FMTMQR: NFL returns // I'm sick of it already // Fuck Gregg Easterbrook

It's time for the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE OF FOOTBALL TEAMS to resume play.  Thus, I will resume torturing myself by trying to get through Easterbrook's columns without descending into a fitful rage of all caps internet yelling.  This column is particularly fun (read: goddamn infuriating) because of his continued misunderstanding as to whether people want to read haikus when they're looking for sports analysis.  He thinks they do, but little does he know, haikus are enjoyed only by serious poetry academics, 4th graders learning poetry and cleft-assholed writers.

America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions! 

I hate this article already!

This is the 15th year, the crystal anniversary -- Bristol, I'd like a dilithium crystal, please. 

Would a swift kick in the cunt work instead?

Below find a haiku, with predicted record, for each of the NFL's 32 teams. Allowing you casually to say to friends and romantic interests, "Hey, I was reading poetry today."

And if they sincerely respond with "That's very interesting," then fuck you and fuck them.

First, one of those serious topics that comes before fun. 

WHY ARE THE JEWS MAKING SO MANY VIOLENT MOVIES?  It's a new season, so I get to break that reference out again.  And hell, I might break it out in every TMQR.  Who's going to stop me?

There's progress at the intersection of sports and society -- especially, of football and society. In just the past five years, a bleak picture has improved. 

Uh... barely?  Negligibly?

So -- is victory won?

No?

• Emphasis on reducing deliberate helmet-to-helmet contact at all levels of football -- pro, college, high school and youth.

The NFL insists that rule changes aimed in this direction have nothing to do with concussion prevention, because football does not cause concussions, and even if it did, it would be the fault of the players who agreed to play the sport, not of the NFL or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.

• Emphasis at all levels on teaching heads-up tackling form, something many coaches didn't even know about not long ago.

Yeah fucking right.  Coaches used to tell kids that leading with the head was perfectly acceptable--in fact, it was preferred, because it's easier to not see where you're going when you're trying to spear a guy in the sternum!

• Reduced contact time in practice -- more concussions happen in practice than in games -- in the NFL and NCAA. The defending champion Seahawks were just zinged by the league for not adhering to the less-contact rule.

I'm real sure these rules will be taken very seriously, especially at the NCAA level, where the average coach falls somewhere between "Ted Bundy" and "Timothy McVeigh" on the sociopath scale.

• The Ed O'Bannon and Power Five decisions, which may lead either to less inequity in the financial situations of big-college athletes or to the collapse of the NCAA. Either would be preferable to the current arrangement.

I'm happy about the O'Bannon decision (haven't read Power Five yet), but I am pretty sure that for fans of the sport of football, the collapse of the NCAA is not preferable to the current system, no matter how much said system eats butthole.

• ESPN put its weight and brand behind adding graduation rates to the ranking of college teams.

The latest sensation that's sweeping the nation!  ESPN Grade (that's really what it's called), the sports world's newest ranking system that is definitely going to change the way fans look at top 25 football programs!

Most important because of the large numbers involved at the prep level -- never forget most serious football is played in high school, and it's played by people who, legally, are children -- are two huge reforms:

I'll bet you thought most football was played by 57 year olds, but you're wrong.  Only Gregggggg has the intellectual capacity to understand that a time-consuming and athletically demanding sport is mostly played by the section of society with the most free time and spare energy.

• State laws requiring youth and high school coaches to get training in diagnosing and managing concussions have gone from unknown to almost universal. Rules regarding summer two-a-days heat acclimation have gone from rare to common. In 2011, on the same August day two prep football players died in Georgia of heat stroke. Then, Georgia had no meaningful rules about heat and hydration. Now, Georgia follows the National Athletic Trainers' Association guidelines. Many states do, and soon most or all will.

I don't want to shit on anyone's safety parade, but let's call a spade a spade: these rules change due to liability worries on the part of school districts and schools, not because they're good ideas from a safety perspective.  High school football is slowly but surely becoming big business, especially in states like Georgia, and you can be sure that the only thing that will stop schools from DOIN' FOOTBAWL PRACTICE THE WAY MY PAPPY DID AND THE WAY HIS PAPPY DID BEFORE HIM is a lawsuit.  Just sayin'.

• States are beginning to restrict high school football contact time. California, the most populous state, just enacted a law that soon will limit full contact in practice to three hours a week during the summer and season and prohibit offseason contact. Texas, ground zero of prep football culture, already limits full contact to 90 minutes a week.

OK, fine, I'll can the cynicism regarding serious topics and get back to the dumb stuff.  Right after this.

These are movements in the right direction. 

True.

Your columnist has been pounding the table about athletic reform for years, and many times expressed cynicism regarding whether there would ever be positive change.  Now there has been. 

PRAISE BE UNTO YOU, KING EASTERBROOK.  IT IS YOU WHO HAVE FOISTED THIS CHANGE UPON THE FOOTBALL WORLD.

Now -- America's original all-haiku NFL season predictions.

AFC East

Brady's last hurrah?
Modeling career beckons.
The New England Pats.
Forecast finish: 11-5

A smoking wreckage
of Jeff Ireland era.
Miami Dolphins.
Forecast finish: 6-10

"I am the greatest!"
Ali boast seems mild to Jets.
The Jersey/B Jets.
Forecast finish: 6-10

Foolish Club loses
Ralph Wilson, last of his time.
The Buffalo Bills.
Forecast finish: 5-11

Is there any good reason to pay this man to write this garbage?  Any reason at all?  Do his pageviews justify whatever ESPN pays him?  Is he bringing a core demographic to their site that otherwise wouldn't click there?  This guy is a fucking intellectual pissant.  I hope he regularly shits his pants when he's nowhere near a bathroom.  What a fucking waste of letters this is.

Department Of Redundancy Department: Ferrari's new $1.6 million, 950-horsepower supercar is named LaFerrari. Calling it "the LaFerrari" would become "the The Ferrari." Oprah has an endorsement deal for chai tea. Perhaps the tea should be branded Oprah Winfrey's Oprah Chai Tea Powered by Oprah Winfrey. "Chai" in Eurasian languages simply means tea. So "chai tea" is "tea with tea."

And what's the deal with airplane food?

Public Subsidies For Private Profit: New York state taxpayers just invested $90 million in upgrades to Ralph Wilson Stadium, mainly to increase Bills team revenue by making the concession areas more appealing. Reader Jim Medwid of Alden, New York, attended a recent Bills preseason game and reports: "The concourses are now wider, but all drinking fountains have been removed from the stadium, which prohibits bringing in any kind of bottle, even clear-sided water bottles." So taxpayers paid $90 million for renovations that force Bills ticket holders to buy $5 water bottles from the concession stands, and guess who keeps the profit.

Frank Stallone!  No, but seriously, fuck NFL owners in their fucking eye sockets.  Sometimes I think they pay Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones to be huge assholes in very public ways, so the rest of them can also be huge assholes without attracting the negative attention they deserve.

NFC East

Warp speed does not help
if the shields (defense) no good.
The Philly Eagles.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Volunteers from the
audience playing OL.
Jersey/A Giants.
Forecast finish: 9-7

Start fast, then brace for
annual December swoon.
The Dallas Cowboys
Forecast finish: 8-8

NEVER says Dan of
name change. CERTAIN say we all.
Washington R*dsk*s.
Forecast finish: 5-11

Normally I would remove this kind of garbage from my posts, but I'm leaving all 32 of these in.  Bask in their worthlessness.  Revel in their uncleverness.  For fucking Christ's sake, he shoehorns the team name into the last five syllable line for each of them, meaning he's only actually writing two thirds of a haiku for each team.  I hate him and I hate that I'm even bothering to analyze this crap.

New York Times Corrections On Fast Forward: During the past six months, the Paper of Record, according to its corrections page:

[List of like 25 things the NYT corrected that are kind of weird and in some cases probably didn't warrant a correction, which is the kind of thing that is interesting to people who enjoy the smell of their own farts.  But I left this one:]

• Corrected a correction;

HAHAHAHA OH WOW.  YOU TRULY ARE THE CAT'S MEOW, NYT CORRECTIONS DEPARTMENT.  PAPER OF RECORD?  MORE LIKE PAPER OF REPEATED MISTAKES!

AFC North

Took Lombardi, then
missed playoffs. Win some, lose some.
Bal'amer Ravens.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Oh-for-the-playoffs:
Marvin Lewis can't shake curse.
The Cincy Bengals.
Forecast finish: 8-8

Graying defense, no
run game. Still -- watch out for them.
The Pittsburgh Steelers.
Forecast finish: 8-8

Johnny, LBJ,
GOP: Cleveland does rock.
The Browns (2.0).
Forecast finish: 7-9

The Steelers one is just fucking terrible.  The Browns one is somehow worse.  I'd rather watch six hours of CBS's pregame show than think about these.

Another NFL Abuse Of Taxpayers Continues: The FCC has begun its review of the proposed AT&T-DirecTV merger. Your columnist thinks this creates an opportunity for either the FCC or the Justice Department to end the arrangement in which only subscribers of DirecTV can purchase NFL Sunday Ticket.

I'm with him on this, and his points are pretty fair and reasonable, but I had to leave this in:

DirecTV is a great service if you can get it, but millions cannot -- clear line of sight to the sky above Texas is required. Trees? Live in an urban apartment building? Fuhgedabout DirecTV. 

Why in fuck's name are you doing an Italian mobster bit in the middle of explaining why the DirecTV/Sunday Ticket partnership is bad for consumers?

NFC North

Bears: high-scoring team
with no defense. Yes, the Bears.
The Chicago Bears.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Pack, Favre reach peace deal.
Brett: Give pointers to Putin.
The Green Bay Packers.
Forecast finish: 9-7

AAU football:
Superstars but poor results.
The Detroit Lions.
Forecast finish: 6-10

Breathe sigh of relief:
Broncs now more S. Bowl losses.
Minnesota Vikes.
Forecast finish: 4-12

I am slowly developing Stockholm Syndrome.  I kind of like the Bears one.  I'll admit it.  I kind of like that.  They had a bad offense and a good defense for so long!  Now it's reversed!  The world is a funny place.  Here, someone hand me that bottle of pills so I can knock myself unconscious.

Bad Isn't Good Enough; The 76ers Hope To Be Horrible: Two weeks ago, TMQ declared the Philadelphia 76ers have become "Zen masters" of the NBA art of getting rid of players in order to lose deliberately. I noted that in the past 12 months they'd traded away their three best performers, mostly for benchwarmers with expiring contracts, then used not one, not two, not three, but four choices in the June 2014 draft on gents who are either injured or have existing contracts with European teams. Drafting them ensured more losing!

Please don't try to understand or write about other sports!  You're bad enough when it comes to football!  Thanks!

Unified Field Theory of Creep: 

Yep, he's still going back to that well.

AFC South

Hardly seems as though
Peyton departed, does it?
Indy Lucky Charms.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Fisher shown the door
after 16: downhill since.
Tennessee Titans.
Forecast finish: 7-9

Kirk, Spock both yelled KHANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
How long 'til Jax fans yell same?
Jacksonville Jaguars.
Forecast finish: 6-10

Texans last season,
Three Mile Island: two meltdowns.
The Houston Texans.
Forecast finish: 6-10

The Lucky Charms!  A terrible new nickname!  Has he been using this all these years, and I just failed to notice?  And look at the Texans one--don't tell me he's retiring "Moo Cows."  THAT'S GOLD, JERRY!  GOLD!  Their mascot looks like a cow, so he calls them the cows, plus adds the sound cows make.  Why isn't he editor in chief of Harper's yet?

Harvard's endowment is sufficient that every undergraduate could attend free, but instead university insiders live in luxury while alums are dunned for more donations, a topic this column will return to later this autumn with my annual endowment-abuse item.

Honestly the only part of any of his columns I actively enjoy.  Big private universities with huge endowments that beg and beg and beg their alums relentlessly are fucking awful.  

Hedge funds are consistently effective at one thing -- enriching their own top management. Bernard Madoff ran a hedge fund. 

Haha, look, I hate big time Wall Street investment bankers and fund managers as much as the next working stiff, but those two sentences next to each other are pretty fucking ludicrous.  You might as well say "Governments are terrible.  Pol Pot ran a government."

NFC South

Gave Seahawks better
playoff game than Broncos did.
New Orleans Saints.
Forecast finish: 12-4

League's only team with
a Director of Mascots.
Carolina Cats.
Forecast finish: 12-4

Bad-sport Schiano
replaced by nice guy Lovie.
Tampa Buccaneers.
Forecast finish: 6-10

NFC title
game seems very long ago.
Atlanta Falcons.
Forecast finish: 6-10

Look, Greg Schiano is a gaping asshole, but we don't need to keep talking about him, do we?  I think he has successfully eliminated himself from the NFL head coaching pool (non-Raiders division) for life.  The BROWNS wouldn't hire him this offseason.  The fucking Browns.  Let's let him fade into obscurity, shall we?

AFC West

Scoreboard was spinning
'til met the Bluish Men Group.
The Denver Broncos.
Forecast finish: 11-5

Made it to nine-oh;
do not talk about the rest.
Kansas City Chiefs.
Forecast finish: 10-6

Dude, let's hit the beach.
Whoa, we have a game today?
San Diego Bolts.
Forecast finish: 9-7

Soon may have no home.
Then San Antonio bound?
The Oakland Raiders.
Forecast finish: 3-13

The Chargers one is probably as bad as these could possibly get.  Right?  Jesus, Mary and fucking Joseph, I hope so.

Exhaust On The Car Pages: This column has noted that newspapers long have had a touchy relationship with auto reviewing. Auto dealers are major advertisers, so reviewers tend to praise all marques. Reviewers tend to extol maximum horsepower, regardless of cost, environmental impact or the relationship between horsepower and road rage -- after all, they don't fuel or insure the cars they test-drive. The terrific 2002 book "High and Mighty" by Keith Bradsher detailed the ways in which automakers all but bribe newspaper reviewers.

Dude, it's 2014, not 1987.  Fuel economy has been a large concern for like 99% of car buyers for more than a decade now.  This is not exactly a timely news item.  You think newspaper car columnists were busy talking about 0 to 60 times and number of cupholders in the middle of post-mortgage crisis recession five years ago?  Get fucking real.  The exception would be, of course, publications aimed at readers who want to buy super high end high performance cars with bad gas mileage, and who have lots of money, and don't care about fuel economy, and make up a small portion of the population, and are mostly assholes who aren't worth complaining about.

[Three paragraphs of complaining deleted]

Of course the New York Times has wealthy readers who want news about products for the 1 percent: the paper touts expensive fashion and high-end restaurants, too. 

He figured it out!  

But a designer cocktail dress or $300 meal don't have public-policy implications. 

First of all, they kind of do.  Second of all, good fucking luck getting a publication that caters to wealthy readers to try to tell the wealthy readers to stop enjoying the kinds of things wealthy people enjoy.  Let me know how that works out.

New Cognomen: Reader Damon Spear of Seattle argues, "If you're going to use Jersey/A, Jersey/B and City of Tampa, you should call Colin Kaepernick's team the Santa Clara 49ers." Mr. Data, make it so!

I'm going to fucking cry.  I'm going to fucking cry.

NFC West

Second-best for two
straight years. This year may be best?
Santa Clara team.
Forecast finish: 12-4

West Coast offense steps
back, West Coast defense steps up.
Seattle Seahawks.
Forecast finish: 11-5

Won 10, went home: League
needs seeded playoff format.
The AZ Cardinals.
Forecast finish: 9-7

Chose Bradford over
Griffin: Regrets begin now.
The St. Louis Rams.
Forecast finish: 4-12

Solid analysis on the Rams one.  The decision was definitely that simple: either Bradford, or Griffin.  That's all it came down to.  And to be sure, while Bradford's career is now completely off track. Griffin has zero injury issues and at this point is guaranteed to be much better than Bradford will be if and when Bradford's body stops falling apart.

Sports Economics Watch: Two weeks ago TMQ noted that Tony Romo and Andy Dalton, a combined 1-6 in the postseason, have richer contracts than Tom Brady, whose 18 playoff victories are the most ever. 

Record in seven preseason games (during which the guys named probably played a combined total of like 100 snaps) vs. number of playoff wins, 80% of which were accumulated before Barack Obama was elected.  That's some gooooood analyzin' right there.  How about you just say that Romo is getting old and getting terrible, and Dalton is young and will probably never be better than mediocre, and Brady, even though he's old, is better than both of them?  Would that maybe be a better way to illustrate this TRAVESTY that is pro athlete pay not perfectly tracking to players' relative levels of skill?

Next Week: During the preseason, Tuesday Morning Quarterback uses "vanilla" items designed to confuse scouts from other sports columns. Starting next week as the football artificial universe resumes, TMQ will come at readers from all directions with obscure references, recondite analogies and unorthodox fact packages. I'll employ an up-tempo format in which each new item begins before the previous one ends.

And I'll be right here the whole way, pointing out what a dipshit you are.

Oh my God.

Someone, anyone, please punch this man in the face.  (By "this man" I don't mean Florio, I mean D. Orlando Ledbetter, president of the Pro Football Writers Association.  Although Florio could probably use a good face punching too so if that's convenient feel free to handle it.)

“The Pro Football Writers of America, the official voice of pro football writers fighting and promoting for access to NFL personnel to best serve the public, is extremely disappointed in the lack of meaningful access to Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch at the Super Bowl XLVIII media day on Tuesday,” the PFWA said in a statement issued by president D. Orlando Ledbetter.

“Several of our long-standing and high profile members were appalled by Mr. Lynch’s conduct and refusal to answer any questions. We find the statement that by the league that ‘Players are required to participate and he participated’ to be an affront to our membership. However, we are encouraged that the league will continue to closely monitor this situation.”

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

Your move, BBWAA.

Well, shit. I haven't done that Jonah Keri post.

YET.  DON'T THINK YOU'RE OFF THE HOOK, KERI.  YOU'LL GET WHAT'S COMING TO YOU.

In the meantime, here's an extremely short post about Bill Barnwell.  Besides the fact that he's a little smarmy (not funny smarmy--more like pretentious smarmy) and he's also constantly trying to emulate Simmons (I would know a little something about that don't you think lolololololol), Barnwell is really good.  I have no problem with 97% of what he writes.  These come from that other 3%.  Re: Josh McCown.

After completing 58 percent of his passes, averaging 6.3 yards per attempt, and throwing interceptions once every 25 attempts before this year as a pro, McCown's run as the Chicago starter saw him complete 66.8 percent of his passes while averaging 8.2 yards per attempt and throwing a lone interception in 220 attempts. It's likely the hottest stretch of his life — the proverbial pinch hitter who hits .400 in 150 at-bats after the starter gets hurt —

Ah yes.  That old, well-known proverb.  That old chestnut.  "That's as surprising as a pinch hitter who hits .400 in 150 at bats after the starter gets hurt."  Barnwell's misuse of "proverbial" is making my head literally explode with rage.

Re: Rashad Jennings

Oakland's goal as a team right now should be to try to find players who can contribute to their next great football team;

ARRRRRRRRRRRGH SMASH SMASH SMASH SMASH.  Really?  The Raiders are a FOOTBALL team with FOOTBALL players on the FOOTBALL field?  I had no idea.  I thought they played squash.

Re: Anthony Collins

Collins has the athleticism to protect quarterbacks on the left side; the only thing he lacks is experience, as he has been stuck behind Whitworth. With Whitworth (say that five times fast)

No.

Grab bag: this RGIII injury bullshit can't exit the sports news cycle quickly enough

In the coming days, you will read/hear about 100 different columnists/analysts tell you about how insane Mike Shanahan was to leave Robert Griffin III in the game after he tweaked his knee during the first quarter of today's loss to Seattle.  I am not here to discuss whether these people are wrong or right. (They are probably right--Griffin's injury was messing up his throwing mechanics, hobbling his running ability, and beyond that it's important to think of him as a long term investment for the franchise.  On the other hand, Griffin did insist to his coach that he was fine and his backup is Kirk Cousins.  But whatever.)  Instead, I am here to point out what a big bunch of shitheads pretty much everyone in the sports media are for pushing their perspective on this story.  And the reason they are shitheads is that if Washington's defense had held on for eight more minutes and the Redskins had won the game--without their offense doing a damn thing differently than they did as the game unfolded in real life--not one of these zilches would be saying what they're saying about Shanahan's alleged blunder.  Not one.  They would be talking about the grit and guts of RGIII and the brilliance Mike Shanahan showed in sticking with him.  Saying AW THEY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN HIM OUT IT WAS SO OBVIOUS is one of the most flagrant cases of ex post facto logical analysis you'll ever see.  It's fucking pathetic.  I have respect for any anyone who wants to say "This was a huge mistake, but you can see where Shanahan was coming from at the time."  But the next analyst who takes that position will be the first.

In other news, Skip Bayless continues to rule.  Check out this article: it's good because he correctly assesses the relative merits of the 2012 seasons of Griffin, Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson.  But it's great because before doing that, he spends several hundred words blasting Jim Irsay for cutting Peyton Manning and thus (in Skip's view) reducing the odds of Indy winning a Super Bowl anytime in the next four years.  There is one word for this:

Please don't try to convince me Luck sets you up for a much brighter future. In this league, the future must always be now. Four years is an NFL eternity, and Peyton Manning would've given the Colts a better chance to win the Super Bowl this season and each of the next three.

Strong.

Finally, here's something from a wildly popular "sports" columnist:

The "T" on my ThinkPad flipped off last week as I was typing. My natural instinct was to blame my hellion son or my unlucky dog, Rufus, since they cause 99.99 percent of the disasters in my house. But I've only had this laptop for five months — it usually takes two years for my keyboard to start falling apart like it's Arian Foster on your 2013 fantasy team. How could this happen?

My wife (a longtime MacGyver wanna-be) thought she could Super Glue the "T" back on the keyboard, which made me nervous because Super Glue is probably the most misunderstood product on the planet. You use Super Glue to fix a broken chair, or maybe even the face mask of an autographed Mark Sanchez helmet that you just threw against the wall. You shouldn't use it for anything electronic; it just ends up making an already sticky situation stickier. One stuck "T" and one domestic argument later, I found myself back where I started. Thankfully, I had purchased something called "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" for $269 when I bought my laptop last June, which meant that if anything happened to my laptop, a technician would arrive the following day to fix it. I called Lenovo, banged out a service order and that was that.

The next day, Lenovo e-mailed me some bad news: My part was on back order and wouldn't be available for five to seven business days. (Random note: I love when the phrase "business days" gets involved — sports teams should start using that for injured athletes so it sounds like they're coming back sooner than they are. When Gronk broke his forearm, the Pats should have announced that he'd be out for 25 business days — I would have felt so much better.) I did the math and realized that "five to seven business days" really meant "You're screwed, we're not fixing your laptop until after Christmas." The good news was that Lenovo would be keeping my $269 for "three-year onsite NBD and three-year priority support and three-year ThinkPad Protection" out of good faith. Cool. Thanks, Lenovo.

And that was that--after what you just read, he went on to discuss things his readers might actually give a flying sloppy fuck about.  Nah, just playing, he spent another 500 words continuing to bitch and moan about the most first world of all #firstworldproblems.  Seriously, fuck that guy with a pineapple.

If you think Andrew Luck had a better year than Robert Griffin III, you are a bozo

And ESPN's Ashley Fox is definitely a bozo.

It is award season in the National Football League.
The part of the year where NFL writers and commentators devote 100% of their time to mind-numbing bullshit meaningless analysis of nothing, as opposed to the rest of the year, during which they only devote 90% of their time to mind-numbing bullshit meaningless analysis of nothing.

Can an interim coach take home coach of the year? 

WHAT WILL IT SAY ABOUT US AS A SOCIETY IF ONE DOES?

Which dazzling quarterback will win rookie of the year? 

Probably the white one, because even though the black one has vastly superior numbers and had led his team to essentially identical regular season success with a much more difficult schedule, the white one just looks like a quarterback, doesn't he?  I don't know for sure that race plays a part in this, but Jesus, what else would convince Fox (and plenty of other bozos out there) that the guy with the way shittier numbers is the better QB?

Here is how one voter's ballot is shaping up:

Coach of the year: Indianapolis' Chuck Pagano/Bruce Arians.

#CHUCKSTRONG!!!!! My opinion on Pagano has shifted as the year has gone on. That locker room speech he gave after week 6 or 7 or whenever was undoubtedly the douchechilliest moment of the season for me. You know the one, the highlight shows each played it like 12 times that evening.  The one where he was yelling at his team about dancing with his daughters and their wedding.  Look, I have no problem with Pagano and I am glad his disease is in remission, but holy balls. That speech was 80% idiotic football coach bravado and 20% heartfelt emotion, which, at least for me was a horrible mixture. That speech and the praise it got from waterhead ex-player tv pundits made me root against the Colts (not Pagano himself, obviously--I'm not THAT much of a hater).  

Anyways, a few weeks ago I saw some clips of him interacting with cancer-stricken kids, and that actually did warm my heart a little (probably because it was 0% idiotic bravado and 100% heartfelt emotion). So I'm down with the Colts now. But please, could someone please burn that locker room speech clip? Every time I see/hear it, he comes off as a loud version of the boom goes the dynamite kid.

There will be a lot of competition in this category, including Mike Shanahan,

That's rich. I'm pretty sure everything Shanahan has done when his QB was named something other than Elway or Griffin--particularly the job he did in Washington from 2009 through 2011--has solidified his status as a mediocre at best coach/personnel evaluator. If you have Dan Snyder writing checks for you and you go 15-33 over the course of your first three seasons (after the team went 9-7 and 8-8 in the two seasons preceding your hiring), you should absolutely be fired. I'm not sure why he should win an award for stumbling into one of the best pro-ready QBs to come out of college in the last thirty years. He deserves credit for trading up for the pick that enabled the Redskins to take Griffin. He deserves no "coach of the year" level credit for being the guy who walks the sidelines as Griffin wins games for him.

Mike Smith,

No.

Mike McCarthy,

No. 

Jim Harbaugh

Maybe.

and Pete Carroll,

Might be my pick, but Pagano/Arians works too.

but no one endured what Pagano and Arians did. Few expected much from the Colts, who finished last season with two wins and the No. 1 overall draft pick. Pagano made the brilliant decision to hire Arians, whom Pittsburgh had cast aside, 

TMQ would not that weasel coach Mike Tomlin did this to deflect blame from himself, and actually, TMQ kind of might be right.

as offensive coordinator and then relied on him to coach the Colts while Pagano took a sabbatical to fight leukemia.

That's all true, but shouldn't we consider giving the award to McCarthy for having more or less the exact same team that won the Super Bowl two seasons ago and won 15 games last year, and coaching them to 11-5 this year?

Offensive rookie of the year: Luck.

Luck:

339/627, 4374 yards, 54.1% completions, 6.98 Y/A, 23 TDs, 18 INT, 76.5 QB rating, 11-5 record

Griffin:

258/393, 3200 yards, 65.6% completions, 8.14 Y/A, 20 TDs, 5 INT, 102.4 QB rating, 10-6 record

So the difference between them is that Luck accumulated 1000 more yards than Griffin and 3 more TDs on 200+ more attempts, and Griffin was so much more efficient that it's not even worth having a conversation about which of them is better. And this is isn't even factoring in Griffin's large edge in rushing.  Give Griffin 600+ attempts and his numbers would absolutely put Luck's to shame. The difference between them is somewhat similar to the difference between Matthew Stafford and Aaron Rodgers this year-Stafford has way more attempts and thus more yards, and Rodgers is abundantly better in every other way. But yeah, go ahead, tell me about how great Luck was this year.

There was ample competition here, with Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III and Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson each leading their teams to winning records with a chance to win their respective divisions.

Christ, even Wilson's numbers put Luck's to shame in every category other than total yards and lightness of skin pigment.  Why would anyone pick Luck?  I can't think of any theories other than the depressing one I've already floated.  Anyone got any others?  Plz share.

But look at Luck's numbers running a pro-style offense.

And there's the not-so-subtle dig at Griffin and Wilson--apparently they're not running "pro-style offenses."  I haven't seen a ton of Seattle's games this year but I see plenty of Washington's and it's not like they're in the wishbone.  Griffin probably takes 50-60% of his snaps from the pistol.  Who gives a shit?  The numbers are the numbers.  Griffin isn't just an awesome running QB, he was also one of the best passers in the league this year.  He was a significantly better passer than Luck.  I wasn't aware that "number of snaps taken from under center" was an important input into MVP decisions.

In 15 games, he set the rookie record with 4,183 passing yards. 

On 600+ attempts.

He set the single-game rookie record with 433 passing yards against Miami in Week 9. 

There's a good chance he deserved Week 9 offensive MVP.  I'll grant that.

He set the rookie record for attempts 

Big ups to him for being drafted to a team that really needed a QB, and playing for a coaching staff that likes throwing.

and is within 29 of Sam Bradford's rookie record for completions. 

This was written before week 17--he didn't get that number, because at the rate he completes passes, he would have had to throw 57 times in week 17 to reach it.

Luck's six 300-yard passing games are two better than Peyton Manning's previous rookie record of four, 

Yards yards yards yards yards yards.  Hooraaaaayyyyyyyy MVP!

and his 10 wins are the most ever by a No. 1 overall pick, three better than Bradford's seven. 

That's fine--Griffin won 10, and Wilson won 11.  But did they do it running a PRO STYLE OFFENSE?

Plus, Luck has seven game-winning drives this season, and the Colts are in the playoffs. 

Again.

Detractors will point to Luck's 18 interceptions and 54.3 completion percentage as reasons not to vote for him, 

And they will be right, particularly about the completion percentage.

but he has thrown a lot of interceptions because the Colts have asked him to make a ton of throws.  No team has asked more of its rookie quarterback.

Sure, the Seahawks have Marshawn Lynch and a great defense, and I wouldn't bet on Wilson being better than Luck in five years, but the numbers are the numbers.  Washington asked a ton of Griffin, given his RB situation (no one expected this from Alfred Morris, and he's helped out mightily by Griffin's play) and the horrid injuries the team sustained on defense early in the year, and the numbers are still the numbers, and Ashley Fox is still a bozo.

John Clayton: Good reporter, good person, shitty writer

John Clayton seems like a nice enough dude. He put up with being bullied by Sean Salisbury for years, his Sportscenter commercial from earlier this year was great, and I very much doubt he's among the cavalcade of assholes at ESPN who think they are God's Gift to Sports Media. He also really should stick to doing only TV journalism, or get a much better editor for his written work. This mailbag column is abominable.

With Tuesday's release of Jason Babin, the Philadelphia Eagles are breaking up their dream team -- a dream that turned into a nightmare.

JUXTAPOSITION! The reader is now HOOKED!

What looked to be a great idea collapsed in mediocrity and is now an embarrassment. Great cap planning by an aggressive organization allowed the Eagles to jump into free agency in 2011 in the hopes of grabbing a championship. The Redskins and Cowboys were trying to do the same thing, but the league robbed them of $46 million of cap space in 2012 and 2013 for what was considered cap manipulation in an uncapped year.

Now, it's interesting to see the Eagles behind both teams in the standings.

It's really not interesting at all. All three of these teams spend shitloads of money every single year. The Redskins have been the laughingstock of the division for a decade, but they've certainly always been trying to win and it was only a matter of time before they accidentally buttfucked their way into a quality QB. Their presence in front of the Eagles in the standings is "something that is happening." Saying it is interesting is going way too far. Same for the Cowboys, who have recently actually been somewhat good (although not great), much like the Eagles.

Babin did his part to help in his first season. He had 18 sacks and earned a trip to the Pro Bowl, more than justifying his five-year, $28.3 million contract. Others haven't.

Babin got cut because he was getting paid a shitload of money and only had 4.5 sacks this year, while also not doing anything else particularly well. Let's not go not throwing him under the bus.

Cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha got $60 million over five years, but he has lost speed and coverage skills. Over 11 games, he has surrendered 27 completions for 552 yards and five touchdowns. Only 10 corners have allowed more yards. Last season, he gave up 21 completions for 314 yards and four touchdowns the entire season, which wasn't bad but the defense played too much zone.

You were doing well until that last part. What the hell are you trying to say? I guess the message is that Asomugha's 2011 numbers weren't as good as they appeared, because he had a ton of safety help, but they way you've worded it makes it sound like two unrelated thoughts crammed into the same sentence. Andrew Luck has been better than expected as a rookie this year but the Colts have a very overweight fanbase.

Defensive tackle Cullen Jenkins has been a solid interior lineman for the Eagles. He had 5.5 sacks in his first season as an Eagle in 2011, but over the past month, his playing time has dropped from the 40-50 plays per game range into the 20s. He got a five-year, $30.3 million deal.

Guy making $6 million a year who's on the sidelines for two thirds of his team's defensive snaps: sounds solid to me.

Cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie came to the Eagles in the Kevin Kolb trade and has been OK. He gave up 18 completions last season. He has given up 29 completions for 494 yards this season.

So he's worse than Asomugha? Better? Unclear. One thing that is clear is that he's better than Kevin Kolb, since he has a pulse, so the Eagle have that going for them.

Then there's Michael Vick, who got a six-year, $102 million deal to make a Super Bowl run.

Yes.  That is true.  Please complete your idea.

If there is a lesson to be learned, it's that gambling that much money on 30-year-old players is risky. Older players have a shorter window to win. 

Isn't your thesis that the Eagles were specifically looking at a short window to win? They saw that the Cowboys and Redskins (btw, I love that he didn't mention the 4th team in the division, the one that has consistently been better than the other three over the course of the past five seasons, in his initial analysis) were getting hit with cap penalties in 2011, and decided to go for it right then and there, which wasn't (or was? I can't tell) a bad idea? You are definitely casting bad light on the results the Eagles got, but are you casting bad light on their process as well? I can't tell. You are a bad writer.

Andy Reid made a miscalculation by putting three older starters with first-time defensive coordinator Juan Castillo, who had moved over from the offensive line.


So the problem was the overinvestment in old players, except that it was also probably hiring a really terrible and inexperienced defensive coordinator.

Still this nightmare won't stop future teams from making such gambles. The Eagles thought they had the quarterback in Vick. They had the cap room and the money. They were trying to keep their fan base excited.

So the process was or was not bad? Please pick one. Otherwise, you're just reciting stats and pointing out that this iteration of the Eagles sucks, something we all knew 12 months ago.

With an 8-8 first year and a 3-8 disaster this season, it wouldn't surprise me if Vick, Jenkins and Asomugha were all be gone by next season.
It's sad.

Fin. On to the letters, where John answers questions in much the same way Joe Morgan used to all those years ago.

From the inbox

Q: Can you explain the logic that the Competition Committee used when implementing the rule about baring coaches' challenges and assessing a 15-yd penalty when a coach throws a red flag on a scoring play? You know the NFL is taking heat over such a lame-brain rule when they're considering rescinding the rule during the season. When was the last time the CC rescinded a rule during the season? Has it ever been done?
Fred in Tampa, Fla.

Big ups to Fred for using "baring" instead of "barring." The last time we heard about baring coaches, Mike Singletary's ass was involved.

A: The league is trying to move more replays to the booth. They want to take some of the pressure off the coaches, who reluctantly agreed to the challenges to get replay.

The thinking is not to have a coach challenge a play that is going to be reviewed automatically, as all turnovers and scoring plays are. 

Yes. I think we all know that. This guy has asked the question "We all understand B, which flows from A, but can you tell me about C?" and John has responded by saying "Let me tell you all about A."

What the committee didn't take into account was the emotion of the moment. Coaches want bad plays overturned. They reach for the flag for fear the next play is going to happen before there is a replay.


Fine. What about Fred's other question--has this happened before?

What will be fixed is still having the play reviewed if a coach challenges an automatically reviewable play. The league may still keep the 15-yard penalty, but all will be discussed over the next few weeks. Things could change in the playoffs, which would be a positive.

Non-responsive, in the vein of Joe.

Q: As it relates to the Jim Schwartz penalty, is there a hole in the rule? What's to stop coaches in Gary Kubiak's position from throwing the flag? In fact, why WOULDN'T they throw it in similar situations? The play can't be reviewed, your touchdown stands (that would have been overturned), and you kick off from your 20. If this is indeed a hole in the rule, I would question whether the league could wait until after the year to change the rule.

Rick in Middletown, Conn.

A: If you are Kubiak, logic would be the reason you don't throw the flag. 

No. It would not. You do not understand this guy's question, which isn't the end of the world, but your editor should have caught this. There... is an editor, right? Wait, nope, this is ESPN.

It's not as though you are going to eliminate the play. 

That's exactly the point--you might be able to freeze the play as called on the field by preempting the review.


Plus, this would be judged as a calculated strategy to try to show up officials. 


That is true, and Heavyhands Goodell would undoubtedly make sure it only ever happened once by having Kubiak stoned to death, but it's still an interesting thought.


You can't have two challenges on one play. 


Again, editor, please catch this and explain the guy's question to John.


The coaches are warned before each game not to challenge a play that is going to be replayed by the booth official.


Non-responsive.

Though a scenario such as that hasn't been tried, I don't see it happening. First, Kubiak would lose a challenge that he might need later in the game. 

But keep a 75 yard TD he doesn't deserve.


Second, he'd leave his team vulnerable to a penalty.

ALREADY ADDRESSED IN THE QUESTION, HOLY MOLY, WAKE UP JOHN, EARTH TO JOHN, WAKE UP

Q: I think it is time for the league to not only expand the 53-man roster, but to consider expanding the game day 46-man roster as well. Several factors make this the right move. Teams are more conservative than ever in handling injuries, trying not to put a player back on the field until he is ready. As a separate issue, the concussion policy of the league also forces teams to be conservative with this particular type of injury.

Lastly, the schedule, which includes frequent Sunday/Monday night games for some teams, and Thursday night games once per season for all teams, causes issues for teams getting players healthy enough to play. Dallas has three defensive starters on IR, and six out of their seven inactive choices for the Thanksgiving game were essentially made for them as they had too many players that were too injured to play. What do you think? I think increasing the roster size to 55 with a 48 man game day roster may be appropriate.


Mike in Saratoga, N.Y.

That's pretty reasonable.

A: Voices on many teams would agree with you, but old-school organizations would try to block such a move. 

GRRRRR OLD SCHOOL STEELER/BEAR/PACKER/GIANT FOOTBALL OH WAIT THIS IS AN UTTERLY MEANINGLESS AND STUPID CATEGORIZATION

While it would make sense to have extra bodies available to handle special teams and provide extra bodies, 

The extra bodies would indeed provide extra bodies, yes.


these teams would worry about competitive disadvantages.

What?

Let's say the 49ers, which have been a healthy team for the past two years, have 53 healthy players. Let's say the Jaguars, which are 1-10, have five guys who can't play because of injuries and don't have that deep of a roster. The 49ers would be deeper and better, and it could promote more of a blowout with their advantage. Agree or disagree, but that's the thinking.

You just used like 80 words to say absolutely nothing. You have not answered this guy's question, nor even comprehended it, apparently. He's not saying teams should be able to expand their rosters midseason. Every team would have a larger roster than they do now at all times. The imaginary healthy 49ers would still have 5 more healthy players than the imaginary injured Jaguars (score of their imaginary meeting: 56-0 if Gabbert starts, 35-3 if Henne starts).

Q: I watched the Bucs-Panthers game. Josh Freeman (and his receivers) played terribly for the first three quarters. Then, they started running a hurry-up offense and Freeman came alive. It seems that most QBs get hot when they're running a hurry-up or no-huddle offense. It makes the defense play more simple packages and tires them out. Why don't teams run the hurry-up offense more? Is it too hard for most quarterbacks to run it or do coaches just not have enough faith in their QBs to run it?
Brandon in Los Angeles

Another reasonable question. Unlike in a Simmons mailbag, the awfulness here is entirely on the shoulders of the answerer. The questioners are doing just fine.

A: More teams are running a no-huddle offense this season, and more teams will run it next season. Over the past two seasons, the percentage of no-huddle plays on teams has doubled. The only thing holding some teams back is having young quarterbacks who need time to incorporate the no-huddle into their routine.

What about the teams who don't have young QBs, but still don't use it?

Ryan Tannehill and Andrew Luck have already shown they are comfortable in no-huddle. The other rookie and second-year quarterbacks will start to use it more next year and the year after. Using the no-huddle with more three- and four-receiver sets takes 3-4 defenses out of the three-man line and puts it in their sub packages. No-huddle is one of the big trends that escalated this season.

Barely responsive. Q: "Why don't more teams use the no-huddle? Is it for one of these reasons I've suggested, both of which would be pretty easy to directly address?" A: "Young QBs are usually not good at running the no-huddle, but the current crop of them in the NFL are actually pretty good at it. I just looked out my window, and someone in the park across the street is flying a kite."

Q: I've never understood why the NFL makes a team kick the extra point even if the game is over score-wise (for example, Packers-Seahawks this year). The defense cannot recover a blocked kick and return it for two points like in the NCAA (another rule I don't understand), that may make a difference in the score. Other than influencing the gambling line, kicking the extra point when the game is over is pointless. Could you explain both rule quirks?

Grant in St. Petersburg, Fla.

A: The NFL would never do anything to help betting, but it has to have betting in mind during the four quarters of a game. 

Non-responsive. (OR IS IT???????  MAYBE VEGAS IS BEHIND ALL THIS)

You don't have that problem in overtime. The game is over once a team gets a touchdown in overtime. 


Another "I know B comes from A, but why B?" "Let me tell you all about A." 
But at the end of the game in regulation, the NFL believes it owes it to the fans to have that last kick. I don't see that changing.

Non-responsive, unless he's being real subtle about the gambling thing, which I don't think he is. And in any case, if they changed the rule, point spreads around +/- 6 or 7 would move (ever so microscopically slightly) in response.

Q: Twice in a couple of weeks, a Steelers quarterback lost the ball while in the process of throwing a pass and the officials allowed the play to continue, allowing the defense to recover the ball and return it for a touchdown.

Against Kansas City, the fumble ruling was rightly reversed to an incomplete pass. Against the Giants, the ruling was incorrectly (as believed by most) not reversed and allowed to stand a defensive touchdown. In another game, I saw another example of the officials allowing this type of play to continue instead of blowing the play dead as an incomplete pass. Do you believe officials are intentionally allowing any borderline play involving a potential turnover to continue because they know the play, by rule, is now automatically reviewed?

Eric in Phoenix

A: I hope the officials will be slow with their whistles. I was at the Oakland-Cincinnati game and watched a quick whistle cost the Raiders an easy touchdown. An inadvertent whistle shouldn't happen. Officials should let the play conclude and worry about a replay later. It's better to have the play happen and reverse it if it's wrong.

More than 10 years ago, the officials had too many inadvertent whistles that cost big plays. They've done a better job over the past decade. Officials shouldn't stand in the way of a play by blowing a whistle too quickly. And once that whistle blows, players should stop their efforts for safety reasons.

Oh boy.  If there's an answer in there, I sure as hell don't see it.  Let's let John off the hook a little by posting one last question, this time from an utter moron.

Q: You mention the concern about a slowing pace of play quite often. Why doesn't the NFL shorten commercial breaks, or put in a 35 second play clock? I'd rather watch a replay than a horrible Buffalo Wild Wings commercial.

Devin in Australia

AND HOW COME WE HAVE TO PAY MONEY FOR STUFF? I DON'T ABOUT YOU, BUT I'D RATHER KEEP ALL MY MONEY THAN HAVE TO SPEND IT TO GET THINGS. I take back that part about the questioners not being part of the problem in this mailbag.

A video worth watching

Dear Lord.  I love the finished product, but just thinking about the effort it took to put it together makes my ears bleed.  (Saw this first on Deadspin, guess I should credit those worthless sports-not-actually-enjoying shitheads, grumble grumble grumble)






Bonus idiocy from Scott Boras's personal assistant!

now that both have career' contracts, interesting a-rod will make 3X longoria. $450M to $140M. maybe thats fair. thoughts?
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) November 26, 2012

Based on any vaguely reasonable estimation of the kind of player Longoria will be for the next 10 years: No.

I try to avoid posting about bloggers

But this dude blogs for Yahoo so he probably makes decent money for his work (well, some money anyways).  That makes him fair game as far as I'm concerned, and besides, oh my goodness gracious what a fucking idiot.

Where does Andrew Luck ank among NFL quarterbacks at this moment? 

Well, in terms of yards passing, he's now second overall in the league.  That's pretty good, although it's also a function of the fact that his team's running backs are Donald Brown and Vick Ballard.  If you want to use ANY other metric of QB performance, you'll see that Luck ranks pretty low.  24th in QB rating.  29th in completion percentage.  Tied for 17th in touchdown passes.  I can't find a stats site that will rank the league's QBs by TD/INT ratio, but his is 1.25, and that's pretty shitty.  Luck has definitely played decently, especially for a rookie, but he's probably not among the top 20 QBs in the league.

Are there 10 quarterbacks in the league better than him? 

Yes.  There are many more than that, in fact.

Five?

Manning, Brady, Ryan, Rodgers, Roethlisberger.  And a bunch of other guys.  Fellow rookie RGIII is outplaying Luck by a pretty significant margin by passing stats alone; add in Griffin's running ability and he's way, way, way better than Luck right now.  Not that RGIII hasn't also received his share of undue hyperbolic praise.  But if someone is going to write an article about how Luck is inserting himself into the MVP discussion (oh yes, he's about to do that, just wait), it seems like "he's not even the best rookie QB in the league" is a good place to start with a counterargument.

What Luck is doing in Indianapolis so far this year is among the most impressive feats a rookie has ever pulled off. 

He's throwing for a lot of yards, in part because he's 3rd in the league in attempts per game with 42.  He's been pretty average.  I know the history of the NFL is littered with crappy rookie QB performances, but it's not like he's setting the world on fire.

Behind his NFL rookie record 433 passing yards, Indianapolis beat Miami 23-20 to improve to 5-3. In a watered-down AFC, the Colts have a great shot at a playoff berth, which is amazing.

The Colts have beaten the Packers, I'll give them that.  On the other hand they've also lost to Jacksonville and been completely humiliated by the fucking Jets.  Their remaining schedule has 5 road games and 3 home games; they play Houston twice and New England.  They'll probably finish 8-8 and if they make the playoffs it'll be predominantly a function of the AFC's shittiness.

This is the same franchise that was in serious danger of going 0-16 last year. 

It's also the same franchise that went 10-6 in 2010 and didn't really lose anyone other than Manning for 2011.  It's not like the roster was a total wasteland when Luck showed up.  They had a horrible 2011, but I doubt they were a true talent 2 win team.  Just like they're not a true talent 10 win team now.

The Colts didn't add much in the free-agent market this offseason, realizing they faced a long-term rebuilding project.

Their offense had/still has plenty of quality pieces.  Their defense put up poor numbers last year, but those were skewed by the fact that the defense spent so much time on the field because the offense was abominable.  It was probably a middle of the pack defense, give or take, as it is this year and was in 2010.  They traded for Vontae Davis during the preseason.  Not really a "we don't expect to be good this year" kind of move.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're going to have give other Colts besides Luck credit for their "5-3 although we're really not that good" start.

But they added Luck. And now they are halfway to a 10-win season and a wild-card berth.  Sometimes success in the NFL is as easy as having a great quarterback.

Just ask any of the vapid talking heads on FOX or CBS's pre/postgame studio shows!  That must mean it's true!

Luck was dominant against the Dolphins. 

He was pretty good.  He completed 63% of his passes and led his team to a 3 point win, at home, against another mediocre team.  

He completed 30-of-48 passes for 433 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He broke the Colts' rookie record for passing in a game - set by Jack Trudeau with 359 yards in 1986, of course. Were you expecting someone else?
LOL INDEED I WAS, YOU GOT ME THERE, I AM THE HUCKLEBERRY

The Colts had a more memorable rookie quarterback who set records that Luck is gaining on. ESPN Stats and Info said Luck is the second rookie in NFL history with four 300-yard passing games. The other was Peyton Manning in 1998. Luck has half a season left to add to that total.

And if he keeps throwing 42 times per game, he's got a good shot at getting there.

Two Colts receivers had 100-yard games on Sunday: Donnie Avery and T.Y. Hilton. That's not exactly Swann and Stallworth. 

And those guys often get single coverage because the Colts still have Reggie Wayne, who's still really good.  

The Colts could go from a team that started 0-13, brought back a roster that isn't dramatically better than last season and had the horrible situation of coach Chuck Pagano being diagnosed with leukemia during the season, to one that goes to the playoffs. Luck's impact on the first half of this NFL season can't be overstated. 

It certainly can.  Congratulations for accomplishing the impossible, sir.

He should be considered a legitimate MVP candidate through eight games.

Not even close.

If Luck isn't already considered in the elite tier of NFL quarterbacks, 

He's not.

his inclusion on that list will be an easy decision very soon, 

He looks pretty decent so far.  Maybe in a few seasons, depending on like twenty different factors.  So basically he has as good a shot as any talented-but-mediocre-so-far rookie would have of eventually joining those ranks, which is probably worse than 50/50.

especially as the Colts start to add pieces around him. 

Yeah, maybe an elite #1 wide receiver type guy.  They certainly don't have one of those right now.  (He would benefit from the presence of a running back who's not Donald Brown or Vick Ballard, I'll concede that.)

Indianapolis picked the perfect year to be awful and earn the first overall pick.

There's a chance Luck will end up being better than other QBs picked #1 overall recently, like Newton or Stafford or Bradford.  There's even a chance he's as good as Manning or Elway one day.  And then there's also a chance he's never any better than middle of the pack, because playing QB in the NFL is fucking difficult.  Up until this point I had no strong feelings either way on Luck.  Thanks to this article, which other than the fact that it uses correct spelling/grammar/capitalization sounds like it was written by a poster at coltsfansmessageboard.com, I now hope he fails spectacularly.

Fucking idiot thinks Alex Smith should have made fucking idiotic play

Mike Florio, peddler of ridiculously misguided moral indignation, guy who has the reading comprehension skills of a 5th grader, the floor is yours.

While perusing Peter King’s always-indispensable Monday Morning Quarterback column,

MMQB is completely dispensable (unless you're looking for discussion of designer coffee, the Red Sox, fruit-flavored beer, and The Office). Big Daddy Drew's writeup of MMQB is indispensable (if you like to laugh).

I remembered a point that got lost in the frenzy of weekend football action.

This point got lost because anyone who tried to make it in front of the people they watched the game with was immediately laughed out of the room.

The thrilling finish we enjoyed on Saturday shouldn’t have happened.

In MMQB, King takes a great look at the bowling-ball block from 49ers tackle Joe Staley on Saints safety Isa Abdul-Quddus that cleared the final portion of Alex Smith’s path to the end zone for a 28-yard go-ahead touchdown run.

Really, King's writeup had little to do with the point Florio's trying to make. He just wanted to do some networking during his post by posting a link to King's column. Coincidentally (OR IRONICALLY?????), King himself constantly networks within his columns, although I can't recall him networking with Florio at any point. Probably because Florio stinks, big time.

But Smith arguably

Florio loves misusing "arguably." Unfortunately, there is nothing arguable about what Smith did on the play Florio's about to address.

should have gone Brian Westbrook, taking a knee at the one with 2:11 to play. (And, yes, 2:11 was left on the clock when Westbrook infamously sacrificed a touchdown.)

THAT PROVES HE SHOULD HAVE DONE IT! TEBOW THREW FOR 316 YARDS AGAINST THE STEELERS! COINCIDENCE??!?!?!?!?!!?

The clock would have trickled to two minutes, the Saints had only one timeout, and the Niners would have been able to milk the clock under 40 seconds before kicking what would have been the game-winning field goal.

Game winning field goal, huh? Well that settles it. Good thing that hypothetical field goal that would have gone through the uprights at :38ish would have won the game. The TD "drive" highlighted by the Jimmy Graham catch and run that the Saints put together in real life after the Smith TD took :34. But a game winning field goal is a game winning field goal, so I guess it wouldn't have mattered if the Saints had scored that TD or a similar one after the hypothetical FG. The game would already have been won.

Instead, the 49ers left the Saints and quarterback Drew Brees way too much time — and Brees took full advantage of it. Fortunately for the 49ers, Brees took too much advantage of it.

Looks like the Pro Football Talk editor had MLK day off.

Instead of having to pull the latest Dwight Clark/Terrell Owens rabbit out of their hats, the 49ers merely should have had to keep the Saints from scoring a field goal with roughly 30 seconds on the clock.

Something they doubtless would have done, except for the fact that the Saints scored a TD in roughly 30 seconds in that same situation in the real game. In a tie game, and if you're going to be able to run the clock down to :01 before the kick so that the worst case scenario is overtime, I say don't score the TD. In all other situations, you've got a lane to the end zone, fucking take it or risk being labeled the second biggest asshole in sports history after that one guy who returned the fumble the wrong direction and threw it out the side of the end zone.

Florio's post in its entirety should have read: "Remember that time Westbrook took a knee instead of scoring because doing so meant the game was over as long as Philly didn't fumble any of the next three snaps? Alex Smith wasn't in nearly that same situation on Saturday, but still, that Westbrook play was awesome."

PS- the Cardinals arguably should have let the Rangers score more runs in the game 7 of the WS, because then they could have produced a more memorable finish if they came back to win.

Something something something Jon Gruden THIS GUY

First of all, in regards to my last post, what are two of the eleven front page main sidebar stories on ESPN right now? "Ryan confident in Sanchez, Schottenheimer" (which sounds kind of like "Hitler confident in Final Victory" in a German paper published in March of 1945) and "Giants' Tuck: I still hate the Cowboys." Let's run down my checklist again: 1) nope, no substance whatsoever 2) obviously the Tuck article is nothing but manufactured drama 3) yep 4) yep and yep 5) admittedly, whether or not Sanchez is the Jets' QB again in 2012 requires a little speculation; as for the Tuck article it can go straight to hell and 6) yyyyyyyyyup. Thanks for staying consistent ESPN--please never change. I don't know what I'd do without you.

The real reason I'm writing this and not a legitimate post is because I was busy watching Saints/Falcons all night. Besides the whole Brees record thing, the game had major implications for the fantasy league I run. Wouldn't it be fucking fascinating if I told you in gruesome detail what those implications were and who stood to win or lose money? Of course not; fortunately for you, I have self-awareness than 80% of fantasy football players lack. Anyways, eventually Brees and the Saints did their thing and the record fell. Which led to a funny/sad sequence of analysis from Gruden and the special needs children with whom he shares the booth.

First they heaped praise on Brees. They'd been doing it all game though, so they needed to move in a different direction after the first 45 seconds. They noted that Marino's record was great and stood for a long time. Then they noted that Marino told them before the game that he was happy for Brees (aw shit, you think? of fucking course he said that). Then Tirico noted that while the game has changed and become more pass-friend since Marino set the record, Brees' yards/game is higher above the league average this year than Marino's was in 1984. At that point it was almost like they were talking more about Marino than Brees. Then they cut to commercial. When they got back, Gruden spent a good two minutes talking about how great Marino was at everything and how "No one can throw like he threw." It really progressed pretty quickly from "Let's celebrate this!" to "Whoa, not too much! Let's make sure we didn't hurt the feelings of the multimillionaire and HOFer who set this record when Brees was in kindergarten but also Brees is good too!"

I say this sequence was funny because I legitimately enjoy Gruden. His overwhelming positivity can get old but it's a harmless flaw, not something that ruins a game he calls. It's more of a "oh great, here he goes again" thing than a "I'm about to put golf club through the TV" thing. Along with Collinsworth and a handful of guys (and one lady who does college games for ESPN) whose names I don't know but whose voices I can recognize, I feel he's one of the few color commentators who adds to the game rather than taking away from it. He explains things without sounding like a moron or a blowhard. He's also self-deprecating despite being a Super Bowl winning coach and I appreciate that. So listening to him carefully cover everyone in the booth's tracks and make sure America knows how great Dan Marino is, when everyone knows Marino is great and also that he retired more than a decade ago, was funny.

At the same time, it was sad. What the fuck, you know? Why? Marino doesn't work for ESPN. He didn't recently die. He's not some amazing super charitable person who deserves flawless respect and adulation every time his name comes up. He's a guy that held a sort of significant record for 27 years. It was broken fair and square by a guy most fans like. While my point is certainly not that Gruden and Co. didn't give Brees his due--they absolutely gave him his due throughout the entire game--their tiptoeing around the good name of Marino was obnoxious.

I mean I understand that Gruden is connected to Marino in two ways- they're both in broadcast media based around the NFL (or as I call it, the snake oil business), and they're both former participants in the sport. So obviously one of them is going to watch out for the other pretty intensely. I just don't think this was the time or place to do it. Saying "Marino was great, and played under a different set of rules, but the record now belongs to Brees and it's his night" would have been enough. I really didn't need to be reminded that Marino had a quick release or hear about how all the young QBs Gruden has interviewed for MNF are in awe of Marino's abilities. Those would be good subjects for, you know, a pregame segment about how good Marino was. Why insert that into the moment, you know? Fucking media types.

Of course, at least the moment the record was broken Tirico and Gruden and Jaws got excited. The only thing worse than a misguided ode to the former record holder is something like Joe Buck's call of the final out of the 2008 World Series. With all the energy of someone working behind the desk at the DMV: "And the Phillies... are World Series champions." (Couldn't find it on Youtube, I hope Bud Selig gets hit with a meteor someday soon.) At least THAT didn't happen.

Real post coming... soon? Who knows. Man I'm lazy.

Is this the least worthwhile article in the history of sportswriting? Scientists say: maybe

Allow me to indulge my Simmons jealousy by making a definitive and undoubtedly comprehensive list of all the things that make ESPN's brand of writing/reporting patently fucking worthless:

1) style, style, style, style.... substance? nope, no substance, but plenty of style

2) manufacturing "drama" from irrelevant sound bites

3) pandering to mouth-breathing football fans

4) beating tired or trite stories to death

5) speculating about things that require absolutely no speculation or even thought

6) spending 90% of their time talking about things that are going to happen and 10% on things that already happened, when it should be the other way around (which is sort of a subset of item #2)

Well, now we have this. I'm not sure I've ever seen all six items simultaneously on display in such spectacular fashion. (Note that I'm not bitching about the New York-ness of it since it's from ESPNNewYork.com.) As Greggggggg would note, Rex Ryan is a fat loudmouth so if the Jets lose on Saturday that's why. Unless they win, in which case Tom Coughlin's red-faced screaming and shouting is to blame. Unless Ryan was wearing more cold-weather clothing than Coughlin, in which case all bets are off.

What I'm trying to say is that ESPN can eat a bag of moldy taints.

ThMTMQR: Just when I was ready to leave him alone

Holy squashed bear balls, this is one of Gregg's worst (or best?) performances ever. He outdoes himself several times on several familiar topics. Man. Whew. (Larry B slowly runs hand over top of head while puffing cheeks out) This reads like a "best of" clip column. I almost don't know where to begin.

What are the Packers' secrets? First, the personnel:

Note his use of the word "secrets."

• Great players:

WHOA! TED THOMPSON, YOU'VE BEEN EXPOSED! BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG!

All championship teams must have a few. Rodgers and Charles Woodson will be Hall of Famers. If they continue to perform at their current levels, Clay Matthews and B.J. Raji could be, too. Donald Driver and Chad Clifton have had great careers, and Greg Jennings is getting into that territory.

• Undrafted players:

The only surprise is that he didn't list this ahead of "Great players."

The Packers have 16 on their roster --

I'm not going to look it up, but I'm going to guess that's just about par for the course for most teams.

Jarrett Bush, Tom Crabtree, Evan Dietrich-Smith, Ray Dominguez, Rob Francois, Brett Goode, Ryan Grant, John Kuhn, Jamari Lattimore, Tim Masthay, Brandon Saine, Sam Shields, Shaky Smithson, Vic So'oto, Tramon Williams and Frank Zombo. Football is a team sport,

And most of those guys contribute to the team by making four special teams tackles a year while high-drafted megabucks glory boys Rodgers, Jennings, Raji, and Woodson (all first rounders besides Jennings) make all the plays.

and for team sports, little-known role players are as important as great players.

In the sense that you need some on your roster to make special teams tackles so your star players don't get hurt covering punts, yes.

Unlike highly drafted crybabies who think the rules don't apply to them -- Exhibit A, the Detroit Lions --

How predictable. How fucking predictable, you know? Didn't hear a lot about the Lions and their highly-drafted crybabies when they were tearing shit up earlier this season. Now that they've hit a rough patch he's right there to tell us all about it. Gregg Easterbrook : the Lions :: Jay Mariotti : every team in Chicago and everywhere else.

undrafted players listen to the coaches and give you what they've got.

Shoot me in the fucking eyeballs.

• Home-grown:

Largely irrelevant. Good players are good players are good players. Building through the draft is sometimes cheaper than using free agency, and always a source of pride for the fans (especially mouth-breathing bulldozers like Packer fans) but no more a secret to fielding a championship team than "having a historic stadium" is.

Many Green Bay players were late choices, selected by a point in the draft where many teams were just winging it.

No need to justify your point with examples! That takes lots of work.

• Green Bay won the Brett Favre mess: Had the Packers not shown Favre the door, Rodgers would have departed. Offloading the franchise's most accomplished player was wrenching.

Sure. Still not a secret. "Hey, they traded away a legend because he was getting old and there was a capable replacement waiting in the wings. Maybe if the Rams could figure that out for themselves they wouldn't be so terrible!"

Leaders make decisions for the future rather than the present -- if only those in Washington, D.C., thought this way --

Look at those clowns in Washington, clowning everything up with their clowniness LOL

and Green Bay made a smart decision for the future regarding Favre.

• The only NFL roster with five tight ends, as TMQ has noted before: Green Bay has five tight ends, and has won 18 straight games. Why don't other NFL teams notice this rudimentary fact?

Because simply signing more tight ends won't make your team better unless those tight ends are actually good? The Lakers won titles in 2009 and 2010 while starting two 7 footers- WHY CAN'T OTHER TEAMS NOTICE HOW SIMPLE IT IS?!??! Just sign two tall guys, sit back, and collect your ringzzzz

Multiple tight ends allow for multiple offensive sets that confuse defensive game plans. All contemporary defensive coordinators have some experience dealing with multiple wide receiver sets. Most don't have experience dealing with multiple tight end sets.

If by "multiple" you mean two, you're patently wrong. If you mean three or more, you're still wrong.

• Aaron Rodgers:

Already listed, and the opposite of a secret.

Plus Rodgers is handsome. Just as the football gods are propitiated by cheerleaders with sex appeal, the gods also smile on handsome quarterbacks. Rodgers, Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Drew Brees -- it may not be fair, but this seems to be the way it is.

Explain John Elway then.

There are two other big factors:

• Mystique: The Packers have won four Super Bowls, 13 conference and/or league titles. Green Bay has the oldest consistent winner in football. The place is Titletown. Vince Lombardi is looking down. The Packers exist in a college-town atmosphere -- they are even the sole NFL franchise with college cheerleaders, not professional cheerleaders, on the sidelines. The aura around the Packers is unmatched by any other NFL organization.

The Saints just won a Super Bowl. The Cardinals were two minutes from winning one. Who gives a shit?

• Bicycles: Packers players ride bicycles to the opening of camp, an annual summer ritual attended by thousands of children. Cheesy? Well, it is Wisconsin. Corny? Gets the season off on a fun note.

My God.

In his seven weeks of starting, Tebow has committed just three turnovers. Eagles quarterbacks Michael Vick and Vince Young have 13 turnovers in the same period; Ryan Fitzpatrick has 12 turnovers in same period.

That's undrafted all effort no glamour Harvard alum (chip chip cheerio I have a cleft asshole!) Ryan Fitzpatrick to you, buster.

Sour Play of the Week: Godfrey Daniel, what happened at the end of regulation in Arizona? Game tied, Dallas completed a pass to the Cardinals' 31 with 26 seconds remaining, holding two timeouts. Then Garrett appeared to ice his own kicker by calling timeout just before his team's kick was launched -- good, but wiped out by the coach's timeout. Dallas kicked again and this time missed; Arizona prevailed in overtime. Godfrey Daniel!

Any clue as to who or what Godfrey Daniel is? Me neither. So I Googled. Topical.

Several times during the contest, Newton ran the zone-read option play. Considering Newton and Tebow, this action is advancing from gimmick to standard NFL strategy.

Two out of thirty two teams (the only two with big QBs who ran as much as they passed in college) are using it? Sounds commonplace to me!

So when big-college sports programs hire coaches, appeal to the TV audience may mean a lot more than technicalities such as having players in class and getting their degrees. Ohio State just hired Urban Meyer, who has proven TV marketing appeal. According to the News-Suns of Springfield, Ohio, Meyer's contract includes maximum annual bonuses of $550,000 for victories and $150,000 for players' academic achievements. This suggests that football is 3.7 times more important than education at Ohio State.

Are you kidding me? Only 3.7 times? If I were dean of students at tOSU and the university officially announced that figure I'd pop some champagne. I wouldn't be surprised if they shut down their entire academic arm (except student athlete support services) within the next ten years and just focused on sports. How much money does the chemistry department bring to the university? Thought so.

Stop Me Before I Blitz Again! St. Louis blitzed seven; San Francisco threw a 56-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Williams for the icing score. Arizona blitzed seven; Dallas threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to Dez Bryant.

There's your weekly anecdotal evidence that blitzing never works and should be discarded.

Sure, the blitz sometimes produces a big play for the defense -- New Orleans got a sack against Detroit by rushing seven.

Whoa! From out of nowhere! What's with this new fair and balanced approach?

But on the big blitz, a big play for the offense is as likely.

It's a 50/50 proposition, folks. Close the book on that one. No further research need be done. Well, maybe one anecdote just to really get the point home.

The 36-yard late third-quarter catch by Tony Scheffler that put Detroit back into its game at New Orleans came against a mega-blitz.

Yyyyyyyup. 50/50.

Washington has not only put the younger generation on the hook for at least $14 trillion in debt -- now young Americans may end up on the hook for money squandered in Europe. TMQ asks again: Why aren't voters under age 30 outraged about this?

They're too busy being enraged about minor changes to Facebook?

/shakes fist at damn neighborhood kids playing on his lawn

Manly-Man Play of the Day: Tennessee led Buffalo 17-10 midway through third quarter, Flaming Thumbtacks facing fourth-and-1 on the Bills' 18. Tennessee went for it and converted. The result of the drive was still a field goal, but Titans coach Mike Munchak sent his players a message that he was challenging them to win, as they did.

And there's your weekly anecdote that going for it on 4th down is a great idea no matter what every time. Even when you do it from your own 29 in overtime and fail. If the Falcons make the playoffs, you can bet your house, dog, and savings that Gregg will attribute it to that loss against the Saints. If they don't make the playoffs, you can bet those same items that Gregg will fail to mention it but will also continue to point out that cheer-babes are mega hott (especially when they don't wear much clothing!).

Arkansas finished sixth in the BCS, ahead of Boise State, is a megabucks insider school, yet didn't reach the BCS either. In the Razorbacks' case, because LSU and Alabama made the title tilt, by BCS rules no other SEC school could enter. But that shows the BCS isn't entirely rigged -- Arkansas, an insider, is out.

I cannot think of a stupider conclusion to draw from those facts. Not one. You could use them to conclude that it was actually space aliens who assassinated JFK and you'd still be closer to right than Gregg.

Skins-Jets note: Pass rush specialist Aaron Maybin, who had zero sacks in two seasons at Buffalo, has six sacks in his first nine games with Jersey/B, leading Rex Ryan's pressure-obsessed defense in the category. Maybin hit Rex Grossman to force the fumble that turned the game in the Jets' favor.

Buffalo used the 11th overall selection of the 2009 draft on Maybin, then rarely let him on the field, criticized him relentlessly in public, then waived him early this season. Nonsensical? Not if Buffalo's new front office, which took over shortly after the Maybin choice, is more concerned with protecting its high-paid jobs than with winning.

1) And there's your weekly reminder that Gregg actually thinks coaches do things besides try to win.

2) I love when he has to grapple with the resume of a player like Maybin, who was a mega-bucks first round pick but was also waived.

The Bills are 5-7 and last in the NFL in sacks. If everything about their season was the same except they'd simply kept Maybin, the Bills might be in the playoff hunt.

No.

But to the coach and general manager, lining up excuses for losing was the first priority.

Also no.

Undrafted Quarterback Plays of the Day: Undrafted Miami quarterback Matt Moore threw a touchdown pass

Undrafted because he transferred, got hurt a lot, and only had one quality college season.

to undrafted Miami receiver Davon Bess

Undrafted because he's tiny and not that fast. Although I admit that that shouldn't have been the case.

versus Oakland. Undrafted Tyler Palko threw a touchdown pass against Chicago.

And what an artful touchdown pass it was! I'm sure he planned to throw it off Brian Urlacher's hands and into the waiting stomach of Dexter McCluster. Just a few paragraphs later, in his "Hell's sports bar" bit:

They endlessly re-saw Kansas City getting its sole touchdown on a fluke Hail Mary on the final snap before the first half.

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS GRRRRRRRR

In the Carolina-City of Tampa game, undrafted quarterback Rudy Carpenter, called up from the practice squad just hours before the contest,

And now we're congratulating undrafted QBs for successfully handling snaps.

handed off to undrafted tailback LeGarrette Blount.

Who went undrafted because everyone thought he was too small and untalented to make it in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. Or perhaps everyone realized that he was incredibly talented but was also a loose cannon asshole who punched an opponent in the face on the field after a loss. (Not that that Boise State guy didn't deserve it. I'm sure he did.) One or the other.

Class of 1983, Meet Class of 2012: Sports touts, and Indianapolis Colts faithful, are focused on the destiny of Andrew Luck in the 2012 draft. Landry Jones will be available too.

Landry Jones is fucking terrible. I'm pretty sure Oklahoma State's good-not-great defense made that clear on Saturday.

Matt Barkley may come out of college, and this season he's looked like he was expected to look when he was the most sought-after prep player in the country. Don't forget Case Keenum,

Probably not NFL material

Russell Wilson

Probably not NFL material

and Robert Griffin,

OK, he rules

all of whom have spectacular touchdown-to-interception ratios.

That's six quarterbacks with a legit shot of going in Round 1, plus a realistic shot of at least one Hall of Famer among them.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That's great. There are 23 QBs in the HOF from the modern era, only 11 of whom entered the league during the Super Bowl era and only 9 of whom took a snap after 1980. Luck seems pretty awesome. Those other guys could be anywhere from pretty great to Alex Smith to Matt Leinart. Happy hunting, teams with a QB vacancy next spring. Gregg realistically likes your chances.