Theisman-ia, and other Divers Football Stuffe

In comments to my previous post about what a doofus ESPN's Joe Theismann is, some other folks provide agreement (while Nefarious Neddie provides a contrarian take which I can only assume is part of his overall scheme to be as contrary as possible when posting to my comments, the little devil). I figure this is a good time to dig out my favorite Dumb Thing from the Lips of Joe of all time. In the pre-game hoopla before Super Bowl XXXVII (Buccaneers vs. Raiders), the various TV sports folk were offering their picks for the game, and Theismann opined that the Raiders would win because "Week in and week out, they were the best team in the NFL this year." This was an odd opinion for Joe to have, since the Raiders were only 11-5 that year (versus 12-4 for both the Bucs and Eagles, the participants in the NFC title game the week before), and since the Raiders had suffered a four-game losing streak earlier in the season. It just goes to prove: when you want to hear something dumb about football, just tune in to a game Joe Theismann's calling!

Anyway, what should I say about yesterday's dismantling of the Buffalo Shitty Bills at the hands of the New England Stupid Patriots? Well, not much, since it was (a) expected, and thus (b) totally unsurprising. You've got a 3-5 team with a crappy offensive line and a defense that, while highly rated, still generates too little pressure up front and relies too heavily on the blitz against a team with a good defense and a quarterback who seems to be about as susceptible to the blitz as my dead grandmother. (Just try blitzing my dead grandmother. She won't even blink at you. Of course, she won't burn you for a 50-yard completion either, but you sure won't surprise her.)

All week prior to this game, the Buffalo sports media kept insisting that the ShiBills would have to take advantage of the StuPats' injury-depleted secondary, and all along I was thinking, "Yeah. Good luck with that." Since that didn't play out so well for the Rams the week before (a team that can move the ball through the air sometimes), I failed to see just how this would work for a team like the ShiBills, whose limited ability to move the ball involves running it, not throwing it. And I was right: the ShiBills couldn't move the ball at all. Their only points came on a punt return, for God's sake, and they couldn't even punch home the two-point conversion despite having two shots at it. (The StuPats stopped the first one, but a penalty against them gave the ShiBills another shot. Which got stuffed too.)

Of course, nothing I write here should be seen as any kind of endorsement of the StuPats. They're still the greatest force for evil in all of sports-dom, and no amount of admittance of their current football ascendency changes that. I mean, the Nazis had a pretty awesome military machine in 1939, but they were still evil. Evil, I say! EVIL!...uh, where was I?

In other ShiBills developments, it seems that just about everyone is clamoring for J.P. Losman to be anointed the starter, right now. And from what I've heard on the radio shows and read in the paper, this isn't out of some belief that maybe Losman can salvage the season. It's solely for the purpose of getting him in there to get some NFL experience: embracing the inevitable quarterback turnover, since Drew Bledsoe looks to be totally done. I have to admit that the idea is pretty seductive, although I'm not sure what kind of learning experience Losman's going to get behind this offensive line. He'll be sacked more times than the Campbell's Chunky Soups that are on sale at The Store. (Yeah, what a crappy metaphor. I'm tired.)

So anyway, next week brings Mike Martz and the Rams to Buffalo -- otherwise known as the Most Underachieving Team in NFL History. (Maybe I should call them the UnderRams.) Whee. That one should be a real hootenanny. Zzzzzzz.