Heroes and Villains

Subtext is everything.  It’s so important that teams will often create one.  “Nobody believed in us!” is always good because even the most favored of favorites only get 7-1 odds at best.  And “Nobody believed in us!” is a much better rallying cry than “Only 14% of you believed in us!”  Winning, it seems, is not the only thing.  Winning with a backup right tackle is far sweeter.  Beating your archrival with a backup right tackle, a second-string QB and a street free agent wide receiver is a half decaf soy latte with organic raw wild honey.  Yum!

Breaking the Hitler Rule

You know what I hate?  I hate people who qualify their apologies with “if it offended anyone.”  Is there some doubt?  You’re apologizing just in case your words (or actions) offended someone?  No, you’re apologizing for a reason.  There’s no need for if; you definitely offended someone.  Most likely, you offended a whole lot of someones or you wouldn’t be updating your web site, tweeting “my bad if I off ended u” or holding a press conference to make a public act of contrition.  So, just say it.  I’m sorry.  I know I offended many and I deeply and sincerely regret the hurtful things I said.

 

Is that so hard?

Apparently, it is.

90 Degrees of Football

Somewhere in Dallas, somebody is asking “What’s the deal with Tony Romo?”  And that somebody’s name is Jerry Jones.

To Have and Have Not

As Bill Parcells famously said, you are what your record says you are in the NFL.  To every point there is a counterpoint (to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion) so we must also consider Jerry Glanville’s equally famous observation that NFL stands for Not For Long.  Have I tortured this lede sufficiently?  Let’s see, I’ve randomly referenced Newtonian physics in a pro football blog.  I’d say, yes, yes I have…

A Bad Day at the Office

It happens.  On the plus side, the last time the Patriots lost to the Bills in Buffalo, New England went on to win the Super Bowl.  So, there’s that.

Cheer up!

Big Game Mentality

I find it hard to sit down and watch any game with absolute confidence that my heroic pigskin avatars will prevail.  That may sound funny coming from a Patriots fan; in the last five regular seasons, New England has won 63 and lost 17, a .788 winning percentage.  Anyone can have a bad day at the office but Tom Brady has had fewer than most.  I should worry?  But I do.  Even before the games I know they should certainly win (a home game against Miami in December) I suffer spectral anxieties about the rare happenstance only the most sophisticated of predictive analytics could account for.  I will regularly consider the game turning on a receiver slipping to the turf, turning a certain reception for a first down into a pick six.  That happens.  All the time…

Romo's Rib

So Washington defenders, or DeAngelo Hall anyway, have figured out that hitting a guy in the ribs who has a broken rib would likely result in said guy – Dallas QB Tony Romo – being rendered hors de combat.  And they decided to go public with this knowledge, totally dissing Jon Kitna.  I’m Jon Kitna, bitch!