball and scoring so fast the whole thing goes by in a blur. "What did I just see?" both defensive coordinators and spectators must be asking themselves.

Literally. Except when they don't need to ask rhetorical questions and are able to discern that they're just watching a really talented offensive FOOTBALL team.

Call it the blur offense.

No. It's a no huddle offense that goes faster than most no huddle offenses.

Does this mean the Ducks have discovered a fundamentally new way to play football?

In case you couldn't figure out the already comically obvious answer, Gregg fills you in a few sentences later: NO. Unfortunately for Gregg, he answers "no" for the wrong reason; by identifying an offense that was fundamentally new 50 years ago and then eventually faded out. Did you know there used to be an offense called the "wishbone?" And that it was awesome at first, and used by lots of teams, but now barely exists? True story. The problem, of course, is that the wishbone was fundamentally new at one point. When you take the no huddle and shave five seconds off the amount of time that elapses between plays, you're still running the no huddle. Strange but true. Why am I still writing about this? No clue.

Fantastic offense hardly ensures a BCS bowl win for the Ducks. Oklahoma set the NCAA scoring record at 58 points per game in 2008, using a variation on the high school-style Franklin spread. The Sooners went on to lose to Florida in the BCS title game.

Ah, as soon as they faced a team that gave Sam Bradford fewer than 15 seconds to make his reads and find an open receiver. Also: no one thinks that a team is guaranteed a BCS win because they score a lot of points. Thanks for blowing the lid off that theory though.

TMQ continues to believe the NFL is merely talking about concussion safety for show, hoping the issue will go away. Player behavior won't change until penalties are assessed, and there are few signs of officials taking neurological safety seriously. If more personal-foul flags were thrown for helmet hits, helmet hits would decline.

There are like five of those every game.

Yet the NFL won't do so little as enforce the chin-strap rule. Why? Because the NFL couldn't care less about concussion safety.

I'm with TMQ in feeling like way too many dudes are losing their helmets these days, and that it can't be happening because of faulty equipment every single time. On the other hand, the NFL doesn't care about concussion safety because it's not penalizing players whose chin straps break? This has what to do with concussions? I don't know of a case in the past few years where someone sustained a concussion after they lost their helmet. Feel free to fill me in if it's happened. I know of a case where someone got their head stomped on by a 350 pound pile of asshole named Albert Haynesworth when their helmet came off, but that's totally different.

The league is just pumping public-relations smoke, hoping public attention to the head-trauma issue will fade and business as usual will rule.

What incentive would they have to respond to the issue that way? Would it cost them money to really crack down on the issue? And thanks for the unnecessary hyphen between public and relations.

United States Congress -- over to you.

It's not like they have anything else to do!

Sweet 'N' Sour Performer: Tony Romo managed to throw for 406 yards, yet have a terrible game. Only the Cowboys can really pull that off.

Lots of teams/players can pull that off. Philip Rivers does it almost every week.

TMQ: Grammar Snob: The expression "healthy food" has become widespread, used where "healthful food" would be correct. Food can't be "healthy." Food, in most cases, is dead.

Dear TMQ: Grammar Snob: DIE. You are wrong. (See #3.) And there's nothing worse than someone who's wrong while trying to be smarter than everyone. A dumb person who says "Me and my brother went down to the fishin' hole" is wrong but not annoying. A person who says "Whom went to the fishin' hole?" because they're trying to sound smart is intolerable.

TMQ contends that at moments of stress, coaches should yell: "Don't panic, there will be plenty of time for that later."

Imagining Gregg running a team from the sidelines at any level above Pop Warner makes me laugh. How could anyone take the guy seriously? At least he'd make things exciting by going for every 4th down and constantly attempting onside kicks.

Trailing by the new economy score of 24-7, Denver reached fourth-and-3 on the Nevermores' 19 with 11:54 remaining. Josh "When Does the Frat Party Start?" McDaniels sent in the kicking unit, and TMQ wrote the words "game over" in his notebook. Down by 17 points on the road late against a power defense, taking a field goal on fourth-and-short doesn't cut it. True, Baltimore was likely to win no matter what McDaniels called on this down -- but going for it was Denver's sole hope at that point.

His next sentence basically says that going for it was the only The completed kick made it a two score game. A 4th down conversion and eventual TD would have made it a two score game. So, no. As usual: no, no, no, you're wrong.

Christmas Creep:

Yep. He's still at it.

I watched Atlanta drip-drip-drip its way to victory against Cleveland and tried to think of something flashy to say about the Falcons. I couldn't. But expect them to be a factor in the postseason.

DO THEY GO FOR IT ON 4TH DOWN ENOUGH? DON'T THEY HAVE ANY UNDRAFTED OR PREVIOUSLY CUT PLAYERS? AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW.

Stop Me Before I Blitz -- Wait, It Worked! Oakland blitzed like mad against San Diego, including three consecutive snaps with seven-man blitzes on the final Chargers' possession. The result was 506 yards of offense surrendered but victory when three of Philip Rivers' final four passes, all hurried by the big-blitz, fell to the ground incomplete. So the blitz worked here -- but the odds say that if the Raiders continue big-blitzing, over the course of the season they will be sorry.

Unless it keeps succeeding and helping them win close games late in the 4th quarter. In that case they will not be sorry. Just like many teams that employ the blitz on a regular basis succeed every week. Kind of like the now 5-1 Jets.

Network Greenlights a Prequel to the Sequel of the "Nikita" Remake: Anyone can produce a television show that is mainly nonsense: As James Parker of The Atlantic has noted, to produce a TV show that consists entirely of nonsense is an art form. The latest variant of Nikita rises to the level of nothing but nonsense: There are no scenes that make sense.

Hyperbolic. This isn't Around the Horn we're talking about here. ZING!

So by Parker's standard, the latest Nikita is art. But like a lot of art, it's really bad. Five episodes have aired, and TMQ needs to get his points in before the cancellation.

First of all: THEY PORTRAY THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT TAKES TO TRAVEL LONG DISTANCES IN SPACE COMPLETELY INACCURATELY.

In the pilot, Nikita, this time played by Maggie Q, effortlessly beats into unconsciousness two huge men with guns -- Maggie Q might weigh 110 pounds -- and doesn't even muss her clothes.

No action movie or TV show featuring a female protagonist has ever stooped to such a level.

She breaks a dead-bolted hotel door with a single kick, shattering the hinges, then kicks a huge man, causing him to go flying backward and smash into a wall unconscious.

You're only making me want to actually check out the show.

One doubts even a martial-arts champion could do either thing.

1. Pretentious sentence. 2. Actually, some martial arts champions probably can do that. 3. It's just a fucking TV show. 4. Thanks for the unnecessary hyphen between martial and arts.

Nikita depicts its heroine killing bad guys by throwing knives. In one scene, a steak knife thrown into a huge bad guy's chest causes him to fall dead instantaneously. Even if a steak knife could be thrown into the center of the chest (unlikely -- the sternum is pretty strong), a person wouldn't just fall dead: he would struggle, try to clamp the wound and

You know the drill. This goes on for paragraphs. It's like he's holding a grudge or something. Did the producer of Nikita outbid him for opera tickets at a silent auction or something?

Can't physical reality at least be depicted accurately?

No one cares except you.

See you again later this week! I know our posting tally continues to slip- but I've decided that if I'm only going to do one per week or so, it might as well be a TMQR. I know you're all just thrilled about that idea.