Well, the thoughts probably aren't all that super, but the game was called Super, even if it wasn't all that super. Or something. Random thoughts on the Super Bowl:
:: I was rooting for the Colts, but not really rooting against the Saints -- it was one of those games where I wanted one team to win but wasn't bothered much that they didn't. It is always nice to see teams that have historically sucked finally manage to put their shit together and win the Super Bowl.
:: Note to Buffalo Bills: see? See?! Teams that have historically sucked -- even if for only ten years and not, well, forever, like the Saints did -- actually can manage to put their shit together and win the Super Bowl!
:: A Super Bowl ring doesn't make Gregg Williams less of an irritating ass. I predict he'll fall flat again once he gets another crack at head coaching.
:: Jim Nance and Phil Simms were kind of annoying, I thought. And hey, Mr. Nance? Just because Phil Simms has two Super Bowl rings doesn't mean that he won two Super Bowls.
:: Bill Cowher, before the game: "Nobody ever remembers who lost the Super Bowl." Oh. Well, I suppose that explains the quizzical looks I get when I tell people from Albuquerque that I'm a Bills fan.
:: I'm always amused by the Ritual Presentation of the Super Special Coin, the one they use for the opening coin toss. The head ref says something like "Gentlemen, I have here the special coin we are using. This side, featuring a portrait of Vince Lombardi in a gladiator's costume, is heads, while this side, featuring a picture of Joe Namath kissing Suzy Kolbert is tails." I think it would be funny if the ref pulled out, say, a Nevada quarter: "Gentlemen, we'll be flipping this Nevada quarter. This picture of some old dead white guy is heads, and on the other side? See the horsies? That's tails!"
:: More NFL pageantry goofiness: the Ritual Presentation of the Vince Lombardi Trophy, where some Elder Statesman of the Game walks the trophy across the field to the big stage where they're going to award it. That's bad enough, but what makes the whole thing so laughable is the pseudo-majestic fanfare they blast over the stadium speakers as the trophy is carried out. Hey, NFL, you're not placing the crown on the head of the new King of Gondor. It's a trophy.
:: OK, the game itself was...well, look, it had a result that everyone loved and it wasn't a blowout. But I gotta be honest: the game was boring. Really, it was just dullsville. For two weeks all we heard was that the Super Bowl might be the greatest offensive explosion in football history...and all we get is a standard 31-17 game in which the two biggest plays were a surprise onside kick and an interception return for a touchdown? No great offensive heroics, no big offensive plays -- just a whole lot of dink-and-dunk, a ten-yard completion here, a twelve-yard completion there, ho hum, lather rinse repeat.
:: Super Bowl narratives I'm glad I don't have to hear anymore: "Peyton Manning must win this game if he's to be known as the greatest quarterback EVER!" and "The Saints deserve to win this game because of Hurricane Katrina!" Look: quarterback greatness isn't necessarily determined by the number of rings he has, and as nice as the Saints' win is, it doesn't rebuild anything in New Orleans. It's a football game.
:: I'm long on record as not really caring about Super Bowl commercials, so as usual I didn't see a lot of them because I simply wasn't paying attention. I suppose the best was the Google one, which I watched online this morning. A couple of the Doritos ones made me laugh. None of the movie trailers looked interesting (Robin Hood maybe, but the trailer made it look like what it probably is -- a grim and violent medieval epic by Ridley Scott). And aren't we about done with the various farm animals who bond with or somehow want to be around the Budweiser Clydesdales? Can't they find a new way to feature those horses? I say they go for high weirdness next year. I wanna see the Budweiser Clydesdales have a precious and twee relationship with a giant squid! How cool would that be!
And maybe this is curmudgeonly of me, but I just can't count myself among the apparent masses in this country who think things are automatically awesome if Betty White is somehow involved. Betty White getting tackled into the mud did nothing for me. Abe Vigoda, on the other hand -- that's comedy gold!
:: God in Heaven, the halftime show was painful. I like the Who as much as anyone, but Ye Gods, this was just awful.
:: During pregame, they had Queen Latifah sing America the Beautiful immediately before Carrie Underwood sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Underwood's performance wasn't that great, but Latifah's was very nice, and it reinforced my belief that America the Beautiful should really be our anthem.
:: I read a little while ago that Peyton Manning exited the field immediately after the Colts' last possession ended, even though it then fell to New Orleans to run out the clock. So Manning is the newest entry in the "losers skipping the handshakes after the game" thing that's becoming more and more common. Peyton, it was jerky for Tom Brady and Bill Belichick to do it when you beat them four years ago, and it was jerky for you to do it when you lost yesterday. When you lose, man up and shake the hand of them that beat you. You did it in fourth grade peewee football, I'm sure you can handle it now.
:: I saw the Tim Tebow ad, and I note that today, everybody's saying "Awww, shucks! It was a nice ad!" Sure, I suppose, given that it was designed to give a nice happy sheen to a grouped that's anti-gay and in favor of forced pregnancy. And the question still remains as to why CBS would air their ad, but insist that they don't do issue ads when the position being taken in the ad is a liberal one.
That's about it. Another NFL season in the books. Next up, the Draft. Wheeeee!
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Showing posts with label NFL 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NFL 2009. Show all posts
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Super Bowl Questions
UPDATE 2-7-10: You know, I was thinking about doing some research and creating a nice long Super Bowl trivia quiz this year, but I just never got around to doing the research, so I filed the notion away for next year. And now I'm getting a lot of hits from people looking for "Super Bowl Questions", so I'm definitely doing it next year. These questions probably aren't what you all are looking for, but thanks for dropping by, folks! Go Colts! (But I won't be bothered if the Saints win.)
Roger asks some questions regarding the Super Bowl:
Do you watch the Super Bowl? (That's American football, BTW.) If so, is it for the commercials, the game or the halftime entertainment? Do you have special food for the occasion?
Yes, I watch the Super Bowl. In fact, with one exception, I've watched every Super Bowl since I became a football fan in 1988. (That exception was Super Bowl XXIV -- 49ers 55, Broncos 10 -- because I had something going on that night at college.) I don't pay attention to the commercials much; I tend to use them for their intended purpose (get more food, refill my glass, go to the bathroom, et cetera). In fact, every year when I hear people talking about their favorite commercials the next day, I'm always a bit clueless until I track them down online.
In terms of food, I just tend to get a bit of snack stuff, like chips and dip, if we're at home. Over the years we've been to a couple of Super Bowl parties at other people's homes. Lots of food is usually nice, but I prefer to be in the comfort of my own home.
And speaking of halftime, don't you find it interesting that it is The Who performing when the game is on CBS, since The Who provide the theme songs for all those CSI shows on CBS, such as CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, CSI: Kalamazoo, and CSI: Portland (both the Oregon AND the Maine shows).
Yeah, that occurred to me this past week. I'm hoping that since the game's in Miami, the halftime show starts with David Caruso on stage, saying something goofy in that oddball delivery of his, and putting on his sunglasses as The Who smashes into "Won't Get Fooled Again".
By the way, I didn't know that The Who was even doing this year's halftime festivities until just last Monday, when I said to my main football-discussing friends at work, "Hey, who's doing the halftime show this year?" And he said, "Yes." Luckily I thought over his answer for ten seconds and realized what was going on, before we launched into some weird Abbott-and-Costello routine. ("So at haltime, Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe talk about the first half and then they kick the attention over to who?" "Yes!")
If you don't watch the game, do you have a ritual for that? I had friends who always went to the movies on Super Bowl Sunday.
I watch the game. Sometimes I watch a movie earlier in the day.
And those of you outside the United States: can you even access the Suoer Bowl?
Obviously this is not applicable to me.
Do you know how to write 44 in Roman numerals?
XLIV. I think the Roman numerals thing is starting to look goofier each year -- we're six years out from the Super Bowl logo being a giant L. I think it would be funny if, when that year comes, the logo is simply a big cursive L like the one Laverne used to wear on all her sweaters on Laverne and Shirley. It would be funny to see all these big, hulking football players in the Super Bowl sporting nice, pretty, loopy, feminine L's on their jerseys.
Do you have a rooting interest?
I'm rooting for the Colts, but a Saints win wouldn't bother me much at all, except that we'd then have to hear a lot of crap about Peyton Manning being a choker and Gregg Williams's head would get bigger, and I'm sure the Super Dome has a hard time containing that guy's noggin already.
What do think of the Pro Bowl, the All-star game of the NFL, being played the week before the Super Bowl (i.e., today), instead of the week after?
The Pro Bowl sucks no matter when they play it. It just sucks. It's lame and boring and I never watch it because it's lame and boring. Plus, I don't like that lots of guys go because the guys actually voted to the thing don't, so you end up with something like half the league being called "Pro Bowlers". On the Bills, Marshawn Lynch is a "Pro Bowler", even though the only reason he got to be in the game a year ago is because a bunch of running backs ahead of him didn't play. Only the guys actually voted onto the roster should get to be called "Pro Bowlers", and frankly, if they just did away with the game and treated being voted a Pro Bowler as baseball does being awarded a Golden Glove, I'd be fine with it.
So yeah, I don't really care when they play the Pro Bowl. I do think that the NFL's rigid adherence to rules, thus requiring the Colts and Saints players to be in attendance even if they don't play -- resulting in them literally having to fly back to Indianapolis and New Orleans respectively and then turn right back around to return to Miami, since by another NFL rule, all Super Bowl players must travel with their teams together -- is just colossal idiocy.
Roger asks some questions regarding the Super Bowl:
Do you watch the Super Bowl? (That's American football, BTW.) If so, is it for the commercials, the game or the halftime entertainment? Do you have special food for the occasion?
Yes, I watch the Super Bowl. In fact, with one exception, I've watched every Super Bowl since I became a football fan in 1988. (That exception was Super Bowl XXIV -- 49ers 55, Broncos 10 -- because I had something going on that night at college.) I don't pay attention to the commercials much; I tend to use them for their intended purpose (get more food, refill my glass, go to the bathroom, et cetera). In fact, every year when I hear people talking about their favorite commercials the next day, I'm always a bit clueless until I track them down online.
In terms of food, I just tend to get a bit of snack stuff, like chips and dip, if we're at home. Over the years we've been to a couple of Super Bowl parties at other people's homes. Lots of food is usually nice, but I prefer to be in the comfort of my own home.
And speaking of halftime, don't you find it interesting that it is The Who performing when the game is on CBS, since The Who provide the theme songs for all those CSI shows on CBS, such as CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, CSI: Kalamazoo, and CSI: Portland (both the Oregon AND the Maine shows).
Yeah, that occurred to me this past week. I'm hoping that since the game's in Miami, the halftime show starts with David Caruso on stage, saying something goofy in that oddball delivery of his, and putting on his sunglasses as The Who smashes into "Won't Get Fooled Again".
By the way, I didn't know that The Who was even doing this year's halftime festivities until just last Monday, when I said to my main football-discussing friends at work, "Hey, who's doing the halftime show this year?" And he said, "Yes." Luckily I thought over his answer for ten seconds and realized what was going on, before we launched into some weird Abbott-and-Costello routine. ("So at haltime, Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe talk about the first half and then they kick the attention over to who?" "Yes!")
If you don't watch the game, do you have a ritual for that? I had friends who always went to the movies on Super Bowl Sunday.
I watch the game. Sometimes I watch a movie earlier in the day.
And those of you outside the United States: can you even access the Suoer Bowl?
Obviously this is not applicable to me.
Do you know how to write 44 in Roman numerals?
XLIV. I think the Roman numerals thing is starting to look goofier each year -- we're six years out from the Super Bowl logo being a giant L. I think it would be funny if, when that year comes, the logo is simply a big cursive L like the one Laverne used to wear on all her sweaters on Laverne and Shirley. It would be funny to see all these big, hulking football players in the Super Bowl sporting nice, pretty, loopy, feminine L's on their jerseys.
Do you have a rooting interest?
I'm rooting for the Colts, but a Saints win wouldn't bother me much at all, except that we'd then have to hear a lot of crap about Peyton Manning being a choker and Gregg Williams's head would get bigger, and I'm sure the Super Dome has a hard time containing that guy's noggin already.
What do think of the Pro Bowl, the All-star game of the NFL, being played the week before the Super Bowl (i.e., today), instead of the week after?
The Pro Bowl sucks no matter when they play it. It just sucks. It's lame and boring and I never watch it because it's lame and boring. Plus, I don't like that lots of guys go because the guys actually voted to the thing don't, so you end up with something like half the league being called "Pro Bowlers". On the Bills, Marshawn Lynch is a "Pro Bowler", even though the only reason he got to be in the game a year ago is because a bunch of running backs ahead of him didn't play. Only the guys actually voted onto the roster should get to be called "Pro Bowlers", and frankly, if they just did away with the game and treated being voted a Pro Bowler as baseball does being awarded a Golden Glove, I'd be fine with it.
So yeah, I don't really care when they play the Pro Bowl. I do think that the NFL's rigid adherence to rules, thus requiring the Colts and Saints players to be in attendance even if they don't play -- resulting in them literally having to fly back to Indianapolis and New Orleans respectively and then turn right back around to return to Miami, since by another NFL rule, all Super Bowl players must travel with their teams together -- is just colossal idiocy.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Drew versus Peyton
I was right! And my final score picks were in the neighborhood, surprisingly enough. Huzzah!
I'm probably going to be rooting for the Colts, although a Saints win won't bother me all that much if it happens. My general inclination is to pick the Colts on the basis of experience and the fact that the Saints combine awesome offense with a bend-but-don't-break style of defense, which isn't a combination that tends to serve teams well in the Super Bowl. (Just ask the Buffalo Bills.)
I didn't watch the AFC Championship Game, figuring it would be the lesser of the two games (watched Attack of the Clones instead), but I watched most of the NFC Championship. For all the usual worship of Brett Favre, I thought he looked worse and worse as the game went on, which is usual for aging quarterbacks. His throws looked more and more forced, but even I thought that maybe he'd keep his unshakable faith in his own superhuman status under wraps by the time the Vikings had the ball in field goal range with the twenty seconds on the clock in a tied game. No dice; Favre made a move that is classic Favre, and not just from the NFC title game two years ago, either. He threw a pass that everybody on Planet Earth knew he shouldn't even consider attempting, and it got intercepted. The Saints forced OT, and then drove for the winning field goal themselves. After the pick, Brett Favre never touched the ball again.
So now, the two weeks until the Super Bowl. Otherwise known as "Yawn Week" in the NFL. Not even the stunt of having the Pro Bowl next weekend can make this week interesting. But maybe we can get an early jump on the 2010 edition of "Will Favre play next year or not!", which is always wild, whacky fun!
I'm probably going to be rooting for the Colts, although a Saints win won't bother me all that much if it happens. My general inclination is to pick the Colts on the basis of experience and the fact that the Saints combine awesome offense with a bend-but-don't-break style of defense, which isn't a combination that tends to serve teams well in the Super Bowl. (Just ask the Buffalo Bills.)
I didn't watch the AFC Championship Game, figuring it would be the lesser of the two games (watched Attack of the Clones instead), but I watched most of the NFC Championship. For all the usual worship of Brett Favre, I thought he looked worse and worse as the game went on, which is usual for aging quarterbacks. His throws looked more and more forced, but even I thought that maybe he'd keep his unshakable faith in his own superhuman status under wraps by the time the Vikings had the ball in field goal range with the twenty seconds on the clock in a tied game. No dice; Favre made a move that is classic Favre, and not just from the NFC title game two years ago, either. He threw a pass that everybody on Planet Earth knew he shouldn't even consider attempting, and it got intercepted. The Saints forced OT, and then drove for the winning field goal themselves. After the pick, Brett Favre never touched the ball again.
So now, the two weeks until the Super Bowl. Otherwise known as "Yawn Week" in the NFL. Not even the stunt of having the Pro Bowl next weekend can make this week interesting. But maybe we can get an early jump on the 2010 edition of "Will Favre play next year or not!", which is always wild, whacky fun!
In which I ensure a Jets-Vikings Super Bowl
My predictions are: Colts 31, Jets 13 and Saints 38, Vikings 24. I've been wrong a lot during this year's playoffs, so I see no reason that should end. I'm conflicted on the Vikings, actually; I've always liked the team and a lot of my best friends, dating from my college years, are Vikings fans, so seeing them get a Super Bowl win would be nice. But Brett Favre's annual offseason antics about whether or not he's retiring and whether or not he wants to play and blah blah blah have soured me on Favre to the point that I don't want to see him get another shot at a ring.
In terms of rooting interest in the Super Bowl, I'd love to see the Saints get a win...but I'd also like to see the Colts win it all, if only to shut up the Jason Whitlocks of the world who still insist that Peyton Manning is a choker, even if he's already got a ring. So maybe Jets-Saints, so I could root for Drew Brees in peace...but I just don't see the Jets winning today. Mark Sanchez has to remember he's a rookie sometime, right?
Ach, screw it. I have no idea who's going to win.
In terms of rooting interest in the Super Bowl, I'd love to see the Saints get a win...but I'd also like to see the Colts win it all, if only to shut up the Jason Whitlocks of the world who still insist that Peyton Manning is a choker, even if he's already got a ring. So maybe Jets-Saints, so I could root for Drew Brees in peace...but I just don't see the Jets winning today. Mark Sanchez has to remember he's a rookie sometime, right?
Ach, screw it. I have no idea who's going to win.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Ixnay on the Ad-picks-bay!
The other day, the Buffalo Bills held a hastily-called news conference to announce the hiring of their new General Manager: a guy named Buddy Nix, who was promoted from national scout to GM for the team. After everyone in Buffalo -- and I mean everyone -- agreed that what the team needs first and foremost is a good football person to take over the reins of the never-ending rebuilding project, the selection of Nix was billed as just that. But the reaction in Bills-land has been a pretty resounding "Meh". Jerry Sullivan's column from the other day is pretty representative of the negative reaction, while positive reaction has generally been of the "Well, they could have done worse" variety. I haven't heard anyone who is really excited by Nix's hiring.
To me, the least interesting of the objections to Nix are the ones related to his age (he's 70) and his experience until now. I tend to think that if we can generally think of men in their 70s as being qualified to be President of the United States, Supreme Court Justices, or United States Senators, then surely a man in his 70s can run an NFL team. (So can women in their 70s, for that matter.) Not interested in the age argument. Nor am I much convinced by its parallel argument, that hey, since he's 70, shouldn't he have become a GM way before this? If Nix had been toiling as a scout for three or four decades and was only now getting his shot at being GM, that would be one thing, but he's only been in the NFL scouting scene since 1993, when he left a long college coaching career for an NFL scouting career. Seventeen years of scouting in the NFL, rising up the ranks of two organizations in the process, doesn't strike me as an unreasonable amount of experience for a first-time General Manager. Just looking at one other notable example, Scott Pioli is finishing his first season as an NFL GM in Kansas City; his prior scouting and front-office career with several organizations (most notably the Patriots) started in 1992. So I'm fine with Nix's level of experience.
I'm also fine with Nix's resume. He worked in Buffalo through the mid and late 1990s, when the team was still good and was still drafting good players. Then he went to San Diego at the beginning of this decade, as the Chargers began to build into one of the NFL's better teams. (I have a feeling the Chargers will end up as this era's best team to not make the Super Bowl.) Now he's back in Buffalo -- actually, he was back last year as a National Scout. The first draft since his return, the 2009 draft, was actually not a bad draft at all and may turn out pretty good in the end, especially if Aaron Maybin develops over the offseason into a good player. Nix has the pedigree you want in a GM: he's been with two organizations for a long time each, during their good years.
The more compelling argument against Nix is the nature of the apparent search the Bills made for their GM. They didn't wait to interview candidates from other organizations (which you're only allowed to do when the season is over); from all appearances, they interviewed exactly two people: Nix and current Bills Director of Pro Personnel John Guy, who "happens to be black", thus satisfying the NFL's requirement that all teams interview minority candidates when hiring. The argument is that the Bills didn't cast a wide net at all; instead they went with someone in house, someone safe and comfortable. Maybe. We'll see.
I do think that Nix represents an upgrade over the previous football regime here. Obviously the results will tell the tale and the results won't be in for a few years, but as long as Nix isn't the type of guy to keep John McCargo around (or trade back up into the first round to pick him), maybe the team will be on the rise soon. Let's see what happens when he hires a coach.
To me, the least interesting of the objections to Nix are the ones related to his age (he's 70) and his experience until now. I tend to think that if we can generally think of men in their 70s as being qualified to be President of the United States, Supreme Court Justices, or United States Senators, then surely a man in his 70s can run an NFL team. (So can women in their 70s, for that matter.) Not interested in the age argument. Nor am I much convinced by its parallel argument, that hey, since he's 70, shouldn't he have become a GM way before this? If Nix had been toiling as a scout for three or four decades and was only now getting his shot at being GM, that would be one thing, but he's only been in the NFL scouting scene since 1993, when he left a long college coaching career for an NFL scouting career. Seventeen years of scouting in the NFL, rising up the ranks of two organizations in the process, doesn't strike me as an unreasonable amount of experience for a first-time General Manager. Just looking at one other notable example, Scott Pioli is finishing his first season as an NFL GM in Kansas City; his prior scouting and front-office career with several organizations (most notably the Patriots) started in 1992. So I'm fine with Nix's level of experience.
I'm also fine with Nix's resume. He worked in Buffalo through the mid and late 1990s, when the team was still good and was still drafting good players. Then he went to San Diego at the beginning of this decade, as the Chargers began to build into one of the NFL's better teams. (I have a feeling the Chargers will end up as this era's best team to not make the Super Bowl.) Now he's back in Buffalo -- actually, he was back last year as a National Scout. The first draft since his return, the 2009 draft, was actually not a bad draft at all and may turn out pretty good in the end, especially if Aaron Maybin develops over the offseason into a good player. Nix has the pedigree you want in a GM: he's been with two organizations for a long time each, during their good years.
The more compelling argument against Nix is the nature of the apparent search the Bills made for their GM. They didn't wait to interview candidates from other organizations (which you're only allowed to do when the season is over); from all appearances, they interviewed exactly two people: Nix and current Bills Director of Pro Personnel John Guy, who "happens to be black", thus satisfying the NFL's requirement that all teams interview minority candidates when hiring. The argument is that the Bills didn't cast a wide net at all; instead they went with someone in house, someone safe and comfortable. Maybe. We'll see.
I do think that Nix represents an upgrade over the previous football regime here. Obviously the results will tell the tale and the results won't be in for a few years, but as long as Nix isn't the type of guy to keep John McCargo around (or trade back up into the first round to pick him), maybe the team will be on the rise soon. Let's see what happens when he hires a coach.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Losing! Whiskey! Sexy!
The Buffalo Bills have, a short while ago, lost 17-10 to the New England Patriots. That's their second loss to the Patriots this year and something like their 18th since 2000. Wow. Although they did break their usual pattern of playing the Pats tough the first time and then get blown out the second; they played tough in both games. Same result, though. Whee!!!
The loss today is notable in that it's also the ninth of the season, which means that the Bills are officially playing a losing season. That will be their fifth consecutive losing season. It's also the seventh losing season since their last playoff year (1999). It's also the ninth non-winning season in the same period (since they have two 8-8 finishes, and .500 ball is neither winning nor losing).
Bad franchise, bad team, just plain bad.
(Also, I read yesterday that the way George Bush structured his big "tax cuts for rich people" bill back in 2001, there will be no estate tax in 2010. So if Ralph Wilson dies next year, does that mean he can leave the team to his kids and they would not have to sell the team in order to pay the inheritance tax? Hmmmm....)
The loss today is notable in that it's also the ninth of the season, which means that the Bills are officially playing a losing season. That will be their fifth consecutive losing season. It's also the seventh losing season since their last playoff year (1999). It's also the ninth non-winning season in the same period (since they have two 8-8 finishes, and .500 ball is neither winning nor losing).
Bad franchise, bad team, just plain bad.
(Also, I read yesterday that the way George Bush structured his big "tax cuts for rich people" bill back in 2001, there will be no estate tax in 2010. So if Ralph Wilson dies next year, does that mean he can leave the team to his kids and they would not have to sell the team in order to pay the inheritance tax? Hmmmm....)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The Ball of the Foot
Some random babblings 'bout football:
:: Wow, the Steelers really have this suck-good-suck thing going on, don't they? They're awesome and win the Super Bowl, then they suck, then they get better, then they win the Super Bowl again, and now they suck. Weird.
:: I admit that I thought for sure that Brett Favre would start to stink up the joint at some point, and aside from that one game against the Cardinals, he hasn't. But then, the Vikings' schedule has really helped him out, hasn't it? First, they play in a bad division (even though the Packers seem to be catching on finally); second, they're in a dome; third, with just two or three exceptions (which are almost all behind them anyway), it seems as though each time they face a good teams, they're at home, and their road games have been mostly against bad teams. I don't know, but I don't see them beating New Orleans on the road. But then, eleven years ago I didn't see Atlanta beating Minnesota on the road, either....
:: Kurt Warner is a Hall of Famer, and I'll have strong words with anyone who says he isn't. I love that guy.
:: If nothing else, I'll always love the 2009 season for giving me this scene:
:: I heard quite a bit of talk radio chatter today about Randy Moss, who is apparently in a bit of hot water in New England right now because he might not be squeezing out maximum effort. Well, no one has a right to be shocked about this at all. I recall one sports pundit writing this, shortly after the Patriots' not-quite-undefeated season thudded to a close:
That was me, by the way. Boo-yeah!
:: This time of year brings many things to football fans. If you're an NFC East team fan (aside from the Redskins), you're rooting for a playoff run. If you're a Colts fan, you're thinking about selling your tickets to the remaining home games because they're going to be on autopilot until the playoffs get here. And if you're a Bills fan, you debate your fellow fans on the issue of whether it would be better for the team to lose out, and get a better draft pick, then keep trying to "fight the good fight" and pick up a meaningless win or two. I can sort of understand the sentiment, but to me, this thinking is somewhat wrong-headed.
Consider that teams like New England, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh have been good for years now, despite rarely picking in the top five of the draft, if ever. How do they do it? Those franchises have GMs and front offices that know how to evaluate talent and how to make the most of the draft choices they have. Those franchises are constantly picking guys who develop into studs, and they don't need to be in the top five of the draft to do it. That's what the Bills lack, and have lacked, for years.
The Bills are likely to pick somewhere around tenth this year. Maybe they'll get as high as seventh. At that spot, they can still get a good player, or even trade down to add picks later in the draft. But they desperately need a new front office to make this work.
Put it this way: would I rather have the Bills' current brain trust running the draft if they had the top pick in each round, or would I rather have a clone of Bill Polian running the Bills' draft if they were only picking twentieth? Yeah, I'm gonna go with the latter. So, losing or winning right now doesn't matter, except for the possibility that winning their way to 7-9 or even 8-8 might cause Ralph Wilson to conclude that the front office is just fine, even though these are the guys who traded up for JP Losman and John McCargo, took Aaron Maybin over Brian Orakpo, decided that Haloti Ngata wasn't as big a stud as Donte Whitner, and so on. That would be disaster.
A lot of thinking, given that I haven't even been watching football lately!
:: Wow, the Steelers really have this suck-good-suck thing going on, don't they? They're awesome and win the Super Bowl, then they suck, then they get better, then they win the Super Bowl again, and now they suck. Weird.
:: I admit that I thought for sure that Brett Favre would start to stink up the joint at some point, and aside from that one game against the Cardinals, he hasn't. But then, the Vikings' schedule has really helped him out, hasn't it? First, they play in a bad division (even though the Packers seem to be catching on finally); second, they're in a dome; third, with just two or three exceptions (which are almost all behind them anyway), it seems as though each time they face a good teams, they're at home, and their road games have been mostly against bad teams. I don't know, but I don't see them beating New Orleans on the road. But then, eleven years ago I didn't see Atlanta beating Minnesota on the road, either....
:: Kurt Warner is a Hall of Famer, and I'll have strong words with anyone who says he isn't. I love that guy.
:: If nothing else, I'll always love the 2009 season for giving me this scene:
:: I heard quite a bit of talk radio chatter today about Randy Moss, who is apparently in a bit of hot water in New England right now because he might not be squeezing out maximum effort. Well, no one has a right to be shocked about this at all. I recall one sports pundit writing this, shortly after the Patriots' not-quite-undefeated season thudded to a close:
And then there's Randy Moss, who somehow gets credit this year for being on his best behavior, which is his history as a player, when he is winning. If Moss re-signs with New England, and he's still with them in two or three years, let's see how happy he's acting if the team is 10-6 and making an early exit in the playoffs. I have a strong feeling that we haven't seen the last of the "I don't play hard all the time" Randy Moss.
That was me, by the way. Boo-yeah!
:: This time of year brings many things to football fans. If you're an NFC East team fan (aside from the Redskins), you're rooting for a playoff run. If you're a Colts fan, you're thinking about selling your tickets to the remaining home games because they're going to be on autopilot until the playoffs get here. And if you're a Bills fan, you debate your fellow fans on the issue of whether it would be better for the team to lose out, and get a better draft pick, then keep trying to "fight the good fight" and pick up a meaningless win or two. I can sort of understand the sentiment, but to me, this thinking is somewhat wrong-headed.
Consider that teams like New England, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh have been good for years now, despite rarely picking in the top five of the draft, if ever. How do they do it? Those franchises have GMs and front offices that know how to evaluate talent and how to make the most of the draft choices they have. Those franchises are constantly picking guys who develop into studs, and they don't need to be in the top five of the draft to do it. That's what the Bills lack, and have lacked, for years.
The Bills are likely to pick somewhere around tenth this year. Maybe they'll get as high as seventh. At that spot, they can still get a good player, or even trade down to add picks later in the draft. But they desperately need a new front office to make this work.
Put it this way: would I rather have the Bills' current brain trust running the draft if they had the top pick in each round, or would I rather have a clone of Bill Polian running the Bills' draft if they were only picking twentieth? Yeah, I'm gonna go with the latter. So, losing or winning right now doesn't matter, except for the possibility that winning their way to 7-9 or even 8-8 might cause Ralph Wilson to conclude that the front office is just fine, even though these are the guys who traded up for JP Losman and John McCargo, took Aaron Maybin over Brian Orakpo, decided that Haloti Ngata wasn't as big a stud as Donte Whitner, and so on. That would be disaster.
A lot of thinking, given that I haven't even been watching football lately!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Not even the Bills do that....
So I just hopped over to the FOX Sports website to look at the current football scores, and something struck me as a bit...improbable. Here's a screengrab:
Somehow the Saints have posted a negative score at halftime! There's got to be a fascinating football story behind this. So I clicked through to their coverage of the game itself, and....
Hmmmmm.
Obviously a techno-cockup. But personally, I think it would be funny if there actually was a way in football to have negative scoring!
(And now they've fixed it. The game is actually 17-17 in the third quarter as I write this.)
Somehow the Saints have posted a negative score at halftime! There's got to be a fascinating football story behind this. So I clicked through to their coverage of the game itself, and....
Hmmmmm.
Obviously a techno-cockup. But personally, I think it would be funny if there actually was a way in football to have negative scoring!
(And now they've fixed it. The game is actually 17-17 in the third quarter as I write this.)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Ahhh, screw the Gipper. What did he ever do for us, anyway?
Adam Schein of FOX Sports spends part of a regular column opining on the Buffalo Bills -- specifically, just who is to blame for the fact that the team is a giant mess right now. Here's the entirety of his take:
I find this whole bit rather odd. Schein has been a consistent defender of Jauron's pretty much all along up until Jauron's firing last week, insisting at various intervals that Jauron can, in fact, be a winning coach in the NFL. This point is rather dubious now, considering that Jauron's had head-coaching stints in two different franchises in this decade that last longer than three seasons in each place and yet he managed to turn in exactly one winning season for all that. (I don't count Jauron's service as an interim coach with the Lions against him, because that was the Lions during the Matt Millen era. No coach in history could have won there.)
Schein's partially correct here: the Bills' problems go a lot farther than Dick Jauron. However, Jauron's role in the craptacularity of the on-field product also can't be undersold, either. Schein indicates some of Jauron's errors, from questionable coaching staff hiring (and firing) to his on-field goofs. But Schein then says what everybody in Buffalo already knows: that the front office is just as big a problem here. The team's talent level just isn't good enough, and everybody knows it: draft picks that were outright busts, or picks that ignored more critical needs, or free agent signees that turned out poorly, and so on. But Jauron had his parts there, too: witness the release of Langston Walker right before this season started. That was a dumb move to make given the team's intention of starting the least experienced offensive line in team history (and possibly in league history). The Bills' habit in recent years of drafting handfuls of defensive backs every year, even in the face of critical holes on the roster everywhere else, is pure Jauron. But even with Jauron now gone, every Bills fan I've either talked to or heard on the radio call-in shows has said the same thing: if all that is changed is the head coach, then the Bills will almost certainly not improve much.
Schein's third paragraph echoes a pretty odd sentiment that I find generally uncompelling: "Ralph Wilson is notoriously cheap, so no big-name coach would come to Buffalo." Now, this is possible, but from the standpoint that Wilson may decline to spend the money necessary to bring a big-name coach here. But then, there is still the fact that Wilson is breaking his pattern with the Jauron firing, to some degree: he's not trying to recoup the money he's losing by paying Jauron to not coach here, and he's already pledged that at season's end there will be a large "re-evaluation" of the organization. Besides that, there's the fact that Wilson's recent history doesn't so much bear out cheapness as his motivation rather than a tendency to try to do the opposite thing when the last thing doesn't work out. That's how you go from a fairly sedate coach like Wade Philips to a more fiery guy like Gregg Williams; and then from a defensive guy like Williams to an offensive guy like Mike Mularkey; and then from an inexperienced guy like Mularkey to an experienced and steady hand like Dick Jauron (who was selected by Marv Levy, anyway). Wilson has also in the past proven willing to spend money on players, so I don't see that he'd be resolutely unwilling to ante up for a good coach. He has also, in the past, decided to hire what he saw as a "strong football guy" to take over just about all of the team operations, which is how Tom Donahoe arrived.
Wilson's chief fault, in my view, is not so much cheapness as that he's often unwilling to pull the trigger when the trigger needs to be pulled and that he's frankly not that great a judge of whom he should hire. Now, maybe the latter doesn't bode well for the next great rejiggering of the Bills franchise, but he's already started pulling the trigger, so we'll see what happens.
Color me unconvinced, also, by the various arguments I've seen thrown around this past week that a "big name" coach or GM wouldn't want to come here, just by definition, because the Bills have been a mess for years. A big-name coach or GM is going to want two things: a dollar figure, and the authority to do things the way he wants. If Ralph Wilson agrees to those, then someone's going to sign the dotted line. The Kansas City Chiefs were, after last year, a bigger mess than the Bills are now, but that didn't stop Scott Pioli from going there. Somehow there's always somebody willing to take on the coaching duties in Detroit, Oakland, Washington, and Cleveland.
Finally, the last two paragraphs of Schein's entry are laughable. Look, folks, as someone who's been paying attention, let me tell you that Terrell Owens is the last person to blame for the fact that the Bills are terrible in 2009. Now, he's not exactly taking it on himself to make things a lot better, but he is in no way a cause of anything bad here. No, he doesn't put a great deal of effort into things, but any locker room discord right now on the Bills is more a function of things like losing than T.O.'s complaining. If anyone thinks that the couple of passes a game that T.O. has dropped, or the routes he's run half-heartedly when the ball had zero chance of coming his way anyway because the offensive line can't block and the two quarterbacks can't complete a pass to anyone other than a running back are primary reasons the Bills have been losing this year, then that person can speak up, and I'll call them an idiot for their troubles.
Dick Jauron was an enormous factor in the Bills' era of woe, and for Schein to pretend otherwise is just goofy -- as is his bizarre T.O. rant.
UPDATE: As I write this, the Bills are playing the Jaguars. I'm not watching, but I just looked at the game stats as they are right now, with the 3rd quarter almost over, and T.O.'s line is 8 catches for 182 yards and a touchdown. Yeah, that guy's certainly been the turd in the Bills' punchbowl this year.
1. The Bills' mess is Dick Jauron's fault.
This is a bust.
Don't get me wrong. The record proves that Jauron, a strong football mind, did a bad job. There were major issues with in-game strategy through the years, from the disasters against Cleveland, Dallas and New England on national television to this past Sunday in Tennessee. And Jauron didn't surround himself with great offensive and defensive coordinators. Firing Turk Schonert right before the season was ill-timed and ill-advised. Promoting Alex Van Pelt, who had never called plays before, was even worse. Schonert should've been let go in the offseason and then the Bills should've had a new coordinator in place for the offseason workouts.
But there are other factors. The club needs to reshape the football department.
Ralph Wilson has a reputation of being impatient and, relatively speaking, cheap. That means any unemployed coach with Super Bowl rings will not even consider lovely Western New York. I saw our friend Adam Schefter reported the Bills have contacted Mike Shanahan. That would be great. But does Shanahan really want the Bills?
And Terrell Owens once again takes a major hit. I wrote on FOXSports.com that this was a 'boom or bust' move for the Bills, and they'd win either 6 or 10 games. It's been a total bust. T.O., according to defensive coaches around the league, doesn't bust it off the line of scrimmage every play. Those with and around the Bills scratch their heads as T.O. would get a day off from practice every week, often times on the crucial Friday before a game.
Sometimes, the coaching staff would actually be surprised when T.O. didn't practice. T.O. is a club killer. And Owens' play has fallen off. I don't see a team taking a chance on him next year. He's helped bring down the Bills. T.O. was jawing at assistants during the Tennessee game. Who would want him?
I find this whole bit rather odd. Schein has been a consistent defender of Jauron's pretty much all along up until Jauron's firing last week, insisting at various intervals that Jauron can, in fact, be a winning coach in the NFL. This point is rather dubious now, considering that Jauron's had head-coaching stints in two different franchises in this decade that last longer than three seasons in each place and yet he managed to turn in exactly one winning season for all that. (I don't count Jauron's service as an interim coach with the Lions against him, because that was the Lions during the Matt Millen era. No coach in history could have won there.)
Schein's partially correct here: the Bills' problems go a lot farther than Dick Jauron. However, Jauron's role in the craptacularity of the on-field product also can't be undersold, either. Schein indicates some of Jauron's errors, from questionable coaching staff hiring (and firing) to his on-field goofs. But Schein then says what everybody in Buffalo already knows: that the front office is just as big a problem here. The team's talent level just isn't good enough, and everybody knows it: draft picks that were outright busts, or picks that ignored more critical needs, or free agent signees that turned out poorly, and so on. But Jauron had his parts there, too: witness the release of Langston Walker right before this season started. That was a dumb move to make given the team's intention of starting the least experienced offensive line in team history (and possibly in league history). The Bills' habit in recent years of drafting handfuls of defensive backs every year, even in the face of critical holes on the roster everywhere else, is pure Jauron. But even with Jauron now gone, every Bills fan I've either talked to or heard on the radio call-in shows has said the same thing: if all that is changed is the head coach, then the Bills will almost certainly not improve much.
Schein's third paragraph echoes a pretty odd sentiment that I find generally uncompelling: "Ralph Wilson is notoriously cheap, so no big-name coach would come to Buffalo." Now, this is possible, but from the standpoint that Wilson may decline to spend the money necessary to bring a big-name coach here. But then, there is still the fact that Wilson is breaking his pattern with the Jauron firing, to some degree: he's not trying to recoup the money he's losing by paying Jauron to not coach here, and he's already pledged that at season's end there will be a large "re-evaluation" of the organization. Besides that, there's the fact that Wilson's recent history doesn't so much bear out cheapness as his motivation rather than a tendency to try to do the opposite thing when the last thing doesn't work out. That's how you go from a fairly sedate coach like Wade Philips to a more fiery guy like Gregg Williams; and then from a defensive guy like Williams to an offensive guy like Mike Mularkey; and then from an inexperienced guy like Mularkey to an experienced and steady hand like Dick Jauron (who was selected by Marv Levy, anyway). Wilson has also in the past proven willing to spend money on players, so I don't see that he'd be resolutely unwilling to ante up for a good coach. He has also, in the past, decided to hire what he saw as a "strong football guy" to take over just about all of the team operations, which is how Tom Donahoe arrived.
Wilson's chief fault, in my view, is not so much cheapness as that he's often unwilling to pull the trigger when the trigger needs to be pulled and that he's frankly not that great a judge of whom he should hire. Now, maybe the latter doesn't bode well for the next great rejiggering of the Bills franchise, but he's already started pulling the trigger, so we'll see what happens.
Color me unconvinced, also, by the various arguments I've seen thrown around this past week that a "big name" coach or GM wouldn't want to come here, just by definition, because the Bills have been a mess for years. A big-name coach or GM is going to want two things: a dollar figure, and the authority to do things the way he wants. If Ralph Wilson agrees to those, then someone's going to sign the dotted line. The Kansas City Chiefs were, after last year, a bigger mess than the Bills are now, but that didn't stop Scott Pioli from going there. Somehow there's always somebody willing to take on the coaching duties in Detroit, Oakland, Washington, and Cleveland.
Finally, the last two paragraphs of Schein's entry are laughable. Look, folks, as someone who's been paying attention, let me tell you that Terrell Owens is the last person to blame for the fact that the Bills are terrible in 2009. Now, he's not exactly taking it on himself to make things a lot better, but he is in no way a cause of anything bad here. No, he doesn't put a great deal of effort into things, but any locker room discord right now on the Bills is more a function of things like losing than T.O.'s complaining. If anyone thinks that the couple of passes a game that T.O. has dropped, or the routes he's run half-heartedly when the ball had zero chance of coming his way anyway because the offensive line can't block and the two quarterbacks can't complete a pass to anyone other than a running back are primary reasons the Bills have been losing this year, then that person can speak up, and I'll call them an idiot for their troubles.
Dick Jauron was an enormous factor in the Bills' era of woe, and for Schein to pretend otherwise is just goofy -- as is his bizarre T.O. rant.
UPDATE: As I write this, the Bills are playing the Jaguars. I'm not watching, but I just looked at the game stats as they are right now, with the 3rd quarter almost over, and T.O.'s line is 8 catches for 182 yards and a touchdown. Yeah, that guy's certainly been the turd in the Bills' punchbowl this year.
Monday, November 16, 2009
You got to know when to hold 'em....
The football world is abuzz -- abuzz! -- with talk about a big gamble Patriots coach (and all around Incarnation of All Things Evil) Bill Belichick made in the game yesterday against the Indianapolis Colts. With the Pats leading 34-28 with a bit more than two minutes left, the Pats faced 4th-and-2 from their own 28 yard line. Just about everybody on the planet would almost certainly punt in that situation, the idea being that you at least want the other team to have a lot more field to cover if they have to drive for a touchdown to have any chance. But Belichick decided to go for the 4th-down conversion, which came up short. The Colts took over at the Pats' 28 yard line with just over two minutes to go and with all three of their timeouts remaining, in a game in which they had just stormed back from being down 31-14 early in the 4th quarter to being down just 34-28. Peyton Manning drove them in for the touchdown that gave the Colts a 35-34 lead with less than ten seconds to go, and the game ended with that as the final score.
Now, I agree with the general criticisms being leveled at Belichick on this. There is a growing consensus in the NFL that you shouldn't always punt on 4th down; going for it on 4th down is a lot more frequent now. But there are situations where it still seems prudent to kick the ball away, and this definitely seems like one of them. So what was Belichick thinking?
My suspicion is that he was, first of all, utterly confident that his offense would convert the 4th down. That seems obvious. Also, I suspect that he was less than confident of his defense, which, as noted above, had just been shredded in the 4th quarter and hasn't looked like a particularly stout defense a whole lot this year. Most of all, though, I'll bet Belichick was thinking about the game clock. I'd guess that his reasoning was something like this:
"Well, my defense is getting killed, so if we punt, we'll almost certainly give up the touchdown. If we go for it and convert, we can run down the clock a bit and force the Colts to use their timeouts on defense. But if we go for it and fail, the Colts will still score. So, assuming that the Colts score their touchdown if they get the ball back in this situation, which situation is worse for us? If they score after going sixty or seventy yards, they'll probably only leave a few seconds on the clock for us, so we won't be able to get a winning field goal. But, if they get the ball back right here on the 28, then they probably score really quickly, right? And then we get more time to get the field goal we'll need to win."
I think Belichick was trying to play the clock a bit, choosing the scenario that gave him the most control he would have over the time he would have left: either keep the ball, or at least give the Colts a chance to score in a lot less time than it would have taken them otherwise. Of course, the problem with that kind of thing is when the guy on the other side of the field knows all this too, and Peyton Manning may be the single most football knowledgeable quarterback in history, which is why he was able to both score his go-ahead touchdown and leave New England a paltry nine seconds in which they could do exactly nothing.
(In other news, the Bills still suck. We watched Up instead. A post on that movie is forthcoming sometime.)
Now, I agree with the general criticisms being leveled at Belichick on this. There is a growing consensus in the NFL that you shouldn't always punt on 4th down; going for it on 4th down is a lot more frequent now. But there are situations where it still seems prudent to kick the ball away, and this definitely seems like one of them. So what was Belichick thinking?
My suspicion is that he was, first of all, utterly confident that his offense would convert the 4th down. That seems obvious. Also, I suspect that he was less than confident of his defense, which, as noted above, had just been shredded in the 4th quarter and hasn't looked like a particularly stout defense a whole lot this year. Most of all, though, I'll bet Belichick was thinking about the game clock. I'd guess that his reasoning was something like this:
"Well, my defense is getting killed, so if we punt, we'll almost certainly give up the touchdown. If we go for it and convert, we can run down the clock a bit and force the Colts to use their timeouts on defense. But if we go for it and fail, the Colts will still score. So, assuming that the Colts score their touchdown if they get the ball back in this situation, which situation is worse for us? If they score after going sixty or seventy yards, they'll probably only leave a few seconds on the clock for us, so we won't be able to get a winning field goal. But, if they get the ball back right here on the 28, then they probably score really quickly, right? And then we get more time to get the field goal we'll need to win."
I think Belichick was trying to play the clock a bit, choosing the scenario that gave him the most control he would have over the time he would have left: either keep the ball, or at least give the Colts a chance to score in a lot less time than it would have taken them otherwise. Of course, the problem with that kind of thing is when the guy on the other side of the field knows all this too, and Peyton Manning may be the single most football knowledgeable quarterback in history, which is why he was able to both score his go-ahead touchdown and leave New England a paltry nine seconds in which they could do exactly nothing.
(In other news, the Bills still suck. We watched Up instead. A post on that movie is forthcoming sometime.)
Monday, November 09, 2009
In other news, my chips-and-dip consumption is WAY down
Readers may remember that toward the end of the 2008 NFL season, I decided that watching the Buffalo Bills consistently lose games and look boring in doing so had lost its appeal to a sufficient degree that I decided to just plain stop watching them. Sunday afternoons became a lot more pleasant once I realized that devoting three hours each week to an activity that wasn't bringing me much pleasure wasn't that good an idea. I was prepared to do the same this season, but in the offseason, the Bills did something that can now been seen for what it was: a move designed to tempt fans like me back into the fold. That was, of course, the signing of wide receiver Terrell Owens.
And yes, it worked. I watched the Bills for the first handful of games this year, even though it was obvious that aside from his signing, the team hadn't actually gotten any better. At all. Now, in the first four games, they only won one contest, a home game against Tampa Bay, a team that is in a full-bore rebuilding youth movement phase. But the games they lost were to teams that are pretty good: New England, New Orleans, and defending division champ Miami. But aside from the New England game, which they played pretty well in before losing when someone made a really bad fumble late in the game that led to the Patriots' winning points, the Bills tended to look flatter and flatter each time out, and the offense specifically looked worse and worse, despite the presence of T.O. For me the last straw came when the Bills lost at home to the Cleveland Browns -- one of the league's worst teams right now -- by the thrilling score of 6-3. That's when I said, the hell with it, T.O. or no T.O. I spent the next three Sundays watching the Spiderman movies with The Daughter at the time when the Bills were playing.
They were 2-1 in those games, but I don't really care. I didn't miss watching football at all, and I didn't miss it this week either (during which the Bills were on their bye week). The Bills have managed, I think, to drive the fandom out of me at long last. Oh well. A Super Bowl win would have been nice, and who knows -- maybe in a few years when they're a year or two into their new location (either Los Angeles or Toronto, I'm thinking), they'll manage a title in the Big Game.
And yes, it worked. I watched the Bills for the first handful of games this year, even though it was obvious that aside from his signing, the team hadn't actually gotten any better. At all. Now, in the first four games, they only won one contest, a home game against Tampa Bay, a team that is in a full-bore rebuilding youth movement phase. But the games they lost were to teams that are pretty good: New England, New Orleans, and defending division champ Miami. But aside from the New England game, which they played pretty well in before losing when someone made a really bad fumble late in the game that led to the Patriots' winning points, the Bills tended to look flatter and flatter each time out, and the offense specifically looked worse and worse, despite the presence of T.O. For me the last straw came when the Bills lost at home to the Cleveland Browns -- one of the league's worst teams right now -- by the thrilling score of 6-3. That's when I said, the hell with it, T.O. or no T.O. I spent the next three Sundays watching the Spiderman movies with The Daughter at the time when the Bills were playing.
They were 2-1 in those games, but I don't really care. I didn't miss watching football at all, and I didn't miss it this week either (during which the Bills were on their bye week). The Bills have managed, I think, to drive the fandom out of me at long last. Oh well. A Super Bowl win would have been nice, and who knows -- maybe in a few years when they're a year or two into their new location (either Los Angeles or Toronto, I'm thinking), they'll manage a title in the Big Game.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Punt, pass, uh...what's the other thing?
A few random football notes:
:: Wow, the Saints are apparently now officially awesome. They were behind 24-3 at one point in the second quarter, pulled to being down 34-24 as they headed to the fourth -- and then they blew out the Dolphins, scoring 22 points to win 46-34.
:: The quarterbacks in that game, Drew Brees and Chad Henne, were a combined 40 of 74 for 509 yards, 1 touchdown, and 5 interceptions. I'll bet that was a fun game to watch.
:: Speaking of watching stuff, I finally reached my annual frustration point with the Buffalo Bills two weeks ago and decided to stop watching them and watch movies instead. So The Daughter and I spent the time we'd have otherwise had the Bills game on watching the first two Spiderman movies. So of course the Bills are 2-0 in those games.
:: Bills QB Trent Edwards, who showed promise his first two years but has regressed horribly this year, was out yesterday with a concussion. So, in the wake of the victory, I'm already seeing calls for his backup, Ryan Fitzpatrick, to be the new starter, especially after two wins. Fitzpatrick's numbers? 11 of 22 for 123 yards and one touchdown. Color me unexcited. The Bills' revolving door at quarterback the last nine years has seen a slew of guys come through who put up numbers like that. (Drew Bledsoe excepted; he actually put up some numbers in his brief time here.)
:: I still love the Spiderman movies, despite their maddening habit of killing off the villains each time out (with one exception) so they can never appear again (in the comics, you never know when Spidey's gonna have to face Doc Ock again), the complete bungling of the Gwen Stacy character (if she's not gonna be Peter Parker's first love and if she's not gonna die, she just shouldn't be there at all), and the less-than-enthralling music by Danny Elfman and Christopher Young.
:: I still think that the Vikings are unlikely to get anything other than a playoff berth out of Brett Favre's presence. The schedule has been completely in their favor the first six games: they've been home for each of their three games against good teams, and their first three road games were each against one of the worst teams in the NFL.
:: I know that pass rushers take a while to develop, yada yada yada, but really, color me unimpressed with Bills first-round pick Aaron Maybin. It seems to me that a defensive player taken 11th overall in the entire draft should, after seven games, have more than four tackles. And we're not even talking about his lack of any sacks, even though he was billed as a top pass-rushing prospect.
:: What's wrong with Peyton Manning? His yardage was down considerably in Sunday's game against the Rams, as he failed to break 300 yards for the first time this year. Sure, his numbers (23 of 34, 235 yards, 3 TDs, O INTs) may look good in the afterglow of a 42-6 win, but they may have an issue there.
:: That last was facetious.
That's all. Next week, the Bills host Houston. I'll be watching Spiderman 3.
:: Wow, the Saints are apparently now officially awesome. They were behind 24-3 at one point in the second quarter, pulled to being down 34-24 as they headed to the fourth -- and then they blew out the Dolphins, scoring 22 points to win 46-34.
:: The quarterbacks in that game, Drew Brees and Chad Henne, were a combined 40 of 74 for 509 yards, 1 touchdown, and 5 interceptions. I'll bet that was a fun game to watch.
:: Speaking of watching stuff, I finally reached my annual frustration point with the Buffalo Bills two weeks ago and decided to stop watching them and watch movies instead. So The Daughter and I spent the time we'd have otherwise had the Bills game on watching the first two Spiderman movies. So of course the Bills are 2-0 in those games.
:: Bills QB Trent Edwards, who showed promise his first two years but has regressed horribly this year, was out yesterday with a concussion. So, in the wake of the victory, I'm already seeing calls for his backup, Ryan Fitzpatrick, to be the new starter, especially after two wins. Fitzpatrick's numbers? 11 of 22 for 123 yards and one touchdown. Color me unexcited. The Bills' revolving door at quarterback the last nine years has seen a slew of guys come through who put up numbers like that. (Drew Bledsoe excepted; he actually put up some numbers in his brief time here.)
:: I still love the Spiderman movies, despite their maddening habit of killing off the villains each time out (with one exception) so they can never appear again (in the comics, you never know when Spidey's gonna have to face Doc Ock again), the complete bungling of the Gwen Stacy character (if she's not gonna be Peter Parker's first love and if she's not gonna die, she just shouldn't be there at all), and the less-than-enthralling music by Danny Elfman and Christopher Young.
:: I still think that the Vikings are unlikely to get anything other than a playoff berth out of Brett Favre's presence. The schedule has been completely in their favor the first six games: they've been home for each of their three games against good teams, and their first three road games were each against one of the worst teams in the NFL.
:: I know that pass rushers take a while to develop, yada yada yada, but really, color me unimpressed with Bills first-round pick Aaron Maybin. It seems to me that a defensive player taken 11th overall in the entire draft should, after seven games, have more than four tackles. And we're not even talking about his lack of any sacks, even though he was billed as a top pass-rushing prospect.
:: What's wrong with Peyton Manning? His yardage was down considerably in Sunday's game against the Rams, as he failed to break 300 yards for the first time this year. Sure, his numbers (23 of 34, 235 yards, 3 TDs, O INTs) may look good in the afterglow of a 42-6 win, but they may have an issue there.
:: That last was facetious.
That's all. Next week, the Bills host Houston. I'll be watching Spiderman 3.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Sucking is a state of mind
The Bills have just finished losing to the Dolphins by a score of...well geez, I don't know, but it was a lot. It is now official: the Bills are terrible. Sure, they have a roster with some talent on it, but it doesn't matter; their coaching and front office are simply unable to put together a winning product. Oh well. Looks like I'll get my Sunday afternoons back pretty soon -- probably next week, after the Bills allow the Browns to get Win Number One on the season.
I note also that the Dolphins now play in "Land Shark Stadium", and I endorse this name. In fact, I think that the world needs more sports venues named for Saturday Night Live sketches. I'd love to see the World Series alternate between Church Lady Park and Blues Brothers Stadium, the Stanley Cup be hoisted by the home team at Weekend Update Arena, and the Super Bowl kick off on the turf at Mr. Short Term Memory Field.
I note also that the Dolphins now play in "Land Shark Stadium", and I endorse this name. In fact, I think that the world needs more sports venues named for Saturday Night Live sketches. I'd love to see the World Series alternate between Church Lady Park and Blues Brothers Stadium, the Stanley Cup be hoisted by the home team at Weekend Update Arena, and the Super Bowl kick off on the turf at Mr. Short Term Memory Field.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Rand-McNally 2, Sportswriters 0
What is it with sports commentators and their inability to talk about geography? In today's example, we have FOX Sports's Adam Schein talking about the Arizona Cardinals. One narrative for years regarding the Cardinals -- besides the fact that they have historically sucked, until last year -- is that they almost always lose when playing East Coast teams. This past week...well, here's Schein:
Yup, the Cardinals beat the Jaguars pretty handily. But wait! Schein is indicating that the Jaguars, who play in Jacksonville, Florida, are a Northeast team! Maybe Miss South Carolina was on to something when she said that most US Americans don't have maps.
I couldn't believe how many talking heads declared the NFC champion Cardinals dead after a home loss to a good 49ers team. This was the single-most foolish notion flooding the airwaves. The Cards eradicated the stereotype they can't play in the Northeast by dominating the Jaguars on offense, defense and special teams.
Yup, the Cardinals beat the Jaguars pretty handily. But wait! Schein is indicating that the Jaguars, who play in Jacksonville, Florida, are a Northeast team! Maybe Miss South Carolina was on to something when she said that most US Americans don't have maps.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The tarnished edifice
I always like reading sportswriters when they take a negative view on the New England Patriots, so here's Mark Kriegel:
I actually -- believe it or not -- think that the Patriots probably have one more run in them, but I think that run is either this year or never, for many of the same reasons Kriegel describes here: Belichick's team is aging, and I also reiterate my view that Tom Brady is closer to physical decline than most people want to believe. After this year, I think the most likely scenario facing the Patriots is a few years -- two or three -- of going 10-6 or 11-5, making a few playoff appearances, and most likely exiting by the second round. I think their future looks more like, say, the Buffalo Bills of the mid-1990s, when they were still good but clearly past the point of being the best team in the AFC. Right now the Patriot defense is pretty suspect, and their offensive line isn't playing nearly as well as it did in years past (and I always found their line overrated anyway).
I'm not willing to pronounce them dead, but I do think that the "Tom's back, so pencil in the Patriots for February!" talk is, shall we say, misplaced. Their window is closing more quickly than they think.
(Ditto the Colts, by the way.)
For a while now there has been this feeling, accepted with little question, that the Patriots would pick up where they left off in 2007 just as soon as Tom Brady came back from his knee injury.
That's not going to happen. Bill Belichick -- as evidenced by his hilariously rude inability to acknowledge rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez after the game -- will only get meaner. And barring cataclysmic injuries, his Patriots will get better. But they'll never be what they were. Maybe now you know why Belichick ran off the field with a second still on the clock against the Giants in Arizona. I'd say he already understood what's taken everybody else so long to comprehend, that the 2007 Patriots would go down as the best team never to win a Super Bowl.
I actually -- believe it or not -- think that the Patriots probably have one more run in them, but I think that run is either this year or never, for many of the same reasons Kriegel describes here: Belichick's team is aging, and I also reiterate my view that Tom Brady is closer to physical decline than most people want to believe. After this year, I think the most likely scenario facing the Patriots is a few years -- two or three -- of going 10-6 or 11-5, making a few playoff appearances, and most likely exiting by the second round. I think their future looks more like, say, the Buffalo Bills of the mid-1990s, when they were still good but clearly past the point of being the best team in the AFC. Right now the Patriot defense is pretty suspect, and their offensive line isn't playing nearly as well as it did in years past (and I always found their line overrated anyway).
I'm not willing to pronounce them dead, but I do think that the "Tom's back, so pencil in the Patriots for February!" talk is, shall we say, misplaced. Their window is closing more quickly than they think.
(Ditto the Colts, by the way.)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Darker sides of "fandom"
The other night, on Monday Night Football, the Buffalo Bills very nearly beat the hated New England Patriots. They were leading, and were in very good shape with a little over two minutes left: New England had just scored to pull to being down 24-19, when they kicked off. Bills cornerback and kickoff returner Leodis McKelvin fielded the kick in the end zone, and then he decided to attempt a run back. He got out about twenty-five yards or so before the New England players arrived around him and began tackling him. Rather than just fall down, McKelvin attempted to push for more yardage, and so doing, ended up fumbling. New England recovered, scored, and won 25-24. Ouch.
So naturally, McKelvin ended up being "the goat". It's not dead certain that the Bills would have held on for the win had he gone down, but their chances would have been superb; all they would really have needed to do is pick up a single first down and kill the clock. Much of the postgame discussion focused on McKelvin: whether he should have attempted to run the kick back at all, the obviousness that he should never have striven for more yardage once the tacklers converged upon him; Dick Jauron's odd defense of McKelvin the next day on the basis that he's a really good kick returner and you never know when he's going to break one. (This on a kick where the Patriots might well have been kicking onside, forcing the Bills to deploy their "hands" team instead of their kickoff blockers.)
Most people are now of the "Sucks, but it's over and Tampa's in town on Sunday." However, a couple of teenagers decided last night to vandalize McKelvin's front lawn. So now the discussion is no longer even about the fumble but about this act of misdirected "fanhood". The topic of discussion on the sports-talk show I like to listen to on the way home from work was, What does this say about us? About Buffalo Bills fans? About Buffalo? About football fans in general?
I'm not sure it has to say anything about any of those things, right now. Police in Hamburg, NY -- the Buffalo suburb where McKelvin lives -- apparently, as of this writing, have two teenagers in custody who have confessed to the vandalism. And as misguided-fan incidents go, this is pretty weak tea, easily corrected with some lawn care products and tools. Of course, that's not the point: it's still a very ugly incident that puts on display yet again the fact that too many sports fans in this country take their teams and their allegiances way too seriously. In point of fact, it's not even this country: it's all over the world. As bad as our fans can get at times, nobody's ever heard of people getting trampled at a baseball riot. But that's probably small consolation to taxpayers and business owners each year in the cities whose teams win the World Series, or the NBA championship, or the Super Bowl.
I've never been one to engage in "Things were better back in the day" rhetoric. I usually find that, upon deeper inspection, things "back in the day" tended to suck a lot as well, and that people pining for things back then usually turn out to have simply not been aware of how things sucked "back in the day". But I do wonder if sports fandom is getting qualitatively worse with regard to things like this. On opening day of the 1987 season, Boston Red Sox fans gave Bill Buckner an ovation. I don't remember how too many goats were treated, save one: after Super Bowl XXV, in 1991, a giant rally was held for the Buffalo Bills in downtown Buffalo. At that rally, Scott Norwood, who had missed what would have been the game-winning kick at the end of the game, received a massive ovation. Back then, a guy whose missed kick cost his team the Super Bowl championship got an outpouring of love and support. Eighteen years later, a cornerback whose fumble cost his team a regular season game got his lawn vandalized.
Of course, the situations are different, and the emotions in sports are so often defined by the situations. McKelvin's fumble came in a regular season game against an opponent that is universally loathed in this town, for various reasons. (Mostly because they're loathsome!) It also comes after a recent history that has seen huge amounts of futility, of mediocrity, of disaster at critical times, of injury, of just plain loss. But that doesn't excuse anything, obviously; and neither does it lessen the point. Instead, it clarifies it: why are so many sports fans so angry these days? Win or lose?
So naturally, McKelvin ended up being "the goat". It's not dead certain that the Bills would have held on for the win had he gone down, but their chances would have been superb; all they would really have needed to do is pick up a single first down and kill the clock. Much of the postgame discussion focused on McKelvin: whether he should have attempted to run the kick back at all, the obviousness that he should never have striven for more yardage once the tacklers converged upon him; Dick Jauron's odd defense of McKelvin the next day on the basis that he's a really good kick returner and you never know when he's going to break one. (This on a kick where the Patriots might well have been kicking onside, forcing the Bills to deploy their "hands" team instead of their kickoff blockers.)
Most people are now of the "Sucks, but it's over and Tampa's in town on Sunday." However, a couple of teenagers decided last night to vandalize McKelvin's front lawn. So now the discussion is no longer even about the fumble but about this act of misdirected "fanhood". The topic of discussion on the sports-talk show I like to listen to on the way home from work was, What does this say about us? About Buffalo Bills fans? About Buffalo? About football fans in general?
I'm not sure it has to say anything about any of those things, right now. Police in Hamburg, NY -- the Buffalo suburb where McKelvin lives -- apparently, as of this writing, have two teenagers in custody who have confessed to the vandalism. And as misguided-fan incidents go, this is pretty weak tea, easily corrected with some lawn care products and tools. Of course, that's not the point: it's still a very ugly incident that puts on display yet again the fact that too many sports fans in this country take their teams and their allegiances way too seriously. In point of fact, it's not even this country: it's all over the world. As bad as our fans can get at times, nobody's ever heard of people getting trampled at a baseball riot. But that's probably small consolation to taxpayers and business owners each year in the cities whose teams win the World Series, or the NBA championship, or the Super Bowl.
I've never been one to engage in "Things were better back in the day" rhetoric. I usually find that, upon deeper inspection, things "back in the day" tended to suck a lot as well, and that people pining for things back then usually turn out to have simply not been aware of how things sucked "back in the day". But I do wonder if sports fandom is getting qualitatively worse with regard to things like this. On opening day of the 1987 season, Boston Red Sox fans gave Bill Buckner an ovation. I don't remember how too many goats were treated, save one: after Super Bowl XXV, in 1991, a giant rally was held for the Buffalo Bills in downtown Buffalo. At that rally, Scott Norwood, who had missed what would have been the game-winning kick at the end of the game, received a massive ovation. Back then, a guy whose missed kick cost his team the Super Bowl championship got an outpouring of love and support. Eighteen years later, a cornerback whose fumble cost his team a regular season game got his lawn vandalized.
Of course, the situations are different, and the emotions in sports are so often defined by the situations. McKelvin's fumble came in a regular season game against an opponent that is universally loathed in this town, for various reasons. (Mostly because they're loathsome!) It also comes after a recent history that has seen huge amounts of futility, of mediocrity, of disaster at critical times, of injury, of just plain loss. But that doesn't excuse anything, obviously; and neither does it lessen the point. Instead, it clarifies it: why are so many sports fans so angry these days? Win or lose?
Monday, September 14, 2009
To the vomitorium!
One thought on last night's Bills game, in which they led 24-13 with five minutes left and lost 25-24: they have a very young team, especially on the offensive line, so this was the kind of game that might hurt to lose but make you feel that they might have a bright future -- if not for the fact that they also have a very mediocre coaching staff. So it ends up feeling like just another day at the office at Lose-a-lot Lane.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Instead of running onto the field, they should all pile out of a clown car.
It's just about time for the NFL to kick off its 2009 season, so it's time for me to do a little football blogging. My plan this year is to put up this "predictions" post, and then I'll weigh in here and there during the regular season with various thoughts and such. I won't be doing weekly examinations of each game the Buffalo Bills play, because while I still enjoy the game, I'm just not nearly as enthusiastic about football as I once was. In fact, last season I actually stopped watching the Bills for the last three weeks of the year and only learned of the disastrous things they did in those games through print media and web video and stuff like that. If this season goes the way I think it very well could, I'll end up doing the same thing again. You reach a point where spending three hours every Sunday watching something you don't really enjoy watching starts to seem, on balance, a little stupid.
But anyway: what's the state of the NFL and what's the state of the Buffalo Bills?
Well, the Bills are a mess. Pure and simple. This season has the potential to be one of the biggest train wrecks in franchise history. They have a completely new offensive line, which (as of this writing) will be starting two rookies. They tried rolling out a new offensive scheme in the preseason, which performed so poorly in five preseason games that they fired their offensive coordinator just two days ago. Their quarterback is a once-promising young talent, a smart player with all the physical tools, who has been regressing since his debut two seasons ago. They are led by the same coaching staff that has piloted the team to a 7-9 finish three years in a row. They are managed by the same front office that has been stocking the team with lackluster talent for nearly a decade now. They are owned by the same pigheaded owner who seems to loathe being in the same room as someone strong-willed and intelligent, which is why his best general managers all get fired eventually.
I've come to see the worst day in Buffalo Bills history as the firing of Bill Polian, the guy who built the teams that went to the Super Bowl four years in a row. Polian went from the Bills to the Indianapolis Colts, a long-moribund franchise at the time. All Polian's done there is turn the Colts into a perennial powerhouse.
The list of things wrong with the Buffalo Bills is pretty long, but for me, that's where they start: in the front office. This team just does not have a good football operation in place. Head Coach Dick Jauron is generally the public face of the team's recent ineptitude, so his is the name that is vilified the most every time this team goes out and stumbles all over the place, but to me, it's terribly galling to see that despite picking in the upper half of the draft every year for a decade, the Bills have still failed to find top-flight talent in most cases. Three years ago, people were saying that the Bills were two or three drafts away from being good. Now, after those two or three drafts, guess what? They're still two or three drafts away from being good.
Why the hell is this?
Well, it's a double-headed monster of a problem. The Bills don't scout talent terribly well, and they don't make picks intelligently, either. One prime example is their recent obsession with drafting numerous defensive backs each and every year. The thought is, apparently, that in a league where there are so many good receivers, "you can't have too many defensive backs". Well, along the lines of that old canard stating that "Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results", the Bills get ripped apart by teams with good passing games each and every year, no matter how many talented DB's they have. Maybe they should try something else – like, say, addressing the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
They've made some half-hearted efforts at this over the years, but never enough. This year they finally realized that the offensive linemen at whom they threw large amounts of money three years ago weren't getting the job done, so they drafted two guards high in the draft (one in each of the first two rounds). While I was happy they finally made linemen a priority (the good teams are always drafting linemen and developing them), they should have been doing this three years ago, when they were actually rebuilding. Instead, they decided to do things like trade up to get John McCargo, a defensive lineman whose play on the field has been spotty enough that the Bills actually tried to trade him away last year. Or they picked safety Donte Whitner with the eighth overall pick, a choice everyone at the time thought to be a stretch – nobody had Whitner going before the middle-first round at the earliest, and nobody had McCargo going in the first round at all, so the Bills could have traded down in the first round and possibly added another second round pick, and still picked Whitner and McCargo if those were the guys they really wanted.
(Of course, they shouldn't have taken Whitner at all – they should have taken DT Haloti Ngata, who has become a rock in the middle of the line for the Baltimore Ravens. But at the time, the Bills were fascinated by the notion of a defensive line consisting of small but fast guys, where Ngata is a giant behemoth. That's why they passed on him and went with Whitner instead. But after two seasons of seeing their small-and-fast defensive line ripped apart by good running teams, the Bills had to trade last year for Marcus Stroud, a big guy for the middle of their line. Oops. And even if safety had been a logical place to go in that draft, Whitner has never in my mind justified his being taken that high. To my way of thinking, if you're taking a safety with the eighth overall pick, you'd better be getting Bob Sanders, or Ed Reed, or Troy Polamalu. Whitner isn't close to being mentioned in the same breath as those guys.)
Of course, the Bills didn't want to come out and admit three years ago that they needed to do some serious rebuilding by starting with the basic building blocks. There's another constant problem here: the belief, always prevalent in the team brass, that they're just a few good players away from contending.
The Bills' approach to rebuilding has never been to once-and-for-all address the team's fundamental needs and then build from there; instead, each season they look at one of two things and then draft according to those. They either (a) replace the biggest free agent who just left, or (b) address whatever the most glaring problem from the most recent 7-9 season might have been. That's why they do things like draft Marshawn Lynch in the first round right after dumping Willis McGahee, or pick Leodis McKelvin right after Nate Clements is sent packing. And this approach goes back to the Tom Donahoe era, when the team's management decided that they were sufficiently talented to use their first-round pick in 2003 as a "luxury" pick, taking a running back (McGahee) who was coming off a wicked injury and who thus would have to spend a year not playing. But that was the way Donahoe approached things: get the replacement for the next big free agent before they leave. (The McGahee pick made keeping Travis Henry irrelevant; a year later, the Lee Evans pick made Eric Moulds eventually "expendable". Smart? Well...not really. The Bills were never talented enough to be able to take such a luxurious approach to the draft.)
On the other hand, the Bills have tended to use the draft as their only real way of addressing major team problems. Last year's team had a horrible pass rush, so this year, they drafted Aaron Maybin, a collegiate pass-rush specialist. As a rookie, Maybin is unlikely to turn in amazing pass-rush numbers, but there it is. Last year's glaring problem was the lack of height in the receiving corps, so they drafted James Hardy and pronounced the receiving corps "rebuilt". Never mind that receivers notoriously take two to three years to develop into quality players, and that receivers who excel as rookies are rare.
And then, in a category by itself, we have the teams' long-to-the-point-of-Quixotic quest for Jim Kelly's successor as the next great Bills quarterback. Trent Edwards may be the most promising prospect the team has had since Kelly retired, but the Bills have misfired a whole bunch of times on finding the next QB, using three first-round draft picks on quarterbacks over the last ten years. They traded a first-rounder to Jacksonville to get Rob Johnson in 1998 (thus getting themselves out of a draft round that saw guys like Vonnie Holiday, Alan Faneca, Randy Moss, and Fred Taylor taken). They sent New England their 2003 first-rounder to get Drew Bledsoe (they got a pick back with another trade later on, getting Willis McGahee from a round that saw Troy Polamalu join the Steelers). They sent their 2005 first-rounder to Dallas so they could get JP Losman in 2004 (thus sparing themselves the opportunity of taking DeMarcus Ware, Shawne Merriman, or Aaron Rogers). And if you want to, you can even go farther back to 1995, when they used a second-rounder on Todd Collins. (But then, Collins is still in the league.)
What does all this have to do with 2009? Simply, the Bills have been misfiring and/or grabbing at straws for ten years now, when it comes to picking talent. Now, they're not the Lions or the Rams of recent years, picking outright bad players, but they've either missed entirely or they've picked small guys who play hard but simply aren't playmakers in the NFL. The roster simply does not have the talent to compete with the best teams in the AFC. I think that's the ultimately frustrating thing about watching the Buffalo Bills this decade: the continual sense that they're not that far off. Not really. They have decent players who would be even better if they could just find some real stud playmakers. But they never do.
In this day and age in the NFL, a bad team can become a good team very quickly. The Miami Dolphins went from 1-15 in 2007 to 11-5 in 2008. The Baltimore Ravens seem to alternate good years with bad ones – 13-3 in 2006, 5-11 in 2007, 11-5 in 2008. The Packers were in the NFC title game two years ago, and after a rough year last year look ready to compete again. The Eagles had some rough years, but last year they rebounded to get to the NFC title game and this year they look really good. In a blog post today, Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan provides this stat:
And you don't even have to stop at mere playoff appearances. On a hunch, I looked through the last ten Super Bowls, and I discovered something interesting. Here are the matchups of each of those games, winners listed first:
What do the asterisks mean? They indicate the teams participating in each Super Bowl that had posted a record of 8-8 or worse just two years before that Super Bowl appearance. It just doesn't have to be this way, and yet in Buffalo, it is. Ugh!
For me, the most illustrative franchise of this simple fact -- it doesn't have to be this way -- during the Bills' current era of futility has been the New York Giants. Let's compare how it's gone for these two teams since 2000, when the Bills started to sink after being good or great all through the 1990s.
So, in the span of the last nine seasons, the Giants started off better than the Bills, then they got worse than the Bills, and then they quickly rebuilt to get better than the Bills again – so much better that they got a Super Bowl trophy in the process.
My ultimate point is this: in today's NFL, being bad for more than, say, two or three years is a sign of either awful luck or total mismanagement. And if your run of badness runs to more than five years, then I think luck can be ruled out as well. Nine years of being mediocre at best with occasional drops into outright badness? That is pure mismanagement.
Obviously, then, I don't hold out much hope for 2009. Trent Edwards looked smart and confident when he first arrived on the scene, but just two years later he is looking tentative, unconfident, and downright fearful. The Bills constantly say things like "We have to take what the defense gives us", which is a totally frustrating thing to hear from offensive players – you'd never hear anybody from the Patriots' offense saying anything like that – and insist that they're confident, which is surely why their leading receiver is almost always the running back catching the quick dump-off pass. The offense will likely be awful, which will lead to lots of playing time for a defense with a bad pass-rush (Maybin's potential notwithstanding) and a very thin linebacking corps. There is serious potential for this year's Bills squad to be awful.
Ahhh...but what about Terrell Owens? Well, what about him? Full disclosure: I've always liked T.O., and I'm glad he's here. But he's not a miracle worker. He can't make his quarterback confident. He can't make the young offensive line better. And he can't play defense. This is not a team that was sufficiently talented at the outset to be made better by T.O.'s arrival. And for all the negative press given to T.O.'s locker room antics over the years, I frankly look forward to the injection of some kind of passion into the Bills' locker room. For years the Bills have come out after bad losses acting like the guy at the office who just had a day where the printer ran out of toner every time he tried to print. To be quite honest, I will find it refreshing if somebody in the Bills' locker room explodes if they're sitting at 2-6 halfway through the season.
All right, so it's time for some actual predictions. For the record, I am predicting that the Bills will finish 6-10 and in last place in the AFC East. If this happens, look for a complete overhaul of the organization next offseason. My nightmare scenario, though, is that they are able to put together a sufficiently positive season to convince owner Ralph Wilson that they need "continuity" and thus keep this front office and coaching staff around another year. A 9-7 finish would probably do it; or maybe an 8-8 year if they have lots of injuries. Hell, I can even see a fourth consecutive 7-9 finish resulting in Jauron-and-friends sticking around. How? Well, if the Bills start out bad – say, 0-4 or 1-5 – and then win enough over the rest of the year to "claw their way back" to 7-9? Or maybe if they have a stronger December than usual? Especially if the young O-line plays better late in the year? I can totally envision a number of scenarios under which the current management team and coach staff is retained, and many of those scenarios do, in fact, involve the team being mediocre and out of the playoffs yet again. Such is life. The team needs new management and new coaching, and the only way I see those things coming to pass is if the team is unquestionably bad this year. Ugh, indeed.
And when that happens, what then? It's not like we'll ever see Ralph Wilson open up his wallet and bring in, say, Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer. Yes, I've joined the "The Bills are doomed" club. Sue me.
So, onto the rest of the league. Here's how I see the divisions turning out this year (with the proviso that in the past, I have never been more than fifty-percent right about these):
I'm almost certainly wrong here, of course. Every year somebody seemingly comes out of nowhere to win a division, which will probably happen again. But on paper, that's how I see the most likely result. And the Super Bowl?
The Steelers' defense is still awesome, while their youngish offense is still improving; Ben Roethlisberger is just entering his prime, when he already has two Super Bowl wins under his belt. The AFC is always tough, but I think the Steelers' upside is better than most of the other AFC contenders. Tom Brady's health is going to be a concern in New England, I think; Indy's got a new coach and I think Peyton Manning's physical decline is about to begin. As for the Chargers, yeah, they have a great roster, but until Norv Turner is actually holding up the Lombardi Trophy as confetti swirls about his head, I won't believe he's a good playoff coach.
In the NFC, the Eagles look most balanced to me. I think Green Bay is up and coming, and the Saints can outscore most teams. I don't think Arizona is primed to repeat as NFC champs, but their division is pretty bad, so there they are.
Some final bullet points on my thoughts on the 2009 NFL season:
:: The Vikings will ultimately regret the Brett Favre maneuver, and it could very well be detrimental to the club for years to come.
:: The Browns will ultimately regret the hiring of Eric Mangini, who looks worse as a coach every year.
:: How many times do New England assistant coaches have to stumble badly as head coaches before everyone realizes that maybe they shouldn't hire New England assistant coaches to be their head coaches?
:: My nomination for NFL Moron of the Decade is Plaxico Burress.
:: It is my hope that every single NFL player devotes his efforts this year to honoring the single greatest exemplar of courage in the history of professional sport, Tedy Bruschi.
That's it. Let's kick it off!
But anyway: what's the state of the NFL and what's the state of the Buffalo Bills?
Well, the Bills are a mess. Pure and simple. This season has the potential to be one of the biggest train wrecks in franchise history. They have a completely new offensive line, which (as of this writing) will be starting two rookies. They tried rolling out a new offensive scheme in the preseason, which performed so poorly in five preseason games that they fired their offensive coordinator just two days ago. Their quarterback is a once-promising young talent, a smart player with all the physical tools, who has been regressing since his debut two seasons ago. They are led by the same coaching staff that has piloted the team to a 7-9 finish three years in a row. They are managed by the same front office that has been stocking the team with lackluster talent for nearly a decade now. They are owned by the same pigheaded owner who seems to loathe being in the same room as someone strong-willed and intelligent, which is why his best general managers all get fired eventually.
I've come to see the worst day in Buffalo Bills history as the firing of Bill Polian, the guy who built the teams that went to the Super Bowl four years in a row. Polian went from the Bills to the Indianapolis Colts, a long-moribund franchise at the time. All Polian's done there is turn the Colts into a perennial powerhouse.
The list of things wrong with the Buffalo Bills is pretty long, but for me, that's where they start: in the front office. This team just does not have a good football operation in place. Head Coach Dick Jauron is generally the public face of the team's recent ineptitude, so his is the name that is vilified the most every time this team goes out and stumbles all over the place, but to me, it's terribly galling to see that despite picking in the upper half of the draft every year for a decade, the Bills have still failed to find top-flight talent in most cases. Three years ago, people were saying that the Bills were two or three drafts away from being good. Now, after those two or three drafts, guess what? They're still two or three drafts away from being good.
Why the hell is this?
Well, it's a double-headed monster of a problem. The Bills don't scout talent terribly well, and they don't make picks intelligently, either. One prime example is their recent obsession with drafting numerous defensive backs each and every year. The thought is, apparently, that in a league where there are so many good receivers, "you can't have too many defensive backs". Well, along the lines of that old canard stating that "Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results", the Bills get ripped apart by teams with good passing games each and every year, no matter how many talented DB's they have. Maybe they should try something else – like, say, addressing the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.
They've made some half-hearted efforts at this over the years, but never enough. This year they finally realized that the offensive linemen at whom they threw large amounts of money three years ago weren't getting the job done, so they drafted two guards high in the draft (one in each of the first two rounds). While I was happy they finally made linemen a priority (the good teams are always drafting linemen and developing them), they should have been doing this three years ago, when they were actually rebuilding. Instead, they decided to do things like trade up to get John McCargo, a defensive lineman whose play on the field has been spotty enough that the Bills actually tried to trade him away last year. Or they picked safety Donte Whitner with the eighth overall pick, a choice everyone at the time thought to be a stretch – nobody had Whitner going before the middle-first round at the earliest, and nobody had McCargo going in the first round at all, so the Bills could have traded down in the first round and possibly added another second round pick, and still picked Whitner and McCargo if those were the guys they really wanted.
(Of course, they shouldn't have taken Whitner at all – they should have taken DT Haloti Ngata, who has become a rock in the middle of the line for the Baltimore Ravens. But at the time, the Bills were fascinated by the notion of a defensive line consisting of small but fast guys, where Ngata is a giant behemoth. That's why they passed on him and went with Whitner instead. But after two seasons of seeing their small-and-fast defensive line ripped apart by good running teams, the Bills had to trade last year for Marcus Stroud, a big guy for the middle of their line. Oops. And even if safety had been a logical place to go in that draft, Whitner has never in my mind justified his being taken that high. To my way of thinking, if you're taking a safety with the eighth overall pick, you'd better be getting Bob Sanders, or Ed Reed, or Troy Polamalu. Whitner isn't close to being mentioned in the same breath as those guys.)
Of course, the Bills didn't want to come out and admit three years ago that they needed to do some serious rebuilding by starting with the basic building blocks. There's another constant problem here: the belief, always prevalent in the team brass, that they're just a few good players away from contending.
The Bills' approach to rebuilding has never been to once-and-for-all address the team's fundamental needs and then build from there; instead, each season they look at one of two things and then draft according to those. They either (a) replace the biggest free agent who just left, or (b) address whatever the most glaring problem from the most recent 7-9 season might have been. That's why they do things like draft Marshawn Lynch in the first round right after dumping Willis McGahee, or pick Leodis McKelvin right after Nate Clements is sent packing. And this approach goes back to the Tom Donahoe era, when the team's management decided that they were sufficiently talented to use their first-round pick in 2003 as a "luxury" pick, taking a running back (McGahee) who was coming off a wicked injury and who thus would have to spend a year not playing. But that was the way Donahoe approached things: get the replacement for the next big free agent before they leave. (The McGahee pick made keeping Travis Henry irrelevant; a year later, the Lee Evans pick made Eric Moulds eventually "expendable". Smart? Well...not really. The Bills were never talented enough to be able to take such a luxurious approach to the draft.)
On the other hand, the Bills have tended to use the draft as their only real way of addressing major team problems. Last year's team had a horrible pass rush, so this year, they drafted Aaron Maybin, a collegiate pass-rush specialist. As a rookie, Maybin is unlikely to turn in amazing pass-rush numbers, but there it is. Last year's glaring problem was the lack of height in the receiving corps, so they drafted James Hardy and pronounced the receiving corps "rebuilt". Never mind that receivers notoriously take two to three years to develop into quality players, and that receivers who excel as rookies are rare.
And then, in a category by itself, we have the teams' long-to-the-point-of-Quixotic quest for Jim Kelly's successor as the next great Bills quarterback. Trent Edwards may be the most promising prospect the team has had since Kelly retired, but the Bills have misfired a whole bunch of times on finding the next QB, using three first-round draft picks on quarterbacks over the last ten years. They traded a first-rounder to Jacksonville to get Rob Johnson in 1998 (thus getting themselves out of a draft round that saw guys like Vonnie Holiday, Alan Faneca, Randy Moss, and Fred Taylor taken). They sent New England their 2003 first-rounder to get Drew Bledsoe (they got a pick back with another trade later on, getting Willis McGahee from a round that saw Troy Polamalu join the Steelers). They sent their 2005 first-rounder to Dallas so they could get JP Losman in 2004 (thus sparing themselves the opportunity of taking DeMarcus Ware, Shawne Merriman, or Aaron Rogers). And if you want to, you can even go farther back to 1995, when they used a second-rounder on Todd Collins. (But then, Collins is still in the league.)
What does all this have to do with 2009? Simply, the Bills have been misfiring and/or grabbing at straws for ten years now, when it comes to picking talent. Now, they're not the Lions or the Rams of recent years, picking outright bad players, but they've either missed entirely or they've picked small guys who play hard but simply aren't playmakers in the NFL. The roster simply does not have the talent to compete with the best teams in the AFC. I think that's the ultimately frustrating thing about watching the Buffalo Bills this decade: the continual sense that they're not that far off. Not really. They have decent players who would be even better if they could just find some real stud playmakers. But they never do.
In this day and age in the NFL, a bad team can become a good team very quickly. The Miami Dolphins went from 1-15 in 2007 to 11-5 in 2008. The Baltimore Ravens seem to alternate good years with bad ones – 13-3 in 2006, 5-11 in 2007, 11-5 in 2008. The Packers were in the NFC title game two years ago, and after a rough year last year look ready to compete again. The Eagles had some rough years, but last year they rebounded to get to the NFC title game and this year they look really good. In a blog post today, Buffalo News columnist Jerry Sullivan provides this stat:
Since the Bills last appeared in the NFL playoffs, there have been 57 instances of teams making the postseason after missing the previous season. That means more than half of the 108 playoff spots in a nine-year stretch were occupied by teams that had missed the season before.
Last year, seven of the 12 playoff teams were differerent from the year before. That included the Dolphins, who went from one win to 11; Atlanta, which improved by seven games; and Baltimore, which went up by six. So clearly, there's a lot of playoff turnover from year to year, and teams can bounce back from poor seasons in a hurry. In light of the evidence, it's even more amazing that the Bills haven't made it nine years in a row.
And you don't even have to stop at mere playoff appearances. On a hunch, I looked through the last ten Super Bowls, and I discovered something interesting. Here are the matchups of each of those games, winners listed first:
1999: Rams*, Titans*
2000: Ravens*, Giants*
2001: Patriots*, Rams
2002: Buccaneers, Raiders
2003: Patriots, Panthers*
2004: Patriots, Eagles
2005: Steelers*, Seahawks
2006: Colts, Bears*
2007: Giants, Patriots
2008: Steelers*, Cardinals*
What do the asterisks mean? They indicate the teams participating in each Super Bowl that had posted a record of 8-8 or worse just two years before that Super Bowl appearance. It just doesn't have to be this way, and yet in Buffalo, it is. Ugh!
For me, the most illustrative franchise of this simple fact -- it doesn't have to be this way -- during the Bills' current era of futility has been the New York Giants. Let's compare how it's gone for these two teams since 2000, when the Bills started to sink after being good or great all through the 1990s.
2000
Bills: 8-8, fourth place.
Giants: 12-4, first place, NFC Champions.
2001
Bills: 3-13, fifth place.
Giants: 7-9, third place.
2002 (first season with four-team divisions in the NFL)
Bills: 8-8, fourth place.
Giants: 10-6, second place.
2003
Bills: 5-11, fourth place.
Giants: 4-12, fourth place.
2004
Bills: 9-7, third place.
Giants: 6-10, third place.
2005
Bills: 5-11, third place.
Giants: 11-5, first place.
2006
Bills: 7-9, third place.
Giants: 8-8, third place.
2007
Bills: 7-9, second place
Giants: 10-6, second place, playoff berth, Super Bowl champions
2008
Bills: 7-9, last place
Giants: 12-4, first place
So, in the span of the last nine seasons, the Giants started off better than the Bills, then they got worse than the Bills, and then they quickly rebuilt to get better than the Bills again – so much better that they got a Super Bowl trophy in the process.
My ultimate point is this: in today's NFL, being bad for more than, say, two or three years is a sign of either awful luck or total mismanagement. And if your run of badness runs to more than five years, then I think luck can be ruled out as well. Nine years of being mediocre at best with occasional drops into outright badness? That is pure mismanagement.
Obviously, then, I don't hold out much hope for 2009. Trent Edwards looked smart and confident when he first arrived on the scene, but just two years later he is looking tentative, unconfident, and downright fearful. The Bills constantly say things like "We have to take what the defense gives us", which is a totally frustrating thing to hear from offensive players – you'd never hear anybody from the Patriots' offense saying anything like that – and insist that they're confident, which is surely why their leading receiver is almost always the running back catching the quick dump-off pass. The offense will likely be awful, which will lead to lots of playing time for a defense with a bad pass-rush (Maybin's potential notwithstanding) and a very thin linebacking corps. There is serious potential for this year's Bills squad to be awful.
Ahhh...but what about Terrell Owens? Well, what about him? Full disclosure: I've always liked T.O., and I'm glad he's here. But he's not a miracle worker. He can't make his quarterback confident. He can't make the young offensive line better. And he can't play defense. This is not a team that was sufficiently talented at the outset to be made better by T.O.'s arrival. And for all the negative press given to T.O.'s locker room antics over the years, I frankly look forward to the injection of some kind of passion into the Bills' locker room. For years the Bills have come out after bad losses acting like the guy at the office who just had a day where the printer ran out of toner every time he tried to print. To be quite honest, I will find it refreshing if somebody in the Bills' locker room explodes if they're sitting at 2-6 halfway through the season.
All right, so it's time for some actual predictions. For the record, I am predicting that the Bills will finish 6-10 and in last place in the AFC East. If this happens, look for a complete overhaul of the organization next offseason. My nightmare scenario, though, is that they are able to put together a sufficiently positive season to convince owner Ralph Wilson that they need "continuity" and thus keep this front office and coaching staff around another year. A 9-7 finish would probably do it; or maybe an 8-8 year if they have lots of injuries. Hell, I can even see a fourth consecutive 7-9 finish resulting in Jauron-and-friends sticking around. How? Well, if the Bills start out bad – say, 0-4 or 1-5 – and then win enough over the rest of the year to "claw their way back" to 7-9? Or maybe if they have a stronger December than usual? Especially if the young O-line plays better late in the year? I can totally envision a number of scenarios under which the current management team and coach staff is retained, and many of those scenarios do, in fact, involve the team being mediocre and out of the playoffs yet again. Such is life. The team needs new management and new coaching, and the only way I see those things coming to pass is if the team is unquestionably bad this year. Ugh, indeed.
And when that happens, what then? It's not like we'll ever see Ralph Wilson open up his wallet and bring in, say, Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer. Yes, I've joined the "The Bills are doomed" club. Sue me.
So, onto the rest of the league. Here's how I see the divisions turning out this year (with the proviso that in the past, I have never been more than fifty-percent right about these):
AFC
East: New England
North: Pittsburgh
South: Indianapolis
West: San Diego
Wildcards: Baltimore, Houston
NFC
East: Philadelphia
North: Green Bay
South: New Orleans
West: Arizona
Wildcards: NYGiants, Dallas
I'm almost certainly wrong here, of course. Every year somebody seemingly comes out of nowhere to win a division, which will probably happen again. But on paper, that's how I see the most likely result. And the Super Bowl?
Super Bowl XLIV:
Pittsburgh over Philadelphia
The Steelers' defense is still awesome, while their youngish offense is still improving; Ben Roethlisberger is just entering his prime, when he already has two Super Bowl wins under his belt. The AFC is always tough, but I think the Steelers' upside is better than most of the other AFC contenders. Tom Brady's health is going to be a concern in New England, I think; Indy's got a new coach and I think Peyton Manning's physical decline is about to begin. As for the Chargers, yeah, they have a great roster, but until Norv Turner is actually holding up the Lombardi Trophy as confetti swirls about his head, I won't believe he's a good playoff coach.
In the NFC, the Eagles look most balanced to me. I think Green Bay is up and coming, and the Saints can outscore most teams. I don't think Arizona is primed to repeat as NFC champs, but their division is pretty bad, so there they are.
Some final bullet points on my thoughts on the 2009 NFL season:
:: The Vikings will ultimately regret the Brett Favre maneuver, and it could very well be detrimental to the club for years to come.
:: The Browns will ultimately regret the hiring of Eric Mangini, who looks worse as a coach every year.
:: How many times do New England assistant coaches have to stumble badly as head coaches before everyone realizes that maybe they shouldn't hire New England assistant coaches to be their head coaches?
:: My nomination for NFL Moron of the Decade is Plaxico Burress.
:: It is my hope that every single NFL player devotes his efforts this year to honoring the single greatest exemplar of courage in the history of professional sport, Tedy Bruschi.
That's it. Let's kick it off!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
"Obviously, we'd prefer for the stadium to not be consumed in a giant fireball...."
Buffalo Bills fans have been frustrated this preseason by the display put on by the starting offense. That's putting it mildly, actually. The Bills have had four preseason games thus far, with one more to come -- they had five this year instead of the usual four because they played the additional Hall of Fame Game -- and in those games, the starting offense has not scored a single touchdown. Ouch.
Now, there's all the usual remindering of how the preseason doesn't matter and how the games don't count and it's about shaking off the rust and breaking in the youngsters and evaluating talent and yada yada yada. And I don't think anyone would care if the Bills still lost all their preseason games -- the 1990 Bills went 0-4 in the preseason, before going 13-3 in the regular season for the first of their four Super Bowl seasons -- but fans would still like to see some evidence of improvement, of basic competence. Fans would like to see some evidence, any little scrap of it, that the team hasn't actually managed to regress. That evidence has not been forthcoming.
I remember back during the 2001 through 2003 seasons, when Gregg Williams was the Bills' head coach, and the offense was as inept then as it is now. (Except for '02, when the offense was actually good for a single year but the defense was awful.) The Bills would lose a game 17-7, 13-6, 20-3, or something like that, and Williams would take the microphone at the postgame conference and, when asked for positives from the game, say things like "We punted the ball well today." It was mindboggling to me then, and now -- the one guy on your team whom you do not want to have a career day is your punter. But there was Williams, praising the guy whose job it is to kick the ball to the other team when you've failed to advance it. Oy.
Which brings me to last night's preseason game against the Steelers. Now, we're talking about the Steelers here -- defending Super Bowl champions, two Super Bowl titles in four years, one of the NFL's top three teams, and the NFL's best defense -- so it wasn't totally shocking that the Bills couldn't put any points on the board. But still, you'd like to see some movement, some evidence of competence, however slight. Instead, the Bills totaled 135 yards overall. Their quarterbacks combined for 96 passing yards. They converted zero out of eight third-downs. They were, simply, bad.
And now, this morning, I see that head coach Dick Jauron was looking for positives from the game, and he proceeded to opine:
"I guess I could say I thought we punted it well."
Where oh where is Marty Schottenheimer?
Now, there's all the usual remindering of how the preseason doesn't matter and how the games don't count and it's about shaking off the rust and breaking in the youngsters and evaluating talent and yada yada yada. And I don't think anyone would care if the Bills still lost all their preseason games -- the 1990 Bills went 0-4 in the preseason, before going 13-3 in the regular season for the first of their four Super Bowl seasons -- but fans would still like to see some evidence of improvement, of basic competence. Fans would like to see some evidence, any little scrap of it, that the team hasn't actually managed to regress. That evidence has not been forthcoming.
I remember back during the 2001 through 2003 seasons, when Gregg Williams was the Bills' head coach, and the offense was as inept then as it is now. (Except for '02, when the offense was actually good for a single year but the defense was awful.) The Bills would lose a game 17-7, 13-6, 20-3, or something like that, and Williams would take the microphone at the postgame conference and, when asked for positives from the game, say things like "We punted the ball well today." It was mindboggling to me then, and now -- the one guy on your team whom you do not want to have a career day is your punter. But there was Williams, praising the guy whose job it is to kick the ball to the other team when you've failed to advance it. Oy.
Which brings me to last night's preseason game against the Steelers. Now, we're talking about the Steelers here -- defending Super Bowl champions, two Super Bowl titles in four years, one of the NFL's top three teams, and the NFL's best defense -- so it wasn't totally shocking that the Bills couldn't put any points on the board. But still, you'd like to see some movement, some evidence of competence, however slight. Instead, the Bills totaled 135 yards overall. Their quarterbacks combined for 96 passing yards. They converted zero out of eight third-downs. They were, simply, bad.
And now, this morning, I see that head coach Dick Jauron was looking for positives from the game, and he proceeded to opine:
"I guess I could say I thought we punted it well."
Where oh where is Marty Schottenheimer?
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