Epic Drop: Top 10 Possible NFL Innovations

Today's list has some big wins for the league, none of them any easier to implement than the change of kicking tee. Really, it's a slam dunk.

Five Quick Questions For Al Davis

> Who, exactly, do you expect to want to coach your team, given your track record of, um, "support"?

> Do you remember a young fellow by the name of Shanahan? About twenty years ago, you stiffed him out of money, it didn't work out so well for you? No, didn't think so.

> You do realize that the team before Lane Kiffin wasn't, you know, really in the NFL at all? I get that he wasn't exactly leading a world-beater... but, um, jeez.

> "Professional liar"? Well, um, OK then. How much do you enjoy lawsuits, really?

> Thanks to, well, your own actions about twenty years ago, you do know that there's a whole mechanism in place to make sure that coaches get paid when batshit owners try to welch? No, again, didn't think so...

The Point

(Feel free to play the video while you read this. And fire up.)



Something I used to do a lot on this here blog (you can, as Yogi says, look it up) is go off on esoteric rants inspired by things that no self-respecting sports fan would read, or at least admit to.

Eventually, I'll tie it all back to sports in some faltering way that would make a pot-smoking undergrad wince, and causes my religious friends to chuckle sadly in the knowledge that they won't have to put up with me in the better next place.

And now that 90% of you have had your eyes glaze over and look for the scroll bar, let's get into it, shall we?

In a recent piece in the London Review of Books, a writer worked over some philosophical constructs in an effort to explain something small and inconsequential; ergo, why the world exists. (He eventually came to the same conclusion that I do in this post, but since you don't read the London Review of Books, you'll just have to suffer with my mangling of it. Ha ha!)

Accepting the belief in a higher power, and hence, the disqualification of the emotionally unsatisfying Random Chance Accident, you get two motivations.

1) Because it had to (determinism, fate, destiny), and

2) Because someone wanted it (free will)

Now, determinism is a relatively simple argument to make, or at least it was when I took intro philosophy in college some 20 (aii!) years ago.

Ergo, that if you simply know enough about the creator and its thought processes, you can predict everything said creator will do.

Let's reduce this from The World and Its Creator to This Blog and Little Ol' Me for a moment, to make things easier to understand. Now, if you punch in all of my vitals into a computer, you would get that I read learned nonsense, run out of things to say about the NFL on Tuesday morning, feel compelled to fill the bloghole, am too far away from the start of the NBA season to go there, and am waiting for the White Sox and Twins to work out the last playoff spot before writing up MLB playoff picks.

You could predict (did?) that I'd write something like this today, and if you knew my reading materials yesterday, might even have guessed the subject matter. I'm a fairly simple piece of meat, and predicting my performance shouldn't be too difficult, provided, of course, that I don't get wind of what you are doing. That would give me the heebie-jeebies, and I'd probably react with a tangent that made no sense to throw the prediction off the path.

Tony Kornheiser eats puppies.

Which, of course, you could also predict, in that Tony Kornheiser really does eat puppies.

But let's escape that rabbit hole of Pot Logic for now, and put determinism on the back burner as, once again, Emotionally Unsatisfying.

Back to option 2, free will. The preferred option for all of us, really, in that it makes us all much more interesting pieces of meat, and for deities alike, since a determinist Creator doesn't seem like any kind of fun at parties. (There are, of course, philosophical arguments against the existence of free will, but they are made by people with scraggly beards who make no money and are no fun in the sack, especially the women. So we're sticking with Free Will.)

So the world -- and this blog, and the eventual crux of this post, which is Your Team Fandom -- exists not from something pre-ordained, or even the long-ago child abuse of a parent who indoctrinated you in the ways of That Laundry.

It exists because you chose it, and continue to choose it, even if you are not aware of the choice. (Just *try* to Geddy Lee out of your head now. I dare you.)

And now, to the thrilling climax... why choose, of all things, to make a world, or root for That Laundry?

It's a mess, complicated, never seems like it will pay off with the goods. Even when it does seem to work out, you know it's just going to break your heart later. The fear of losing is much greater than the joy of winning, after all. And the nonstop praying! It's enough to make you stop watching and go read a philosophy book instead. (OK, maybe not.)

And well, that's it. It's art.

Art is something that lives for its own sake, maddening or not. It can't be explained fully, or even usually very well, but simply experienced. Its motivations are inherently private, and yet shared across consciousness, in a way that makes us all a little more aware that We Are Not Alone. Do it long enough, and it becomes a vice, in that it's mostly a diversion in a life filled with things to divert you.

So, final question time... if sports fandom is, just like life, an art... are you taking joy in your creation? Or are you torturing yourself and others with it?

If the answer is yes, signify your joy or misery by making no sign or comment.

(...)

Thy will be done.

One Heartbeat Away

H/t, The Score.com. Extra points for the Chuck Mangione on crack backup.

MNF Thoughts: Steelers-Ravens

Surprisingly entertaining game out of Pittsburgh, where the Ravens impressed me more in a 23-20 road loss than they had in their previous two wins. Quick points...

> Joe Flacco looks like a QB, and LeRon McClain is a beast of a fullback. In 2-3 years, the Ravens might have something special... but only if they add a mess of skill players, especially at wideout and tight end. Derrick Mason can't last forever, Mark Clayton looks lost, and Todd Heap is absolutely spent.

Oh, and Flacco's got to be quicker at getting rid of the ball, and not holding it so long that he gives up fumble sack touchdowns. That was huge.

> Pittsburgh ended the game with one healthy running back (Mewlede Moore). Baltimore has that effect on people.

> Rashard Mendenhall's day while subbing for Willie Parker: 9 carries for 30 yards, 1 catch for 6, and a fractured shoulder that will land him on the IR. The only thing that is keeping me from an epic whiff on the fantasy value of Parker is health.

> The Ravens defense is a classic Ryan unit -- physically punishing, and always prone to dumb penalties (tonight's was a 15-yarder that gave a moribund Pittsburgh attack life) and critical mistakes (tonight, a Santonio Holmes touchdown where three guys whiffed in the secondary). The Steelers were able to change the mood a bit by going to no huddle, but that's not the whole story, or a unique situation.

> Hines Ward was able to draw a 15-yarder when it was absolutely essential. One suspects that he draws more of those than any other WR in the league.

> The Pittsburgh OL continues to have issues, but not nearly as many as last week in Philly. Big Ben's very good at making people miss and making plays on the run, but if they don't get this fixed at some point, they are going to see more of Byron Leftwich than they want to see.

> The Pittsburgh crowd was quite bent at 13-3 in the third quarter, with the offense not scoring a touchdown in forever. Telling, and more so for the telling point that the Steelers remain a finesse team. The division is probably theirs for this year, but next year... maybe not.

Epic Drop: Top 11 Signs You Are A Fantasy Football Bastard

Today's link is one of those hard research pieces where I had to, you know, look in the mirror and stop cringing long enough to type.

It'll also be an interesting experiment to see how many people fly off the handle and accuse me of saying something terrible about the Matt Bryant tragedy. Of course, what I'm really doing is chastising people who would take advantage of that situation. (And for the record, no, I didn't own Bryant in any of my leagues yesterday. But what a value!)

Yahoo Asks For A Lawsuit (In Sports, Not Business)

From the league front page: "The Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball season ended with the games played on Sunday, September 28th. Statistics from the Tigers vs. White Sox game on Monday, September 29th, will NOT count in fantasy scoring."

Now, I'm not in any H2H championship, but if I were... well, um, today's game between the White Sox and Tigers is in the regular season. Why is it unique among all games played in MLB this year to not count?

No One Walks Away

Here's your headline from today's New York Times: "Mussina's 20th Victory May Be His Last." The story notes that the 2008 Yankees ace has an expired contract, a 40th birthday celebration in December, and a family that wants him home for good. (He's also, of course, the oldest guy to win 20 who hadn't before, and stops being the guy with the most wins to never win 20 in a season. Whatever.)

Now, here is the list of pitchers who voluntarily retired in the last 100 years after a 20 win season.

Sandy Koufax

Who did it, of course, for crippling elbow pain in a time when medical technology could offer him no relief... so you can argue about the voluntary part there, too. (To be sure, there were also two Black Sox who won 20 and never pitched again. Hence, the qualifier "voluntarily.")

Now, everyone in pinstripes has to honor Mike and his possibly quitting talk, since he's a decent guy who didn't suck at all this year, and telling a guy that he's full of crap for wanting to walk away from a probable eight figure salary in 2009, not to mention his continued assault on Mount 300 (with the win yesterday, he's at 270), is rude. Besides, he's going to the Hall -- no Cy Youngs or World Series championships , but a jaw-dropping .638 winning percentage, and only five guys have more wins and a higher rate (Grover Cleveland Alexander, Christy Mathewson, Roger Clemens, Lefty Groves and Randy Johnson).

If and when he gets hurt or ineffective, maybe then he gives it up. If and when the Yankees decide to screw around with his contract, and try to pay him as someone who will give them less than 200 innings with a 4.5 ERA, a 1.3 WHIP and a 13-8 record (i.e., what he's overwhelmingly likely to revert back to next year, given that his recent career seems to be an every-other year thing, and no one knows if the new stadium will be as kind to right-handed pitching as the old), maybe he gets bent and holds out. If he has to go ply his trade in, say, Pittsburgh for a comparative pittance, maybe then he quits.

But it's not as if the Yankees have many better ideas than him right now, or that a guy who's made over $133 million in MLB is really going to turn his nose down at $10 million more... especially when he's only two to three years away from 300, and the team would really like some new history to be made at the new yard.

The family can wait. They have for this long.

Mourning After: Eagles-Bears

Last year, the immortal Brian Griese, Cedric Benson, Brian Berrian and Moose Muhammad went 90 yards in the last two minutes to win on the road in Philadelphia. The loss was in the early season, and while mind-blowingly frustrating, didn't seem like it was a make-or-break game for the Eagles season.

Eventually, they missed the playoffs by a game (letting the Giants in), and well, the Bears game might have been the difference.

This isn't to say that last night's teeth-grating loss in Chicago will be the difference between the Birds and the post-season; there is, after all, 12 games left to play, and the schedule still seems relatively palatable. Win next week against Washington at home, and then in San Francisco, and you're sitting at 4-2 at the bye. One suspects that if they get to that point, they might not even be in last place in the division anymore, though it's hard to say. Last night's loss was the first time an NFC East team lost outside of its division this year.

Here are five more quick points to chew over as you ponder what might have been...

> Many people, by reflex, will question the Eagles head coaches for calling goal line plunges with three minutes left in the game. I don't, or at least, not particularly. The bigger issue was that the Eagles back-ups -- Max Jean-Gilles in for Shawn Andrews, Brent Celek in for LJ Smith, and Buckhalter, Booker and Hunt in for Westbrook -- just didn't do the job. Then, the defense didn't hold the Bears without a first down when it had to. You can blame that on coaching if you like, but it's also damming of the Eagle back-ups. This was a team failure in all aspects -- coaching, defense, offense and special teams.

> As for why you run it there, I think Reid was thinking in two ways. First, that he wanted to give some confidence to his offensive line to get the job done... especially as they had held the ball for almost all of the second half, and should really have been wearing the Bears down by then. Secondly, I suspect that he wasn't terribly thrilled by the idea of a holding penalty or pick from the 1 yard line. At least with the running play, failure meant that the Bears were at their 1, with a defense that could have gotten them a safety on the next play. Get that, and you have the ball down by 2, with a free kick and 2 minutes left. I'm fine with the play call; not so much with the execution.

> Lost in the loss, the continuing disappointment that is kicker David Akers. His 50 yard try wasn't close; his 47 yarder hit the pole and stayed out. Had either gone in, the Eagles are kicking a field goal and taking the lead with three minutes left. (Setting up, of course, a Devin Hester kickoff return that would have given the Bears great field position prior to their own game-winning drive. Fah.)

Akers hasn't been reliable from outside of 40 yards for some time, and when you are on the road without numerous starters, you really don't have the margin for error that a kicker who can't hit from distance eliminates. I get that they are comfortable with him, and it's nice to have a kicker who doesn't shy away from contact in coverage. But he's got to do better, or they've got to move on. This isn't a new problem.

> Readers of the blog will note my longtime and mostly unwavering support of Donovan McNabb. But... is anyone else kind of tired of the "number of fourth quarter comeback wins" graphic that every broadcast crew feels compelled to post in crunch time of every game?

Don's been the QB for 75 Eagles wins. Some of them, especially over the near-decade he's been playing here, are going to involve fourth-quarter comebacks. If you are going to give me the number, also give me the percentage.

> A common theme in both losses: the pass defense not showing up until the second half. Last night, this led to three Kyle Orton touchdown passes (a career high), all of them from distance, all of them to very open receivers. While things got buttoned down more in the second, it was more a factor of increased pressure than better coverage; Orton missed several wide-open targets on downs that would have made a huge difference in the game. When the Birds signed Assante Samuel, this was supposed to give them three exceptional cover corners in an era of football when, well, you need three. So far, not so much.

Oh, and a bonus... I'm not sure why Lorenzo Booker is in the NFL. Didn't we already have this player, but quicker and even less able to block in pass protection, in Ryan Moats? If the Eagles get into a situation where both Westbrook and Buckhalter are unavailable again, it won't go well for them. (And if they aren't thinking about re-staffing the position this morning, they should be.)

Epic Drop: Top 10 People You Don't Want To Be Right Now

Your list of hate is here, and after that frustration fest in Chicago tonight, I'm leaving the computer before I, well, completely forget that whole Reasons to be Happy crap that's under this post.

Freaking Eagles.

Oh, and by the way, the Carnival has undergone a serious face lift. If you haven't been over there in a while, lots of stuff changing.

Small Moments

Last night, I was back in the casino at the poker tables, with a new plan of sucking less and getting better cards. It worked!

(And yes, I know this is Not Sports and probably dull as dishwater to the non-poker players out there, but I like to take care of the degenerates, too.)

The game plan was to play tighter and fold on more hands pre-flop. It's requires a strong amount of patience, and the bigger problem is going on tilt as you think about what might have been.

So yes, you'll remember (for a disturbingly long time) the time you folded K-8 and had it show up as a full house on the river... but not, of course, the twenty odd hands where that move would be rewarded. Be happy for things that, well, you might otherwise take for granted.

For me, these things include:

> The 80 to 90% of the time that my commute doesn't go wrong

> The fact that the Shooter Wife doesn't give me grief over, well, periodic poker excursions

> The lunch options near my office, which give me a fair amount of choices for very reasonable coin

> The folks that come to the site, and

> Andy Reid, who has given Eagle Fan the best decade in our history.

(And if you're truly curious... I had queens twice, got lucky on the river once, and cleaned out another player who went to the river with jacks. It's a much simpler game when you play tight, really.)

Let 'Em Know You're There

I missed this while dealing with other stuff, but Paul Newman died today, at 83 years of age. I could talk about his charitable works, his ability to piss off Richard Nixon and Joe Lieberman, his longtime marriage despite being a Hollywood guy who probably had any number of opportunities to mess around... but this is a sports blog, so the important thing is to note that he stars in the best sports movie ever made, "Slapshot."

No, I'm not interested in arguing about this. Slapshot is the best sports movie ever made.

Now, I know that it's two different movies in one, and that a grimy character study of a small town turns into a slapstick flick when the Hanson Brothers show up. I'm also aware that Newman did many better movies than this one, and that there are people -- wrong people, of course -- who would prefer "Hooisers", "Rocky", "The Natural", "Field of Dreams" or "He Got Game."

But well, comedy always gets short shrift when it comes to the ranking of entertainment, and it really shouldn't. It is harder, I believe, to make someone laugh than it is to make someone sad... and Newman made you do both.

NCAA Winning Picks Week 5

The Truth is The Truth again after a perfect week 4. I hope you cashed in on last week's picks. We're going to ride our mojo into week 5 and make everyone some coin again. We here at FTT are givers. So hop on board and enjoy the ride. We're now 12-8 for the season after picking 5 games last week and telling you to double up on the Virginia Tech game. The Truth has another Lock of the Week double down special for you. The giving, it hurts!

Louisville -3.5 vs. UCONN. You think I'm crazy to bet against a 4-0 team? Let me share with you who UCONN has beaten this year: Hofstra, Temple (beat them in OT), Virginia (stinks) and Baylor. And you can start you weekend early by watching a game tonight that you otherwise wouldn't.

Michigan State -8.5 @ Indiana. I'm tempted to recommend the over here at 51. Both teams can put up points. But IU's lost by 3 TDs to Ball State last week leads me to believe they won't hang with MSU past the first.

Purdue +1 @ Notre Dame. Is my hatred for Notre Dame obvious? I put that aside when laying down coin though. ND is terrible. Their only wins were against even worse teams, Michigan and San Diego State. Purdue looks solid this year and barely lost to Oregon in OT. I like Purdue by a TD here, so again Vegas, thanks for the point.

Miami -7.5 vs. UNC. Miami is perfect ATS this year and kicked Texas A&M's teeth in at College Station last week. The Tar Holes aren't bad, but I don't think they hang with the Canes in Miami.

LOCK OF THE WEEK

Wisconsin -6.5 @ Michigan. What can I say. Bet against Michigan in every game where they aren't getting 14 points. They cannot move the ball. Lay 2 units on this game.

Three Quick Points

> The Warriors won't punish star young guard Monta Ellis for injury himself in the off-season on a moped, an activity specifically prohibited by his contract.

A few things here... first off, I have no idea how you hurt yourself on a moped to the point where you are going to miss months, unless there's alcohol or severe parkour-ing involved.

Well, OK, maybe there is a way...



I also don't know how you don't want to punish the guy, especially considering that the Warriors in the post-Baron Davis Era are overwhelmingly likely to miss the playoffs, since Ellis becoming an immense star was their only chance to stay relevant in the West. Considering that the 0-8 start from last year (with Stephen Jackson's suspension being the big factor) was a direct cause of missing the dance.

Anyway, here's the money quote from Warrior GM Chris Mullin...

"I think he'll learn a lot about himself. He'll be able to draw back to it. I told him myself, if this could trigger him to really committing to an offseason program, then all of a sudden we've got a guy 24, 25, that's really got it together. We might be able to look back and be OK."

Um, sure, Chris. The same way that your alcoholism turned out to be a big help in your playing days...

> Brett Favre is walking with only a slight limp, and should be good to go next week against the Cardinals.

I am shocked, shocked to discover that Brett Favre generated some additional media coverage that turned out to be a big waste of time. Shocking!

> Reports out of Seattle are that the Mariners, the first team in MLB history to finish with the worst record with a $100 million+ payroll, hate star OF Ichiro Suzuki.

Now, to be fair, Ichiro's OPS this year is the lowest of his career, and he's lost the extra-base power that used to make him good, if never quite the weapon that some people have seen him as. In terms of performance for salary, he's not doing them any favors. But we're still looking at a solid OBA and base runner, a plus defensive player, and a guy that's on pace to get hit #2,000 in his ninth MLB season, next year.

Oh, and there's also this -- he might be the only guy on the team that Mariner Fan actually likes. (With the possible exception of Brandon Morrow.)

So it doesn't really matter who wanted to wring Ichiro's neck, under the idea that he was "selfish" about his hits and stats, rather than winning. Um, not to belabor the point here, but who on this team knows a thing about winning, really? Raul Ibanez? Jarrod Washburn? Adrian Beltre?

Oh, and one final thought... how the hell did they spend over $100 million on this roster, really?

Epic Drop: Top 10 Better Ways To Insult Cleveland

The link today is a cheap shot at the city of Cleveland's expense, and here is where I give you the obligatory "I keed, I keed" moment to let Cleveland Fan know there's no hard feelings.

Actually, er, um, no.

Not to take this too far into the gaping gutter that is presidential politics, but in 2004 (you know, back when I wasn't convinced that the media and populace weren't irredeemable), I canvassed and cold-called, since California (where I lived at the time) wasn't in play. This wound up manifesting itself in a lot of work in Nevada, but it also touched on cold calls and letter writing to people in Slow High O.

It was regrettable work.

I also have been to Cleveland in the mid-80s, and dear Lord, that was a bad stadium. I've been to Olympic, Riverfront, Three Rivers and a host of Florida minor league rat holes for spring training games... and they were all better than that hole.

So Cleveland can go pound sand, the same way that Philly can, or Detroit, or Buffalo or Pittsburgh or a dozen other multi-team metropolises. And as for Gilbert getting all thin-skinned for his town... dude, you've got the best basketball player in the world (arguably) playing in a secondary media market, before his big contract. What makes you think that the speculation would be any different if he was in, well, just about 20 other NBA towns?

Week Four NFL Picks: Bye Curious

As a writer of a picks column, it's my duty to bitch and moan about how the first bye week just cripples the NFL schedule. It always seems to take out some of the most intriguing teams, and to leave nothing but dog games in its wake. Waah, waah, waah.

But really, I don't have that much of a problem with it, other than to look suspiciously at the timing if it doesn't seem to work out just perfectly for my Eagles.

The reason why, of course, is because with fantasy football and picks, it really doesn't matter if the games are good or not.

Take Falcons-Panthers, for instance; it should be a slugging yawnathon between two teams that, if they find themselves in a playoff game with a good opponent and the world hasn't changed a lot, should get rolled. If you watch it, it'll probably be tedious.

But with your intriguing fantasy plays in the game -- can Michael Turner give you points when he isn't playing against a terrible defense? Will Steve Smith become, well, Steve Smith again? -- it's fascinating. Just so long as you don't watch it too closely.

FTT continued its three-week reign of hard-core, triple penetration profitability by going 10-6 ATS last week, our third straight +.500 week, and our second of three where you really would have made some nice coin. Can the gravy train continue? Well, who the hell knows, really?

However, on one thing we can depend -- the search traffic for this picks column is going to really, really disappoint some people.

On to the picks!

(As always, your home team is caps, and the pick is in italics.)

Minnesota at TENNESSEE (-3)

And here we come to Bye Week Bitch Fest #1, aka the idea that Frerotte vs. Collins (what is this, the mid-90s NFC East?) would be one of the more intriguing games in week 4... and that said game would have huge implications to the playoff race. Yes, folks, QBs just aren't that important, at least not in games when neither team really has one.

I'm going with the road underdog Vikings here. Do I feel good about picking Gus Frerotte on the road against an undefeated Titans team, especially one that's been dominant defensively? Well, of course not. But if you were to look closely at the Titans' win last week against the Texans, you'll see some cracks in the foundation. They let Steve Slaton, Houston's rookie RB, run for 116 yards in a breakout game. If it weren't for some bad moments in the red zone, the Texans would have given the Titans everything they can handle.

This week, they get Adrian Peterson, who I'm thinking is just a little bit better than Slaton, especially now that he's had a little more time to heal a balky hamstring. They also face a Viking defense that's damn near impossible to run against. Finally, I keep thinking that (a) the Titans are not really ready to start 4-0, and (b) the NFC is just better than the AFC now, and that you need to keep things like that in mind in tight games. (As for Frerotte... I'm trying hard not to think about the media mouth jobs he'll be getting after saving the Vikings season by getting them back to .500. Eww.)

Vikings 20, Titans 16

Denver at KANSAS CITY (+9.5)

Denver is, on offense, a dead ringer for last year's Patriots team, a fact that the guy that drafted Jay Cutler in your fantasy league probably hasn't stopped mentioning. Defensively, they've been worse -- a lot worse -- so no one has accused them of running up the score or being anything but lovable.

This week, they get the I-AA Chiefs, who are burdened with a terrible "star" in Larry Johnson, a dream of getting *back* to Damon Huard, and a 2008 highlight film that will consist entirely of Tom Brady getting hurt.

I think Denver wins and covers just because I can't imagine the Chiefs keeping serve, even at home. I also think Denver gets a big lead and just tries to get out by taking time off with the running game, but all of that's beyond the point, unless you are playing the over. Denver wins and covers.

Broncos 28, Chiefs 13

San Francisco at NEW ORLEANS (-5.5)

The Saints keep losing targets -- two weeks ago, Marques Colston, last week, Jeremy Shockey -- while throwing out big offensive numbers. The Niners come off their second straight win (albeit a home job over the I-AA Lions) and a sneaking suspicion that they can contend this year, since, well, what the hell, it's just the NFC West. Someone's got to contend, after all.

My money is on the home town Saints, because I'm just not seeing this Niners team being able to operate in a road dome, and because the surviving Saints wideouts are actually still OK. Oh, and this Drew Brees guy is OK, too. Finally, this actual gambling tidbit... the Niners are 2-6 ATS on the road in their last 8 road games. That win in Seattle said more about the Seabags than it did about the Niners.

Saints 28, Niners 21

Arizona at NEW YORK JETS (-1.5)

The Jets are 2-6-1 in their last 9 at home ATS, and they also have the fun of flying back East with the short week after putting up numbers without consequence in a rolled over loss against the Chargers. The Cardinals continue their East Coast swing by moving north from Washington, where they were in the game until a bad no-call pick against the Redskins.

This Cardinals team should be better -- and isn't that a constant complaint of the past five years -- and against a Jets team that got torched by Phillip Rivers and the Charger targets last Monday, I'm looking for more of the same from Warner, Boldin and Fitzgerald. The Jets will also have more than a few chances against a Cardinals secondary that gave Jason Campbell a ton of opportunities last week, but I like the chances of the Cardinals defense to rebound better than I do the Jets, despite the slight Revenge Game motivation for one-time Cardinal Thomas Jones. Expect a shootout.

Cardinals 34, Jets 31

Green Bay at TAMPA BAY (-1)

The Packers come off a dispiriting home loss to the Cowboys, while the Bucs escaped Chicago with a pass-wacky win from the Lazarus-esque Brian Griese. Packer corner Al Harris will also miss this game, which makes all of those Tampa WRs you just picked up in your league *much* more entertaining.

I like the Pack here, as Ryan Grant slowly gets his fantasy owners off the ledge and Aaron Rodgers continues to show that he's a little bit more than a system QB, but it'll be more than a bit ugly. For the Bucs, they need to run the ball a lot better than they did last week to be a serious contender, because Griese will eventually show them why three other teams gave up on him. Including, well, them.

Packers 27, Bucs 20

Atlanta at CAROLINA (-7)

Matt Ryan and Michael Turner have been the biggest matchup plays in the NFL this year -- huge against the I-AA Lions and Chiefs, invisible against the actually in the NFL Bucs. This week, the yo-yo swings back to a competent NFL defense in the Panthers, and I'm counting on the pendulum doing bad things to the improbably first-place Falcons.

Look for Delhomme to Smith to make a stirring return, and for Ryan to struggle with game maintenance in the face of a fierce Panther rush. If you're picking a confidence game this week, take the Panthers (yes, even over Dallas), because there's never going to be a better time to take Carolina...

Panthers 28, Falcons 10

Houston at JACKSONVILLE (-7.5)

Two disappointing teams in the sudden train wreck that is the AFC South, and one of them will feel a whole lot better about life after this one. The Jags cut off Peyton Manning's escape win strategy last week in Indy, while the Texans folded late against the Titans, putting starting QB Matt Schaub's job in jeopardy.

I like the Texans to cover here as Schaub starts to enjoy life with a good rookie RB (Slaton) to keep the defense honest, especially given the Jags' historic tendencies to play to the opponent's level. As a matter of fact, given the Jags' offensive line injuries, I was even tempted to make this one an upset special... but, well, the Texans do have that disquieting tendency of falling apart late.

Jags 27, Texans 24

Cleveland at CINCINNATI (-3.5)

The very last chance, one suspects ever, for Derek Anderson to show that he wasn't just a flash in the pan. Even if he does, the Why Did Everyone Put Them In Prime Time So Much Browns will go back to killing their fantasy owners in the succeeding weeks, as their schedule is a mess. At least this week, their offensive line should dominate, but given that they haven't really done that all year, it's hard to expect them to flick the switch now.

As for Satan's Own Bengals, they almost pulled off a big-time upset last week in New York, and could look primed to finally break into the win column as well. Carson Palmer started to look like an NFL QB again, and Chris Perry gives them hope of a running attack that isn't just a case of reminiscing about when Rudi Johnson was good.

In a shootout game that will convince foolish people that both teams won't lose double-digits in games this year, give me the home team. Oh, and don't take the sell-high trade offers that you'll be getting from the people that drafted Ohio's Best on their teams this year. It won't work out well for you.

Bengals 35, Browns 31

San Diego at OAKLAND (+7.5)

Bettors love the Sunday trap game, where a home team rolls someone on MNF and then looks sluggish with the short week of work, especially when it's on the road. Those people are probably still avoiding the Raiders to cover, as the Chargers really just snapped back to form last week. (Besides, the Trap Game is mostly a myth -- you remember it when it happens, but forget all of the other times when the favorite rolls.)

Besides, the Raiders don't really (shh!) enjoy a home-field advantage; the locals have seen way too much bad football to give them support at this point, and when they fall behind, it gets eve uglier than usual. The Raiders lost a heart-breaker in Buffalo last week, and still have the bizarre Lane Kiffin Fired Or Not thing happening. Let's just say I don't like their chances to bounce back.

Finally, this: LaDanian Tomlinson has spent his entire career fattening up his numbers against the Raiders. His fantasy owners are expecting 3 TDs this week, and they'll get them.

Chargers 38, Raiders 17

Buffalo at ST. LOUIS (+8)

The second straight week where the Bills get a terrible opponent and a big money line. Will I get sucked in to the suck of St. Louis to cover, yet again? Well, why not -- it's only cost me money for two straight weeks and made me look like an idiot -- but this is just too many points for a road team in a dome that's been more lucky than good so far.

Expect the Rams to get a little juice from switching from Marc Bulger to Trent Green, simply because Green isn't turtling up for the sack every third throw like Bulger is right now... and also, because, well, he probably no longer has the ability to recognize fear after nearly being made brain-dead last year in Miami. The Rams will be winless last year, but the number's just too big.

Bills 31, Rams 24

Washington at DALLAS (-11)

Exposure time for the 'Skins, who step up in class after two straight weeks winning at home against average teams in New Orleans and Arizona. Dallas is the best team in football until injuries and chemistry prove to be their downfall, and they won last week in Green Bay despite not really playing all that well, especially on offense.

At home against a hated rival, expect them to turn up the jets a bit, then cover late with the offensive line exerting their will. It's a simple strategy, and it will work so long as they are healthy. (What's the opposite of knocking wood?)

Cowboys 38, Redskins 24

Philadelphia at CHICAGO (+3)

Maybe I'm missing something here. The Eagles have looked like one of the five best teams in football. The Bears are starting Kyle Orton. The Eagles put Ben Rothlesberger and Byron Leftwich on their ass eight times last week. The Bears... are starting Kyle Orton. The Eagles have completely shut down Willie Parker and Stephen Jackson, so Matt Forte shouldn't hold too much terror. Chicago... just gave up 400+ yards to Brian Griese at home.

It also doesn't help the home team's chances that Devin Hester is still sidelined. The Eagles' STs are better than they've been, but that doesn't mean (see Jones, Felix) that they can't be had. And, this just in: they are starting Kyle Orton. I like this spread for just the Eagles defense against the Bears offense.

Eagles 24, Bears 10

Baltimore at PITTSBURGH (-7)

The second of two night games where the outcome of the game is highly dependent on the presumed incompetence of one of the starting quarterbacks. Rookie Joe Flacco takes his game manager ways into Pittsburgh in an attempt to keep the surprising Ravens undefeated. I'm not seeing it, even for a Steelers offense that's going to be missing Willie Parker, and is still wondering what the hell happened to that offensive line last week in Philly.

I've got to say, this line is making me highly uncomfortable. Flacco has looked competent and composed, and the Steelers really had the air let out of the balloon last week. But when a home team wins, it usually covers... and it's not like the Ravens have skill players that fill you with fear. (At least, not since Todd Heap became, well, a heap.)

Steelers 21, Ravens 13

Last week: 10-6

Year to date: 29-18

Epic Drop: Top 10 Fun Facts About The Millen Era

Early link tonight, because dammit, when Matt Millen gets canned, you have to move fast.

You know, faster than Mike Williams.

Anyway, take a click, because unless I miss my guess, it's the only wrap-up of the Millen Era that uses the word "scat." (Well, hmm, maybe not...)

Matt Millen Relieved Of Duties?

Jay Glazer, of FOXSports.com, reports Detroit Lions team president and general manager Matt Millen has been removed from his jobs with the team. It is not clear if Millen was fired or removed himself from the equation. The Lions are an NFL-worst 31-84 since Millen took over in 2001.

First Isiah, now Millen. Dammit, don't these people realize that I need easy targets to fill the bloghole?

Best fact about Millen -- not the 7.5 year reign, not the unspeakably awful record, even better than the blown draft picks -- is this.

He ranked second in the NFL among GM pay.

My friends, we will not see his like again. (Oh, and H/T once more to Original Mookie for the heads up.)

Yankee Elimination Day Comes Early

What did you get for YED? I always get the same thing: a simple moment of relief and peace as I realize that the rats with cocaine-like nature of Yankee Fan is being slowly but surely weaned into something more like, well, the rest of MLB fandom. Did you know that there are people who can use a restroom without assistance that have never known a Yankee championship year? That's change we can believe in, America!

Let us not let the corpse get cold. The finger pointing begins with...

> Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy winning fewer games than (many) middle relievers

> Robinson Cano's bad start that turned into a bad everything

> The usual bench woes that aren't defensible at any level for a team with this payroll (Morgan Ensberg! Wilson Betemit! Chad Moeller! The usual clown car parade of replacement starting pitchers!)

> A-Rod's injury in the early season, DP-filled August, and overall failure to walk on water while providing tabloid headlines (clearly, he needed the divorce to be spread out longer, as that was the only time this year that he was really raking)

> Derek Jeter being the most overrated player in MLB this year, and for much of the year, having a bad enough year that even the media noticed

> The Kyle Farnsworth for Ivan Rodriguez trade that wound up hurting both clubs

> Joba Chamberlain looking like an ace, then breaking down (really, the Fork Moment of the season)

But really, the single biggest thing that happened to the Yankees this year was that the doormats of the AL East got good. Tampa Bay might be the best story in baseball this year. Toronto was better. Even the Orioles were plucky for vast portions of the season, with an offense that was more like the Yankees' usual wrecking crew than the Bombers were. Add it up, and you've got a team that was, on some level, lucky to be in contention this long.

Will they be better in 2009? You'd have to think so, given that the new stadium isn't going to fill itself at the prices they're charging for it, and New Yorkers aren't likely to fill the place for years just because it's new. (That's more of a flyover country thing.) The starting 9 is liable to have huge turnover (Giambi, Posada, Cano and Cabrera being the primary targets), and what stays (Jeter, A-Rod, Nady, Damon) isn't getting any better at their ages.

As for the rotation, anyone that thinks the starting rotation has to be better with a more mature Hughes and Kennedy... well, they should realize that they are really not likely to get 19 wins from Mike Mussina again. Chen Ming-Wang should be a solid comeback candidate, but I would submit that a guy who puts a lot of balls in play with what usually is a bad defensive infield behind him really isn't something that you count on to be an ace.

There's also this: Tampa Bay isn't a one-year wonder. The Red Sox may have issues, but they've also got a farm system that gives them better than replacement level players, more often than not. Toronto and Baltimore don't look like utter doormats anymore. The new Stadium could (one would think have to) be less of a home-field advantage than what it's historically been. The new Stein is going to start flexing his muscles soon, and there's no reason to think that Joe Girardi will survive a second year out of the limelight; the resulting instability and opportunity to extend bizarre organizational politics into the manager's office could put them back in the bad old '80s days.

Add it all up, and you have a division where I think the Yanks are more likely to finish last in '09 than first. Which means we'll be celebrating Yankee Elimination Day earlier, which would be just peachy on many levels. Now, if we can only have them infect the Red Sox, too...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Upcoming Sports Movies You Should Probably Miss

A big lovely list today, with high hopes for links and big blog traffic that will, like everything else that I spend time and effort on, sink under the waves with speed. Click and read it anyway, just to prove my bitter, bitter self wrong.

FTT Loves You This Much

Don't miss the dance steps, or the 2.6% Funk Quotient coming from the two rocking keyboardists. Shockingly, some people think these people are a cult! (H/t, Original Mookie)

Jets-Chargers Aftermath

As predicted here, the Chargers blew out the NY Bretts last night on MNF. Here are my takeaways of what we learned from the game.

> The bloom is coming off the Favre rose pretty quickly, really. San Diego had three picks last night (two of them from the Sainted One), and could have had a couple more. The thing about Favre's picks is that they really don't all come from the man trying to force things or going for big plays; he throws picks of every variety, really, which is something you have to do if you are going to throw more of them than any other QB that has ever played.

In the first quarter, with the game in the balance, Thomas Jones comes out in the flat, then turns the pattern upfield. Favre throws five yards behind him, and Antonio Cromartie makes a great break on the ball but can't make the catch. It's an easy pick-six if he brings it in, but it goes in the scorebooks as just an incompletion.

Now, if a rookie QB makes that play, it's part of the learning curve. If Tarvaris Jackson or Rex Grossman makes that play, it's grounds for benching. Brett Favre? It's part of the whole package, baby. One question: why?

Either he doesn't know the playbook -- at which point, um, you can and should take him to task for being unprepared and/or moronic -- or he simply made a glaring physical or mental mistake. Or, and this is really the crux of the biscuit, maybe he's just not very accurate anymore, even in the short game, which is where most of his passing happens now.

The Jones ball wasn't even a pick, but it was just awful on every level. The MNF guys all took the opportunity to polish Cromartie's knob, and he is a pretty great young corner, albeit a big gambler. But what they missed is the biggest reason why, if Brett Favre is the quarterback of a team that you care a lot about, you better have a lot of other good things going on with your team.

> San Diego might still win the West -- eventually, Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall have to stop being Brady to Moss, don't they? -- but I don't see the window of opportunity looking very wide for this team any more.

Without Shawne Merriman, they don't get enough push (even when the game was close and the Jets had abandoned the run) on defense, and the secondary, while good, isn't great -- Jammer is reliable but not a shutdown guy, Cromartie will bite on pump fakes and take bad lines, and the safetys don't do enough.

But the most telling point about the Chargers is the coverage teams. Kickoff and punt coverage is an early indicator of a team's talent pool. If your team is covering these well (without using starters), it means that the back-ups are athletic and have the building blocks in place to be productive players. When they don't cover, it means that the tail end of your roster is being staffed by reaches and draft busts who have the gig because they couldn't find anyone better.

Now, the Jets do have outstanding kick returners. Leon Washington is among the top five in the NFL at it, and they had Jerricho Cotchery bust a big one when Washington was gassed in the fourth. The Chargers also were kicking off all night, thanks to the porous Jets secondary and a good night for QB Phillip Rivers. But the Chargers threw in the towel on it at one point (squib kicks, pooch kicking), and that was with a kicker (Nate Kaeding) who usually is good for putting some distance into his kickoffs.

Since the Chargers have the very dangerous Darren Sproles returning kicks, and Kaeding and Scifres doing good work with their own feet, there are very good individual performers on the Charger special teams. No one is going to think that they will lose because of them. But I'm here to tell you, it ain't necessarily so. I've watched enough Eagle Football under the Reid Era to know... if your coverage teams are costing you yards every game, that eventually comes back to haunt you.

> In the fourth quarter, with the game officially into Pump Your Stats Mode (and who says that real football doesn't care about fantasy?), the Jets went into a spread offense with no RB at all (so much for that canny pick of Thomas Jones on my part in too many leagues) and moved the ball. Given the situation of the game and their need to get Saint Brett up to speed with the offense somehow, this made all the sense in the world, and if the Jet defense had shown up at all, they might have found themselves in a game late.

But in going for two down two scores, the spread went from useful to downright silly. After three consecutive Charger penalties on pass plays, the ball was at the half-yard line. The play call then wasn't a plunge into the line, an inside draw handoff, or even a simple Favre sneak. Instead, it was another pass, this one incomplete. Was head coach Eric Mangini still paying attention, or does he not trust his team -- with a physical offensive line that they spent big bucks on (Alan Faneca, Damien Woody) -- to not get a half yard?

> I don't watch college football, so maybe I'm missing something here. Three games into a pro career is hardly the time to break out the fork.

But, um, Jets fan? If this guy in the Vernon Gholston jersey is a football player, I'm an airplane. And that was after he got his very first professional tackle (yay! in only his third game!) and recovered a fumble. Let's just say that your video montage of draft pain just got a little longer...

> I realize this last point is blasphemy, but if I was a Jets fan last night, I was more scared -- and well, you can add much before that -- when Sproles had the ball in his hands, not Tomlinson.

Maybe LdT is still coming back from injury and rust, and maybe Sproles is never going to be a guy you can give the ball to 20-25 times a game, considering that he's all of three inches taller than me. But he's got a burst that the reputed #1 RB in all of football just doesn't have any more.

Having said that, I'd still give you Thomas Jones for him in trade. Quickly.

Epic Drop: Top 12 Most Regrettable Football Fans

A good long link of goodness here, with much to love. Take a click and enjoy the love, because we just have so much to give, really...

50 at 45

Today in Florida, the Phillies won and took a 1.5 game edge in the division, cutting their magic number to six. Even in the event of a division collapse, they would still be up three games on the Brewers for the wildcard, so it's very likely that they are going to be playing meaningful baseball after next Sunday.

The game was also notable for the 15th (!) win of the season for the 45-year-old Jamie Moyer, who went six effective innings (1 earned run, 7 base runners, 4 whiffs) and lowered his ERA to 3.78. His 1.34 WHIP tells you that he's been doing some of this with (a lack of) smoke and mirrors, but it's Jamie Moyer; you can argue that he's spent his entire career doing it that way.

The win was Moyer's 245th, which doesn't sound like a terribly meaningful milestone, but there's this... with the win, the ageless lefty is now in the top 50 all-time in baseball history. He passed Dennis Martinez to break into that group.

Roll that around in your head a little. Baseball has been played for 120+ years, with tens of thousands of men taking the mound. Moyer, a guy whose talent probably wouldn't get a second look from a scout for anything but a minor league filler job, has won more games than all but 50 of them.

He is, of course, not done yet. Six more has him pass Bob Gibson. Nine puts Jack Morris in the rear-view mirror. Twenty takes out Bob Feller. There are others, of course, but for the most part, you haven't heard of them, because they played baseball before you were born.

And if he feels like pitching until he's 50, and doing it effectively for a team like the Phillies that gives him good run support? He wins 300, breaks into the top 25, and probably makes the Hall of Fame with the most unlikely resume in the institution's history. (If you want to break this into lefties, of course, he's probably in the top 20 of those already.)

And if you really think that he can't do it... well, why? Is he going to start throwing too hard and ruin things?

Five Quick Questions for the Patriots and their fans

> Does Wes Welker still think that Assante Samuel going to the Eagles was just about getting paid, and that by leaving the Patriots, he wasn't interested in playing for championships?

> Is Patriot Fan -- you know, in the theory that any of them still exist -- disappointed in the Dolphins' lack of sportsmanship in running up the score?

> Does your schedule still look easy to you?

> Given the amount of booing and early exits, how soon until you turn on Belichick?

> How quickly did you list your remaining tickets for this season for sale?

Sentiment

So they played the final baseball game ever at Yankee Stadium tonight, between two teams that history will little note, nor long remember. The third place team in the division, the hometown Yanks, beat the fifth place team in the division, the Baltimore Orioles. It was a 7-3 win, with Andy Pettite getting the win and Jose Molina, of all people, getting the final home run in the Stadium's 85 year history. Short of a collapse and comeback for the ages, the Yanks are done for the year.

A person from outside of sports would, of course, wonder what the big deal is. A building is a building is a building, and while Yankee Stadium history is clearly the most jam-packed in terms of having more important moments than any other MLB arena, it's not as if the place itself made it all happen.

And yet, as you see the shots of old men and little kids fighting back tears as they watched the Yankees take a victory lap -- and kudos to the Yankees for not holding to their base nature and making people vacate immediately -- you had to feel for them on some level.

The end of a place where you have memories is a reminder that all life is finite, all moments are fleeting, and that you have to take pleasure with the knowledge that it's all tied into the meaning that you give it.

It's just a building, except that it's not.

It's just a game, except that it isn't.

And baseball, even for the Yankees, always ends in the small heartbreak of autumn, when the leaves begin to fall and the cold begins to creep in, and the weather itself reminds you that everything changes, whether you wish it to or not.

Eagles-Steelers Aftermath

A few quick points from a game that never felt certain, despite an utterly dominant performance by the defensive line...

> Today's game showed you just how valuable Brian Westbrook is. Correll Buckhalter made a pretty great play for the game's only touchdown, and Lorenzo Booker had a few good moments. But without B-Dub, an offense who got the ball back all day was only able to produce 13 points. (Admittedly, McNabb getting banged up didn't help matters either.)

Westbrook had X-rays that showed his ankle wasn't broken, but he was on crutches in the locker room afterward, and will have an MRI tomorrow. I wouldn't expect him on the field next Sunday night in Chicago, which makes a game that shouldn't have been too difficult a little more challenging... but the Bears just got beat by Brian Griese today, so I'm still liking the Eagles' chances.

Long-term, of course, no Westbrook = no Super Bowl chance. And with the NFC East now standing at a cumulative 10-2, with the only losses for the two 2-1 teams coming on the road in the division, there isn't much margin for error.

> The worry before the season started for Pittsburgh was the offensive line, which wasn't good last year, when they still had Alan Faneca. Man alive, were they awful today. On one play in the fourth quarter, the Eagles rushed three in a prevent defense, and two of the three linemen got to Ben Roethlisberger clean.

Now, I've been watching football for thirty years, and I've never seen that play before. Perhaps the Steeler OL was just befuddled by the variety here, or were all looking out for the extra man that had been coming all day, but good grief. The Steelers may still be the best team in the AFC -- the position isn't really as contested as you might think, considering the undefeated teams in the conference are Buffalo, Denver, Baltimore and Tennessee -- but man alive, do they have some work to do on the line.

> Punter Sav Rocca was a problem for the Eagles last year, along with the coverage units and just about every other aspect of the special teams. He's not anymore. Phil Simms went overboard in his praise for him today to the point of easy parody (as you'll see in the Epic Drop), but in a field position game in the second half, he was worth about 40 to 50 yards, and his 64-yard crush job after an ugly three and out drive was just what the doctor ordered.

> Brian Dawkins had the play of the game, really, with a flying punch job that forced a fumble and made me laugh out loud. Dawkins might not be what he once was, and you can take advantage of him, especially in a head-on match-up with an elite tight end (and the NFC East is sadly rife with them).

But no one can take away that he's still a pretty good safety (better than Sean Considine on his best day), and that he shows absolute joy in playing football. You can forgive a lot for that. Especially when you consider that no other safety in football seems as interested in posing like Wolverine, or looking like he was squeezing out a log in celebration...

> As meaningful as the nine sacks that the Eagles had today, don't sleep on the job they also did on the Steeler ground game. Willie Parker had 13 carries for 20 yards today, and if you toss out his long of 8, he got a yard a carry. That's the most encouraging thing from the win, really -- that they can, potentially, be that special as a defense, especially after the Dallas breakdowns.

> Simms talked about the Eagles defensive pressure today as if it were purely a matter of exotic blitzes, but 7.5 of those came from the defensive line. This was Ryan-esque domination from the line, and it won the game in, perhaps, the most primal way possible.

It's not how you usually win games in this century, or in the Reid Era. But that didn't make it any less satisfying.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Things We Learned From The NFL Yesterday

Here's your link, and while I could talk about any number of things, I had to dwell in the land of the Regional Color shot, once again.

Did you know that cheese is made in Wisconsin? I had no clue, really; it had somehow evaded my notice in the hundreds of other video montages that have been prepared and produced over the years. Maybe a few hundred more, wildly similar, video montages over the remaining years of my life might do it.

Hey, broadcast honks that are wasting my time and yours with this nonsense? Show me something new. Cut to an office complex where people are filling cubicles, just so that I know that people in Green Bay have the Internets and electricity and e-mail. Cut to someone at an Appleby's ordering the appetizer sampler -- and wow, it's actually a lot like the ones we have near us! Find a postal worker filling a mail box with junk mail, or a nest of pudgy white kids fast-twitching their way through the tricks stage on the latest Tony Hawk game on their Wii.

Because, well, I've been to Green Bay. It's a small town, like a college town, really, and it has a lot more of the mundane than the cheese-producing. No one who has watched your telecasts over the years know this. And so long as you're introducing civics lessons in the middle of my damn football game, let's go whole hog. I want to know testing scores for the schools, the local crime rate, and what the housing market is like. Maybe we all should move there.

Somewhere, honestly, there is a broadcast mogul to be, maybe in high school or college, who is preparing for a career that will redefine televised sports. This person will, I am utterly certain, show just the game, and come to the realization that serving the base, hard-core consumer with just product, analysis, extensive replays of more than just the ball... will make us happy.

And that happy viewers are better than the people who wonder, game after game after game, why we need to see that Wisconsin makes cheese. (This just in... in Seattle, they throw fish!)

NCAA Winning Picks Week 4

It's been a tough season for my picks so far. We are struggling at 6-8. Time to turn things around. And how do you change your mojo? That's right, a road trip! So all picks this week will be on road teams. Let's make this exciting.

Vanderbilt +7 @ Ole Miss. Vandy is not only undefeated this season, but is 3-0 ATS. And they have proven the past few years to be great road dogs ATS. So we'll take the 7 points, thank you very much.

LSU -2.5 @ Auburn. Always a fantastic game. Auburn's D is fantastic but their offense just can't put points on the board. So I like LSU on the road here.

Miami -3 @ Texas A&M. Another game where I don't necessarily think the favorite is that good, I just think A&M is that bad. Tough to play at Kyle Field, but I think the Canes will over match the Aggies.

Georgia -7 @ Arizona St. Georgia has turned into this years "We don't get enough respect" team. They are looking to light it up after their tough roadie last week. Arizona St. - verdict is still out on whether they are a contender or a pretender. Let me save you the analysis - pretender.

LOCK OF THE WEEK
Virginia Tech +3 @ UNC. I can't believe I'm betting on the Hokies again and as my lock of the week. But I like them here as a touchdown favorite. But giving them 3 points is too good to pass up. Lay two units on this game.

Hard Times

It's Friday Tangent Time. Y'all have been warned.

A train ride on regional rail is mostly dull. People get into their newspaper, their handheld, their laptop and 95% of us don't talk, especially if it's an early hour or a car that isn't cramped and jammed. If it's late and/or packed, you might get some grousing or jerk moves, but it's just a grind commute; it doesn't need a lot of chatter. It's actually kind of nice, in that you can, as I do, get some work or reading done.

The last 5% will teach you something, as anything will, if you give it a chance. (Mostly just patience, but hey, take the teaching and move on.)

What has happened on my train in the last week has been a lot of guys drinking from brown bags. Well dressed guys, who don't seem entirely comfortable with drinking in public like this. Drinking because, well, they are scared senseless by what's been going on in the economy, specifically the markets and how it relates to their continued employment, and need something to take the edge off. (And yes, it's been far from a random occurrence. So far this week, I've seen a half dozen people in this boat. It's A Movement.)

This is, of course, as unsettling as you want to make it, but on the off chance that you are somehow reading this blog and thinking that life is more or less peachy, that no change is needed, and that times are not bad... um, not so much.

Hard times, are, of course, relative. The people who are downing brew or stronger at 6pm on a weekday as they wonder who in the office will be shown the door tomorrow -- assuming, on some level, that it wasn't and/or won't be them -- don't appear to be starving, or deprived of electricity, or at any real danger of being sold into slavery. By the standards of, oh, 90%+ of the world's population, they're doing swell.

But that doesn't mean that today, and this week, is a hell of a lot more worrisome than last, or the month before that, or that they've got any real hope that the holidays this year will be one to remember fondly. Or that retirement and all of the other things that people hope, plan and work for haven't just entered Commode Land.

In times like this, you can put your blinders on, focus on the work that's at hand, and try to ignore the feeling that you're being led to the killing flood. Or you can drink on trains and become paralyzed by the process and the fear. Neither choice is all that encouraging, really.

Or you can do what I do, and think too much about how to fill the bloghole, whether your NFL picks are sound, and who you should play in your fantasy football leagues. Ah, sweet sweet distraction, my own personal 40 ounce body bag...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Sports Arguments You Really Should Not Make

Here's your link, and yes, the inspiration is from a comment that I'm not going to get into here.

I'm also, of course, convinced that someone is going to take this the wrong way and assume I'm a horrible person, because, well, people don't read things for subtle points, especially here in Blogfrica. It's all good, though, since I haven't insulted Vince Young in, like, hours...

Angry Unpaid Hooker

Made by the guy who did the Budweiser "Lizard" spots, and about six minutes of deadpan goodness. Play it before vacuuming.

Week Three NFL Picks: There Are Only 236 Games Left

Were you aware that over 10% of your yearly ration of NFL games for the season have already been played? Personally, I'm outraged by this on many levels, most of them manifesting as self-hatred. Why, I've missed whole series of games -- and I call myself a blogger. It's disgraceful. I can already feel February's cold chill on me, when the only thing I'll have to comfort myself with is a non-Bush presidency, the NBA, MLB spring training, college hoops, hockey and maybe a vacation. Damn you, NFL! In just about five months, I'm going to be mildly inconvenienced!

Anyway... last week was a back and forth affair, as good moments like Indy on the road, Carolina and New England in pick'em wins and the Pack covering a big number in Detroit were negated by the Raiders, Giants, Skins and Bills all being better than I thought. We still paid the bills at 8-7, but only just. So, on to the picks!

Kansas City at ATLANTA (-3.5)

A game that will make you long for February, really. The Chiefs are coming off a de-pantsing by the previously DOA Raiders at home, while the Falcons stayed with the Bucs for a long time despite Matt Ryan suffering big-time growing pains. Neither team should be trusted to find their ass with both hands and a map, but Atlanta's at home, with the better RB (Michael Turner, not Larry "Runs, And Bitches, Like Your Grandmama" Johnson), QB (Ryan over practice squadder and Coastal Carolina's own Tyler Thigpen), WR (Roddy White over Dwayne Bowe, in the battle of the only guys on the field that are fairly certain to be in the league in 5 years) and home crowd.

If you're betting this game, you also probably are a regular at the dog track... and I'm there with you. Avoid the nachos.

Falcons 20, Chiefs 16

Oakland at BUFFALO (-8.5)

Everyone's darling in the AFC East gets a big home number and, one imagines, an inordinate amount of Suicide Pool action. They are coming off a show-us win on the road in Jacksonville, and come home to a Raider team that seems to be trying to get head coach Lane Kiffin fired by taking football back to the Bronko Nagurski age -- seriously, Jemarcus Russell threw for less yards than his wideout's jersey numbers last week, and it's not like Kansas City has shutdown corners. I think he gets a little more this week, in that it would be impossible to get a little less, and it's hard to give up this many points to a team that's facing a potentially dominating RB in Darren McFadden.

It won't be pretty, but it will be a cover, especially if Buffalo QB Trent Edwards gets greedy on the Raiders' (overall) good corners.

Bills 21, Raiders 14

Tampa Bay at CHICAGO (-5)

Am I going with back to back road dogs? Hell and yes. The Bears are coming off a late-game road collapse against a frisky Panthers team, while the Bucs let the Falcons stick around for far too long last week before putting them away with Earnest Graham's first good run of the day. Against the vaunted Bucs Cover Two, I don't see Kyle Orton playing mistake-free football, and I also don't see Matt Forte being able to keep the sticks moving enough to matter. The schedule also helps the Bucs here, as cold-weather games in Chicago were really not their cup of tea in the old alignment.

Finally, there's this -- it's Brian Griese's Revenge Game! You're not going to stop Brian Griese in a revenge game!

So give me the Bucs in a mild shocker -- not just a cover, but a win -- that really won't be that much of a shock, given that the Bears start Kyle Orton. (Also, to be fair, because if Vince Young had Orton's options at wideout, he'd be dead already. I am so mean and racist!)

Bucs 17, Bears 13

Carolina at MINNESOTA (pick em)

The home team is going -- by choice! -- to Gus Frerotte, which helps to explain the lack of home-field favoritism, despite the really good home field advantage that the Vikings have in their dome. The Panthers are coming off a bit of a gift win against the Bears, and while they were able to run the ball with good success with Jon "Moment of Zen" Stewart in the second half, I don't see them having the same patience or effectiveness in a loud dome. If Matt Forte can go for big yards against Carolina, Adrian Peterson can go for two times big yards... and probably will, since Frerotte will resemble, at times, an NFL quarterback. Plus, with his experience, he only makes 6 bonehead throws a game, which is a distinct edge over Tarvaris Jackson's even dozen.

There's also this: the Vikings need this game a lot more than the Panthers, and will play like it... despite the return of Steve Smith. Hey, after the Panthers lose this game, can everyone start telling the Steve Smith Is A Team Cancer story? That's always fun.

Vikings 17, Panthers 10

Miami at NEW ENGLAND (-11)

If Matt Cassel is ever going to put up numbers for his increasingly bitter fantasy owners (and yes, the owners of Randy Moss are thinking about a class-action suit), it would have to be this week against the moribund Fish, who allowed Kurt Warner to achieve a perfect quarterback rating in last week's immolation in the desert. Miami hasn't been able to run the ball worth a damn, and the Patriots know all about how jumping Chad Pennington's routes. To all the people who bought my pre-season hype on Ted Ginn Jr., I am very, very sorry... and happy as punch that he never found his way to any of my rosters.

I'm looking for the Patriots in a blowout that will make stupid people start to wonder if they'll be better without Brady after all. The answer is, um, no.

Patriots 34, Dolphins 17

Cincinnati at NEW YORK GIANTS (-10)

The other big number that I'm willing to lay this week is the Giants, just to ensure that they struggle. Big Blue used some late game Marc Bulger pathos to cover the spread in St. Louis, while the Bengals continued to swap the e for a u in their name against the Titans. All of the wheels are off the Carson Palmer bus, and the defense seems to be the same old fluffy soft tabbies you've known and started all of your fantasy league players against. Thanks to the Rams, Cincy isn't the worst team in the league, but man, they are awful, and you'd have to think that Marvin Lewis is wondering how to get out of his housing investment in a down economy.

Big Blue has shown a quiet ability to ground bad teams into putty with their triple-headed running game and reasonable mid-range passing game, and the pass rush still has more than enough push to make a bad team worse. I don't think they are all that good, but the Bengals sure aren't the team to exploit them, at least not at this point in the year.

Giants 27, Bengals 16

Houston at TENNESSEE (-5)

The Texans, fresh off a hurricane-inflicted early season bye, come to the surprising 2-0 Titans, who rode the competent game manager hand of Kerry Collins (hey, he knows how to throw to the wide receivers! that's useful!) to a by-the-numbers win over the Bungles. I kind of like this Texans team, or at least I did until they became de facto homeless. With a bye and something to prove, I think they cover, but don't win; the Titans just run and defend too well for that, and the Steve Slaton Breakout Game (Be patient! It's coming!) isn't happening yet. But it'll be tight.

Collins, by the way, is the rich-man's Gus Frerotte, in that when he hurts himself against a wall, he's probably drunk at the time.

Titans 20, Texans 17

Arizona at WASHINGTON (-1)

Let's try this again... hotshot NFC passing team comes to the nation's capital to play a 'Skins squad that shouldn't be very good, given their wideouts and coaching changes. Last week, it was New Orleans (albeit without Marques Colston, which might make a world of difference). This week, it's the Cardinals, fresh off a romp over the fetid Fish. I'm giving the edge to the Cards, because I actually do believe in their defense a little, and dammit, someone has to not be very good in the NFC East.

Oh, and if you're looking for fantasy league advice on whether to start Kurt Warner in this game, just check my lineups before gameday; if I have him in, you get him out, and vice versa.

Cardinals 24, Redskins 17

Detroit at SAN FRANCISCO (-2)

Original Mookie, a longtime FTT contributor who lives in the Bay Area, tells me that the locals are far too enthused about JT O'Sullivan, who has been collecting nicknames (JTO, JT Throw, Jay-T) like he's, you know, a real quarterback. Bringing your team back on the road in Seattle after you've hit the ground eight times, and preventing the locals from having to watch more of Alex Smith, is nice. But keeping your QB from taking eight sacks is, well, better.

This is the game that Frank Gore fans have been salivating over, but it's also a bit of a danger game, in that the Lions probably won't be playing from two touchdowns down for most of the game, as is their usual wont. I'm even tempted to pull the trigger for the road dogs here. But any time your team is auditioning Shawn Alexander and Cedric Benson as back-ups during the week, that reminds me... hey! Matt Millen isn't very smart! Stay away from him and his utterly, utterly awful football team!

Niners 24, Lions 21

St. Louis at SEATTLE (-6)

The Rams have looked like the worst team in the NFL for two straight weeks, while the Seahawks are going through whatever walks the streets and plays wideout. Missed in last week's collapse against the JTOs (see, that nickname has legs) was Julius Jones going for 100 yards and giving fantasy league owners a hope in hell that the Seattle running back committee had a chairman. This week, he'll find the going nice and easy against a Rams team that looks like it's trying to get head coach Scott Linehan fired before the leaves fall, and your over-under on the next Marc Bulger injury is two weeks. Take the under.

Oh, and if you were fooled into taking Stephen Jackson in this year's draft, you can stop paying attention to your fantasy league team any time now, really.

Seattle 27, St. Louis 17

New Orleans at DENVER (-5.5)

The week's best candidate for the over -- any over -- comes in the high air of Denver, where the hometown Broncos are still living in the afterglow of Ballsy Mike Shanahan and his Ballsy Two Point Conversion Win. Left unsaid in the celebration of the Rat's Balls is the fact that he probably went that way out of a sincere desire to not see his defense take the field again for another seven days, win or lose, but 2-0 is 2-0. For the Saints, they lost the chance to make a statement that the 2006 Good Times were back in a stumbling road loss to the Redskins. Now, they have to contend with the thin air and continued lack of Marques Colston, while Jeremy Shockey's owners are officially bent out of shape. The real culprit for the Saints, of course, is the running game, where Pierre Thomas has clearly taken over for Deuce McAllister but without the old production, and Reggie Bush is well on his way to becoming the most overrated player in the NFL.

Despite all that, I like the Saints to at least cover here, as it's tough to give up this many points in a game that should be Last Ball Wins, and I'm not quite buying the idea that Jay Cutler is going to rewrite the record books *just* yet.

Broncos 38, Saints 35

Pittsburgh at PHILADELPHIA (pick em)

No respect for the home town team, who have a make or break game this week against the visiting Steelers in a match that deserves Prime Time a lot more than the Jets and Chargers. Pittsburgh comes off a workmanlike road win in post-hurricane conditions in Cleveland, while we all remember what the Eagles were doing in last Monday's game for the ages in Dallas. I like the Birds here for the following factors:

1) Ben Rothlesberger got a little banged up last week, and I suspect he's not 100%.

2) Pittsburgh's offensive line isn't the backbone of the team, which means that TE Heath Miller stays in to block a lot. As Jason Witten showed in the second half in Dallas, the way to roast the Eagles secondary is to throw to a quality TE on deep middle passes, and watch him torture the new fraud that's in Brian Dawkins' jersey, or the old fraud that wears the Sean Considine gamer.

3) DeSean Jackson's end zone antics notwithstanding, the presence of the new #1 WR on the team means more holes for Brian Westbrook, and I think this is the week that Andy Reid takes advantage of that.

4) Donovan McNabb is, inexplicable fumble notwithstanding, playing at too high of a level right now to lose at home.

5) The Eagles simply need the game more than the Steelers, who know, on some level, that their division is going to be a walk in the park this year.

6) The AFC isn't better than the NFC anymore.

7) Mike Tomlin in a big game is still suspect.

8) I think the Eagles defense and special teams are better than the MNF game, and that they come out and show it.

As you might be able to tell by all the reasons, I'm still nervous as hell about this game, and not just because a loss will put them at least two games behind either the Cowboys, the Giants, or both. From the moment the schedules were released, this was the keystone game for the Eagles' season, especially with the short week of work. Here's hoping they are up to the task.

Eagles 27, Steelers 24

Jacksonville at INDIANAPOLIS (-3.5)

This line was released prior to the Bob Sanders injury news, but as good as he is, I suspect it won't move things too much in either direction. Jacksonville comes in 0-2 and desperate, while the Colts are .500 thanks only to the Houdini act they pulled last week in Minnesota. I like Indy in this game because they are at home, Peyton Manning looks to be getting the rust off, and the Jags are still hurting bad on the front line.

Besides, if you can't keep Trent Edwards, Lee Evans and Fred Jackson from beating you at home, why should you be able to beat Manning, Reggie Wayne and Joseph Addai on the road?

Colts 27, Jags 17

Cleveland (-1) at BALTIMORE

The hurricane-induced bye will kill the Ravens later this year, but this week it helps them a lot as they prepare for an 0-2 Browns team that has coughed up both games at home, albeit to quality opponents. The problem for the Browns is that what was supposed to be an explosive offense has been terrible, and their defense isn't exactly giving them short fields, either. For the Ravens, expect the defense to come out loud and proud in this one, and for the home team to win a field position battle in which Joe Flacco looks better than Derek Anderson, simply because he won't be playing with one eye over his shoulder.

Brady Quinn needs to be prepared to come into this game, and to hope like hell that he doesn't; it'll be much easier to keep the job with a week of practice and a win next week in Cincy.

Ravens 16, Browns 14

Dallas at GREEN BAY (pick em)

Surprising line on this one, where you'd think that Cowboy Luv and continuing skepticism over Aaron Rodgers might make the road team a field goal favorite, but maybe the bookies are thinking that everyone will play off that MNF and travel disadvantage. I like the home team here, because I think they have the ability to cover Jason Witten better than the Eagles did, and because I think Dallas will come into the game gassed from the MNF shootout.

Besides, as everyone is slowly starting to realize, the Packers have outstanding lineplay and skill people... and when you have that, the name on the back of the quarterback's jersey is not going to be the only thing that matters.

Packers 31, Dallas 28

New York Jets at SAN DIEGO (-6.5)

Watch this one with the sound off, unless you really, really want to hear Tony Kornheiser examine every minute detail of Brett Favre's New York Odyssey. The Chargers could not ask for a better get-well opponent, and after last week's Hochulicide in Denver, I'm betting that they come out hard and heavy against a Jets team that seems to have missed its opportunity. It's also not as if they don't have experience in coming back from early season holes in the Norv Turner Era. I'm looking for at least two turnovers from Number Four, and an easy Charger cover -- even if they don't get full participation from LaDanian Tomlinson -- with a special assist coming from the kicking game.

Finally, just to get you in the mood for the MNF telecast, here's a quick preview...

FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE
FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE
FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE
FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE FAVRE

Chargers 30, Jets 17

Last week: 8-7

Year to date: 19-12

Epic Drop: Top 10 Next Moves For Josh Howard

This link is much more understandable after you view this YouTube clip.



And now that you know... enjoy the link that's equal parts slamming an idiot in Josh Howard, and the other half slamming the state that he lives in and the times that we endure, in that the Union is clearly threatened by a nonsensical moment from a nonsensical player. (Oh, and bonus points to Mark Cuban, who thinks this whole problem can be blamed on... you guessed it, cell phone cameras and YouTube. Cube's brain isn't what it used to be, folks.)

May We All Find Opportunities In Life To Be So Abundant

Gus Frerotte to take over the starting QB job from Tarvaris Jackson.

What, exactly, does Gus Frerotte have to do to not be in the NFL, let alone have a starting job? We're talking about a guy who is 37 years old, who has never (ever) been good, and who once knocked himself out of a game on national television by head-butting a wall. Eight (nine, if you count the Vikings twice, and you should) teams have decided to pay him; a similar number of teams have decided life would be better without him.

I mean, I get that Jackson is horrible, and that the 0-2 Vikings have to do something before Brad Childress is fired and they trade high picks to the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS for Brett Favre when he retires after his first New York booing. But for heaven's sake... Daunte Culpepper had to take his ball and stay home. Doug Flutie is still more mobile than Frerotte. Brad Johnson is holding a clipboard in Dallas. I'm certain that there is a McNown or Detmer looking for work.

And you're giving the keys to Gus The Wonder Mule?

Really?

Fork Time for the Colts?

News out of Indy... do-everything and sole preventer of awful run defense safety Bob Sanders is out 4 to 6 weeks with the dreaded high ankle sprain.

(Why does no one ever get a low ankle sprain? I had no idea ankles covered so much territory.)

The next four to six weeks for the Colts...

Sun 9/21 - Jacksonville - 4:15 pm
Bye
Sun 10/5 - at Houston - 1:00 pm
Sun 10/12 - Baltimore - 1:00 pm
Sun 10/19 - at Green Bay - 4:15 pm
Mon 10/27 - at Tennessee - 8:30 pm

The bye helps, as does having the reeling and wounded Jags at home... but yikes, this division is suddenly looking terrible. Kerry Collins could make some serious hay, folks. (And can the Packers get any more breaks?)

The Obligatory DeSean Jackson Post

Nothing quite shows the difference that you get from rooting for / rooting against the laundry than the infamous DeSean Jackson touchdown turndown on MNF.

In the event that you've been in a cave, the talented Eagles rookie wideout cemented his place in the Leon Lett / Cementhead of the Millenium Pantheon with a nonchalance towards the end zone in this week's MNF game. Luckily for the Eagles, the move befuddled both the Cowboys and the referees, who blew the whistle on a live ball and/or failed to pick it up. On the next play, Brian Westbrook cleaned up the garbage with a 1-yard plunge, and on some level, it's No Blood, No Foul.

On another, of course, Jackson can spend the rest of his life having a Jerry Rice-level career, and it won't matter -- he'll still be That Hotdog Idiot.

Now, Philly Fan has been so starved for a wideout of quality -- remember, we went to multiple NFC championships with James Thrash and Todd Pinkston -- that they haven't pilloried the guy. He also ran backwards for a disturbingly long time on some punts against the Rams, and had a few moments of the dropsies despite the 100-yard-plus day in Dallas. We're not expecting an incredibly heady player here.

But what Jackson also has -- and what you can not, no matter how solid the citizen, teach -- is an ability to play the game in the slight future. You watch his body control around the sidelines or in the air, or his startling calmness in the moment before action, and you can tell he's just got It.

Now, whether he can stay healthy is an open question, or whether some CB or S is going to take him out of the game with some Al Harris-esque mugging... all fair questions. NFL history is littered with guys who started hot and then didn't keep it going for whatever reason. For all we know, Jackson's immaturity on the field might be matched off of it, and we'll be reading about him in police reports.

But until the stupidity actually hurts the on-field results (and to date, it hasn't, though you have to hope that Reid and Company are going to have more success reining him in for the rest of the year), Eagle Fan is going to try to just forget That Play ever happened.

The rest of the world, not so much.

Chokedown 2008: The Sequel

If you loved the 2007 baseball season -- and frankly, Phillies Fan adored it, at least the regular season part -- you're also loving 2008. The Phillies pulled off yet another gut-check win tonight in Atlanta, recovering from a 7-4 seventh inning deficit and then surviving a shaky from Brad Lidge for an 8-7 win.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Mets were discovering, yet again, how hard it is to play baseball with both hands around your neck. Nine scoreless innings later against one of the worst teams in MLB, the Mets relinquished first place in the division, and only the free-falling Brewers are keeping them in the wild-card.

With a dozen games left to go, the schedule seems to break well for the Mets, who get the Nationals and Braves, while the Phils have the Braves, then the Marlins, their personal torture device. The Brewers are on the road in Chicago and then Cincinnati. But right now, they aren't playing the schedule; they are playing themselves... and losing, Meanwhile, the Phillies play to packed houses every night, have a couple of surging aces in Myers and Hamels, and an offense that frequently gets off the mat from big deficits.

I'm not a Phillies or a Mets Fan, per se; I'm a blogger that likes lay-up stories like this to help fill the word hole. And for that, I'd like to thank all three teams for making things easy on me, especially in a year where my A's sold the season for Matt Murton, and Red Sox Fan is looking like they are in line for way too much happiness (again). Moving on...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Questions for Tony Kornheiser

The casual reader -- not that we have any casual readers; I know that all of you recite these words in weekly prayer group meetings -- will detect a faint touch of hostility towards Mr. Kornheiser in today's link. You might have to read it a little closely, but on further review, I'm pretty sure it's there.

Now, as a fan of the Eagles, Sixers and A's, I like to think that I can endure a fair amount of annoyance. I'm also the father to two little girls, and while my patience with them is not infinite, it does exist, and there's more of it than there used to be. A lot more.

So why, exactly, does this chancre sore still rankle, 19 hours after the Cowboys edged the Eagles?

I'm really not that upset by the loss; it was disappointing, perhaps, but not world-ending. I have no great goat for the Eagles, other than a continuing worry that the game has passed Brian Dawkins by, and that the game was never even in the same area code as Sean Considine. But that's for another day and post. Right here and now, we're going to continue to examine the toothache that is Kornheiser, and to a lesser but not very much lesser extent, all NFL telecasts.

When I lived in Northern California, I had some nice neighbors who had been on the block for coming up on two decades. We watched their dog and swam in their pool, and they were terrific people. Like nearly everyone else in the Bay Area, they were originally from somewhere else -- in this case, Wisconsin. They were also diehard Packer fans, and used to have season tickets at Lambeau.

You can imagine my surprise when I heard that they were looking to move to... Southern California. Because the Bay Area winters (in which the weather rarely drops below, say, 45, and it never slows at low elevation, and you can enjoy nearly perfect weather for up to 10 months of the year) had gotten too cold for them, Lambeau Past Be Damned.

The point is that with age does not come a thicker skin, or at least, not always. It also comes with the wisdom to realize that you don't have to put up with something you don't like.

Now, I don't know a single person who is really enthused about a set of NFL announcers. Do you? Is there anyone out there who you're really excited to hear call a game, or is it just a matter of which particular moron you get to avoid? Yay, it's the Fox #1 team -- no Tony Siragusa! Yay, it's the Fox #2 team -- no Troy Aikman! Etc. (SNF/MNF, of course, offers no escape, unless you consider double-header telecasts and the Mike and Mike and Mike gigglefest a relief.)

So your options are to figure out a way to simulcast the radio feed (which is looking more and more appetizing, if a little bit Pravda-esque), or pipe in the good Westwood One radio telecasts of Harry Kalas and Marv Albert... and, um, why?

Seriously, NFL, why?

You can telecast the game into Spanish. How about giving us an actual football option -- not some half-assed hybrid of Sports Entertainment, but an actual, focused, not dumbed down for the laypeople feed. I don't care who delivers it. I might even pay extra. I'm begging.

Because the simple fact of the matter is that three-plus hours is an eternity of time to spend with people who you would not piss on if they were on fire. And a league that makes its fans endure that routinely... runs the risk of fans realizing that they have other options. Many, in fact.

Projection Time!

Were you aware... that Jay Cutler is on a pace to throw 48 touchdowns against only 8 interceptions, and to win 8 games on last-minute two-point conversions?

That Brett Favre projects to an 8-8 mark and 45K Jets fans self-monitoring themselves like the parents of a bedwetting 12-year-old, lest they lose their temper and make him quit (and do awful, awful things to the living room set)?

How Tony Romo is due to fix four flat tires after home wins while sporting a similar number of utterly adorable cuts to his chin (they really bring out his dimples!), all while creating 28 points of offense for the opposition from fumbling in his own end zone in an undefeated season?

Yes, I could go on. And might, if I keep seeing remarkably stupid (even for sportswriting) breathless columns from people who, I can only assume, are trying to inflate Jay Cutler and Brandon Marshall's fantasy trade value. (Um, look, guys? Just keep him and enjoy. Enough.)

Projections are for sales managers. Or marketing honks who are trying to get budget. *Maybe* they come into play, I don't know, around Week 9.

September, as much fun as it is? Not so much. Why not just, I don't know, watch and enjoy the games that are happening, or try to work out keys to next week's game, rather than continue to live in an Excel spreadsheet. From one nerd to another... step away from the computer and try to come up with something (anything) that's more original.

Like, I don't know, a Favre joke or something.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled wanking, which is already in progress.

Post-game reaction (Eagles-Cowboys on MNF, Week 2)

The thing about this game is that there's no reason to expect a win. It's a house money game. You're on the road, early in the season, against one of the best teams in football. Dallas has front line talent that isn't very deep; they are going to be good early. All of this is why I picked the Cowboys to win and cover, and they wound up doing both.

Having said that, you hate -- hate! -- to leave money on the table. Even house money.

> Three times in the first half, the Eagles were deep and settled for field goals. And yet, they still had 30 points in the first half. When has that ever happened?

> As much as Terrell Owens is the perpetual splinter under the fingernail, he disappeared for most of the second half (thanks to Lito Sheppard), and only had three catches.

Unfortunately, one was a massive bomb, and another was an easy touchdown. In terms of taking away their main weapon, no, not so much.

> It's fun to have Donovan McNabb frisky again. It's also fun to have an actual game-breaking weapon in DeSean Jackson, who became the first rookie in 65 years (!) to start his career with two 100-yard games.

Now, if we can just convince Don that it's OK to throw the ball away rather than take a sack -- as in the last drive -- and for DJ to actually carry the ball over the goal line on his touchdowns, life will be much better. (No one, of course, will ever remember that Brian Westbrook cleaned up that Leon Lett-ish play a moment later. DJ, there are better ways to make a splash on national television.)

> I've never seen a defense commit as many face mask penalties as the Cowboys did tonight -- they had three or four 15-yarders, all of them major, and a couple that weren't called. Is everyone going for the horse collar now?

> Felix Jones is a problem, and for a long while tonight, he was the better back than Marion Barber against the Eagles defense. There's something to be said for getting off the field without long drives, even if those short drives are crushing long plays for touchdowns...

> Speaking of Jones, the kickoff return actually gave me a little bit of hope, in that (believe it or not) you lose more often than you win when you run a kickoff back for a touchdown. Time of possession is that big of a deal, folks.

> Is there any doubt that, at this stage in the season, the NFC has achieved parity with the AFC? The Eagles and Cowboys look to be two of the five best teams in football. The Giants are the undefeated Super Bowl champion. The Packers look better without Favre. The Panthers are intriguing. Heck, even the Cardinals seem dangerous. Meanwhile in the AFC, none of the undefeated teams looks all that intimidating, and the top teams coming into the season are all diminished by injury (with the possible exception of Pittsburgh).

> Getting back to the Eagles... I think they win this game if McNabb doesn't pump-fake Westbrook on the inside handoff. When that play happens, there is nine minutes left in the game, they've got the ball in field goal position, and they are up 3 on a night when the Cowboys only forced three punts. Even a field goal makes it six there, and the final drive has a lot less desperation, since the Birds would only need 3, not 7.

But... but... but... that's why you have to keep reminding yourself -- playing with house money. Playing with house money. Now, I'm off to go find a dog to kick. Hard.

A Brief Word to Tony Kornheiser, Who I Hate More Than Words Can Express

If you're looking for a nice and calm reaction to the Eagles-Cowboys MNF game -- one for the ages, really -- well, I'm kind of spent right now, so you aren't getting one.

But words, honestly, can not describe my hatred for Tony Kornheiser. You've got one of the best games in recent NFL history going on in front of you, but Cornhole had to talk about...

> Terrell Owens' history with Donovan McNabb

> The financial worth of the Cowboys franchise

> The year-old Andy Reid's kids story

> Jessica Simpson

> Fourteen other things that had nothing to do with the game that I can't remember, because my head is still bleeding

OK, I've said this before. I didn't want to say it again. I suspect you don't want to read it again. But here goes.

CAN YOU, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO YOUR CRAPTACULAR SPORTS PUNDIT SHOW DURING THE FREAKING WEEK AND TALK ABOUT THE GAME THAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU?

AND IF THE ANSWER IS NO, CAN YOU STAY THE HELL HOME AND NEVER, EVER DARKEN MY TELEVISION AGAIN?

Epic Drop: Top 10 Philly Sports Villains

In honor of tonight's tilt against the most hated team in the NFC -- and no, it's really not even close -- I'm getting provincial and giving you the 10 that Philly Fan especially loves to hate. Or, well, at least this guy...

Countdown To Armageddon

Today in Milwaukee on a neutral field, Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter at the Astros (and hasn't Houston Fan had a fun enough weekend?).

Considering that Big Z was last seen talking about a serious medical problem, giving Cub Fan their latest case of fatalism... this has led most to think that the Cubs are the favorite to represent the NL in the World Series. (And yes, they should be. The other teams in the NL playoffs will likely be the Mets, Phillies and Dodgers, which is to say, three incredibly flawed teams that don't match up at all well with the Cubs.)

Now, I'm pretty sure that Cub Fan isn't going to be overconfident at this point. A century of loss, most of them not even close, has a certain effect on people. But if Zambrano and Rich Harden can stay healthy -- admittedly, not a sure bet, but given how they've managed Harden's work load, not impossible -- it's hard to see how they lose a series.

Once they get to the Series, they'll most likely face the Red Sox, just because God enjoys tormenting the wicked and righteous alike, because It's Funny.

Because Boston Fan is now enjoying Big Karmic Retribution (see Bowl, Super, and Brady, Tom), the Cubs will win.

And when that happens, the National League will finally have a miserable road team Nation to match what the AL's non-Sawx/Yankee franchises have been enduring for lo these many years.

Enjoy!

The Raiders Need An Intervention

I'm going to try to speak delicately here, because Lord knows there just isn't enough of that in Blogfrica, and after taking some shots at Vince Young last week, I'm still a little gunshy. (Did you know that criticizing VY meant you were a racist? I didn't either. The dear fellow will be safe from me for the rest of his life, especially as it looks like that might not be long or involve a lot of football. Anyway, moving on...)

Word out of Oakland is that despite today's physical thumping of the I-AA Chiefs, Raiders head coach Lane Kiffin might be looking for work in the morning.

Given that the team now resembles an NFL football team at times, and has a genuinely exciting rookie in running back Darren McFadden (164 yards today), you might think this, um, makes not a whit of sense.

You would also not have been paying attention to most of the last decade of Raider Football.

Al Davis runs this franchise, as he has for damn nearly its entire existence. He will also be 80 years old on July 4 of next year. Now, I can respect the desire of a man to spend his golden years trying to make everyone around him long for death's sweet embrace first; it's a perverse kind of game, but you have to respect it.

However, it might be nice if it were backed up with any kind, of, you know, plan.

The Raiders have spent most of the decade trying to win with quarterbacks that look like they are big enough to withstand any pass rush, and throw the ball through a car wash without it getting wet. (This would describe Andrew Walter and Jemarcus Russell.)

When that hasn't worked, since most of these guys have been unable to evade any kind of pass rush, they've gone for scamper types like Josh McNown or Marques Tuiasosopo... rather than have, say, a Rich Gannon type that might be able to, you know, complete the ball accurately and resemble something that another team might hire.

They've bought and overbought on speed wideouts that can't actually play. James Jett was the prototype, and he's been duplicated with Drew Carter and Javon Walker. Needless to say, no one is making anyone forget Tim Brown. Or even the later years of Jerry Rice.

Since losing the Super Bowl to prodigal son Jon Gruden, the Raiders have gone 18-62 (!). This, despite having the draft picks that the Bucs gave up to get Gruden, not to mention the high picks the Raiders earned on their own with their spectacular craptitude.

And rather than give Kiffin the keys to the car, they are going to decide to turn back the clock and try the same old thing with Al.

Now, honestly, Raider folks... we have the technology to make this all much better. Just confine Al to a few places -- you know, for his safety, since those NFL bastards are clearly trying to have him killed -- where you can manage the screens he watches. Let "The Truman Show" be your guide, and have him spend his last few years thinking the Raiders are still an NFL franchise.

Meanwhile, you can actually pick players that resemble guys who can succeed in the NFL, and the NFL can have 32 teams that operate in reality. Everybody wins!

Epic Drop: Top 10 NFL Team Fans That Aren't Real Happy Right Now

Your link is here, and I'd recommend a click, in that it's a pretty lengthy piece.

Plus, let's face it, you can't see this guy enough, can you?

The Economy of the Big Ten Network

So today I watched the Iowa-Iowa State game, broadcast nationwide on the Big Ten(+1) Network. I couldn't help but notice a pattern to the commercials:

(1) At least a half-dozen ads for the University of Iowa. None for Iowa State.

(2) At least four ads for the Big Ten itself.

(3) At least four PSAs from the Ad Council promoting a web site to tell parents how to use the V-chip in their televisions.

(4) At least four repeats of a fairly long ad for a mail-order over-the-door chin-up bar.

This high a proportion of house ads, during what SHOULD be the network's top programming slot--noon to 3PM on a football Saturday--is I think rather surprising.

Conclusion: (almost) No One Is Paying For Ads On The Big Ten(+1) Network.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons Why, As Randy Moss Says, The Patriots Are Still The Team To Beat

Your link is here, and man oh man, do I love it when athletes say they are the team to beat. It's almost as good as when they say the road to the championship goes through their town. Um, just why should anyone be intimidated by that, really?

Anyway, go click and enjoy some of that never-obvious Patriot humor. It's 28% original!

Week Two NFL Picks: No Comeuppance!

One of the things that you always hear, and tell yourself, if Week 1 didn't work out for you is how early it is. It's just one game, you know? Don't overreact. Stay in your shoes. Trust that your completely beaten down fantasy or real team can and will bounce back. And all that is well and good, except that if you go down 0-2, you're probably not getting out of it. (And 0-3? Forget about it.)

So people -- and the betting lines that serve as a barometer of their interest -- reflect that bedrock impatience. Let's take, for an example, the Jacksonville Jaguars. A week ago, they were everyone's dark horse pick to go to the Super Bowl from the AFC. They were tough, physical, with a dynamic running game, a QB that was coming into his own, and WRs that, even if they weren't very good, had to be improved.

Then they lost to the Titans on the road -- a 10-win team from last year, mind you, with one of the better defenses in the league -- on a day when Garrard turned it over three times. They also had some offensive line injuries. And voila... they're a pick'em candidate against a Bills team that's on the road, and who no one was picking to be more than .500 this year.

I'm thinking there's money to be made here, folks, if you're willing to be a little patient.

So why take that advice from a guy that wasn't even .500 ATS last year? Because if you were betting with the Shooter last week, you rolled to an 11-5 week against the spread, complete with two half-point covers. Can I possibly pull it off again this week? You'd be insane to think so, but who knows, maybe I've finally figured this out whole thing betting on pro football thing. Let's go to the picks!

(As always, the home team is in caps, and the spread pick is in italics.)

Green Bay (+6) at DETROIT

The smart money says this is a letdown game for the Pack, who have the short week and travel. They'll face a Lions team that can't possibly be as bad as they were in Atlanta, and they can certainly score some points with those wideouts. The Packers might also have to baby lead back Ryan Grant's hamstring in this game, which is a problem because backup Brandon Jackson is a terrible, terrible football player. Seriously, I know they spent a high pick on him, but he's just awful.

I believe in all of these factors -- enough to think this won't be a 2 to 3 touchdown blowout. More than that, no.

The Lions spent week one making Michael Turner look like the best RB in the league, and, um, he's not. The smart money says they should cover, and that you shouldn't trust a mostly unproven quarterback like Aaron Rodgers in his first road test. However, there is a functional disconnect with putting "smart money" and "the Lions" in close proximity. I'm thinking Jennings and Driver combine for three touchdowns this week, and for Kitna to turn the ball over against the Packers' opportunistic defense.

Packers 31, Lions 24

Oakland at KANSAS CITY (+3.5)

Both teams travel after losses, but they had very different experiences. Kansas City goes home after becoming America's Sweethearts by crippling Tom Brady and coming close to upsetting the defending AFC champions in a game where everyone expected them to be complete roadkill. The Raiders go east after being, well, complete roadkill in their annual immolation against the Broncos in Oakland, continuing the time-honored tradition of making America wonder why we have to endure a double-header start to MNF.

Neither team is going to avoid double digits in the loss column this year, but with flashes of competence in the form of Damon Huard behind center, versus the continued buffonery of Jemarcus Russell (we're just four months away from everyone knowing he's going to be a bust), the Chiefs have a clear advantage in addition to the home field. Look for a big game from Tony Gonzalez to keep the chains moving early, and Larry Johnson to do it late.

Chiefs 24, Raiders 13

Giants (+9) at ST. LOUIS

Is there any good reason to think that the Rams aren't one of the three worst teams in football? No, not really. Is there any reason to doubt that the Giants continue to be a force to be reckoned with, and have the ability to grind bad teams into paste behind a multi-faceted running game? No, not really.

So why take the Rams to cover? Because I suspect that New York's Road Warrior act of last year was a fluke, and that they are going to have a very hard time taking this game seriously after watching the film of that relay team effort the Eagles put up. Also, well, Eli Manning can throw picks against any team, good or bad, and this has the feel of a game he wins, but keeps close. Look for the Rams to do some things on offense and get the people who drafted their offensive players for their fantasy teams to get off the ledge, if only for one week. The garbage time cover will fly here.

Giants 28, Rams 20

Indianapolis at MINNESOTA (+3)

Alarm bells are ringing for both teams, who are watching preseason Super Bowl dreams melt away in the heat of a potential 0-2 start. The Colts come in banged up, with critical offensive pieces Jeff Saturday, Joseph Addai and Dallas Clark all questionable, and Peyton Manning still looking rusty after a work-free pre-season. The Vikings stayed close but not quite with the Packers in a sloppy MNF game, and still have the whole Good Tarv / Bad Tarv thing happening at quarterback.

The whole key here will be whether the Colts can keep Manning free from Jared Allen, and if the Vikings can make the Colts pay for an Everyone But Tony Dungy in the Box effort to make anyone but Adrian Peterson beat them. It also doesn't help that the Colts just released starting DL Ed Johnson for a marijuana violation. But in a tight and entertaining game, I like Manning's veteran guile, and the potential for more touches for explosive 3rd wideout Anthony Gonzalez, to carry the day. I'm also counting on a brutal Bad Tarv pick to open things up late.

Colts 31, Vikings 17

Tennessee (+1.5) at CINCINNATI

Two more teams that aren't looking like they'll be playing relevant games in cold weather, but at least the Titans can't be 0-2 after this one. With Vince Young hurt and having his mommy tell us about his hurt feelings, the Titans are going to go with Kerry Collins, which actually might be a plus, given how he's played better than Young for some time now. Meanwhile, the Bengals got dismantled in Baltimore in an effort that's getting many to start the Marvin Lewis Death Watch. The pick here is for the Titans defense and rookie runner Chris Johnson to redeem the ugliness, if only by a little.

Titans 17, Bengals 13

Saints (+3.5) at REDSKINS

This one gets a little complicated by the Saints being on the road and without #1 wideout Marques Colston, but with Devery Henderson, David Patten and (especially) Jeremy Shockey taking up the slack, it shouldn't matter very much this week. The Skins come in with a few extra days thanks to their Thursday New York crushfest, but this offense is too discombobulated to put up more than three touchdowns in a game, even against the fairly pliable Saints.

Saints 28, REDSKINS 24

Chicago at CAROLINA (even)

Both teams surprised AFC contenders on the road last week, with the Panthers taking a last-second win in San Diego and the Bears smacking the Colts in the mouth. Carolina will still be without Steve Smith, and it will also be a strange reunion moment for Moose Muhammad, who interrupted his Panther career with a few years in Chicago. Carolina is the choice here, because I'm believing in the Jake Delhomme that lead that late comeback on the road... more than I'm believing in the Kyle Orton that managed the game with a dominant run game from Matt Forte. This Bears team needs early leads to avoid over-reliance on their passing game, and they won't get it this week.

Panthers 20, Bears 13

Buffalo at JACKSONVILLE (even)

The Bills looked dominant in smacking the Seahawks around last week, while the Jags have lost three offensive linemen already this year. It adds up to a line that would have been inconceivable in pre-season, because no one could have seen the Bills having the talent to compete with the Jags, let alone on the road. As I mentioned in the open, I'm thinking a little patience helps here, and that Garrard won't turn the ball over that often again, even if he does hit the turf a few times. This will be one of those weeks where Maurice Jones-Drew looks like fantasy gold.

Jaguars 24, Bills 17

San Francisco at SEATTLE (+2.5)

Two very hurting teams, with the Seahawks coming off a road spanking from the Bills, and the Niners getting beat at home by the Cardinals. Of the two, Seattle is more hurt, with their top three wideouts all on the shelf for this game. Oh, and Alex Smith has likely played his last snap for the Niners, cementing his place in the All-Time #1 Pick Bust Hall of Fame. I think we all knew it was over when he lost the job to JT O'Sullivan, who might have reasonable numbers here, in addition to some surprisingly tasty fried fries on a stick.

Anyway, the Niners could surprise, but Seattle has spent most of the last decade recovering from road turds like last week, and they will do it again -- even if it's done by Seneca Wallace throwing to himself. In a battle between a guy who used to be a good coach versus a guy who never was, go with the former.

Seahawks 21, Niners 17

Atlanta at TAMPA BAY (+4.5)

Brian Griese gets the start for the Bucs for the injured Jeff Garcia, while Matt Ryan takes his first road start for the Falcons. The difference between Griese and Garcia is subtle but important, but I can't see Ryan doing much against a smart Cover 2 defense in his first road start, and Michael Turner will not break 100 yards in this game. I'm hoping that Earnest Graham will get the majority of touches here, because man alive, Warrick Dunn is more spent than last month's paycheck at a no-limit game...

Bucs 20, Falcons 10

New England at NEW YORK (pick 'em)

Speaking of another line that no one would have believed a week ago, here's a pick'em game for the defending AFC champions versus a 4-win team from last year. Matt Cassel takes his first road start against Brett Favre in a game where, realistically, no one has any idea what to expect. If the Jets hadn't held on to the win in Miami -- and it was a very near thing, really -- and the Pats hadn't gotten some stops against Damon Huard in the last minute of their game in New England... well, there's no way that anyone in Vegas has any idea where this game goes.

In games like this one, I look to the coaches to have a stronger impact than usual... and that's not a factor that anyone but J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS Fan doesn't see breaking for New England. Expect the Patriots to throw more than you'd expect but less than usual, and for the blame for the loss to be put squarely on the shoulders of the intercepted Brett Favre. Remember, Jets Fan, don't boo him or he'll threaten to retire again...

Patriots 24, Jets 21

Miami at ARIZONA (+5)

This is a big number to give up to the Cardinals, especially when the Dolphins looked like a real live football team for much of last week's game, but the Buzzsaw has a bit of a different look to them than in the past. They seem to get that limiting Kurt Warner's mistakes isn't a terrible idea, and they are using rookie back Tim Hightower to improve their short yardage effectiveness while keeping Edge James a little less stale. Edge hasn't had a caddy worth a damn in his entire Arizona career; maybe the Cards are actually ready to enter the 20th century of American football thought.

For the Dolphins, a suspect running game was the culprit in last week's home opening loss to the Jets. This week, it'll be a defense that can't get off the field, especially on third down throws to Anquan Boldin. I think it's a barely cover game for the home team.

Cardinals 24, Dolphins 17

Baltimore (+2) at HOUSTON

Here's another case where I'm thinking Vegas is overreacting to Week 1. Houston was an 8-8 team last year with a backup quarterback, a hurt #1 WR and a bad running game; all should be upgraded, if not actually top of the line. The Ravens are also starting rookie Joe Flacco on the road, and while they look like they have a defense, the road does funny things to people. Both teams will be .500 after this.

Texans 24, Ravens 13

San Diego at DENVER (pick 'em)

Instant early season showdown in Denver, where the Chargers are staring down the barrel of a two-game deficit with the Broncos. I'm going with the visitors despite their history of horrors in the mile-high air, because even though the Broncos are getting back Brandon Marshall and have something special in Eddie Royal, and the Chargers have given up the ghost of Shawne Merriman... well, the Chargers are still more talented at 15 starting positions, especially on the lines. The real LDT shows up this week.

Chargers 24, Broncos 21

Pittsburgh (+6) at CLEVELAND

The Steelers bring in their shockingly effective red zone running attack to the bad smell Browns, who could be winless after two home games and two games down in the division. I'm thinking that will happen, along with the strong rise in cries for Brady Quinn to save the Cleveland season, because the way to beat the Steelers (i.e., exploit their mediocre offensive line) isn't something that Cleveland can do. Short of some Joe Cribbs magic in the return game, I don't see how the Browns pull this off, even at home.

Steelers 31, Browns 17

Eagles at DALLAS (+2.5)

Welcome back to those halcyon days of yore (mmm, yore) when the Monday night game was truly the most compelling matchup of the week. Last year, Dallas outclassed the Eagles by every measure in their two matchups, creating most of the curdle in the milk, especially when the most loathed player in franchise history got to celebrate on their home turf.

Both teams come off impressive beatdowns of teams that have had their season's prospects given a hard downhill shove. Dallas gets slightly more point for taking out Cleveland on the road, while the Eagles destroyed the Rams in a near shutout. Reggie Brown will be back for the Eagles, which may or may not be a good thing, if it means less looks for DeSean Jackson. Marion Barber will play with painful ribs, which hurts, but not enough.

One last thing to keep in mind here -- the spread line started at Dallas +9, and evaporated all the way down to today's number. I don't remember a line ever moving this much during the week without dramatic injury news... so you can tell there's a lot of Philly money here.

Having said all of that... Dallas is the home team and has a talent edge. It's early in the year, when the older and thinner Cowboys should have an edge. And when you bet, it's with your head, not your heart...

Cowboys 27, Eagles 24

Last Week: 11-5

20008 Year To Date: 11-5 ATS

Epic Drop: Top 11 Reasons Why Vince Young Doesn't Want To Play Football Anymore

Your list is here, and if I were a more charitable man, I'd add a list of the mostly awful skill players that he's been saddled with... but blogging, my friends, is not always about charity. Enjoy the mockery...

You Got Your Disease Into My Addiction

Be warned: this is an Inside Baseball blog moment. If you skip, I won't cry.

FTT's ads are provided by YardBarker, who act as a network placement service for many of us in Blogfrica. They ask that we refrain from the potty mouth, and in return, they supply us with the ads that you see on the site.

Yardbarker ad revenue keeps me in gum, and motivates me to keep filling the bloghole like a real live professional, because I am a greedy little black duck. But since FTT is more like a persistent hobby instead of an occupation, I feel pretty independent of the advertisers, if you catch my drift.

Yardbarker also produces a daily newsletter to their subscribers, highlighting some of the more notable pieces that they've seen in the network. FTT has gotten the occasional link from it, and we're always appreciative. It's also a nice little tool to keep an eye on what other sites are doing.

In yesterday's issue, there was a link for a fellow blogger and friend of the site. I won't name him, for fear of Getting Into A Pissing Match. Anyway, he (mostly) went off the sports reservation with a gleeful spew targeted at Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann is, of course, the ex-SportsCenter anchor who now irritates the right wing on a highly rated MSNBC show, "Countdown." He also appears on NBC's "Sunday Night Football", which I guess makes him fair game for a sports site. It's a reach, but so be it.

As Olbermann's show is the highest rated thing in MSNBC's history, Olbermann has gotten more and more to do, including the SNF gig and a prominent position at the Democratic National Convention. He's also become the target for claims of media bias, in the eternal right-wing narrative of how the media is so very, very unfair to them. Mean, even. (I'm leaving the whole Faux News Experience, and a lifetime of grievances, alone right now, in a doomed attempt to stay on point.)

Olbermann made news himself by missing the Republican National Convention (the reasons why were the subject of my friend's rant), and then getting taken off MSNBC's election night coverage, along with fellow network personality Chris Matthews.

Now, it's fine if my friend from the other side wants to go off into a non-sports tangent. I probably do it a half dozen times a month at least without y'all seeming to be too offended; at least I'm not making you suffer with a creepy love for femme-y soap operas that show me to be a borderline statutory rape candidate.

(Seriously, Lemur Boys... please, for the love of God, stop talking about the new 90210 or whatever Real World is happening right now. I desperately do not care about what you masturbate to.)

If you like a certain writer, you give them a little leeway; you give them the trust to take you the long way from time to time.

But I am curious as all get out as to why the Yard decided to link to it... especially as my Friend From the Other Side's day job is to, well, work as a political operative.

Getting his anti-Olbermann dig into the populace counts as a point for His Side, and a relatively effective one as well, since it got publicity in a key demographic that has a large number of undecided voters.

Now, if a blogger wants to go off topic into politics, so be it. We all fill our hole some way or the other. If they want to drag their day job into their work, that's their right as well.

But when a publisher wants to give air to that, it's advocating one side over the other... and making me wonder all kinds of unkind things as to their motivation for doing so.

Which isn't good, whether I agree with them or not. And it's especially not good with so many of us having raw feelings over the outcome of the next election, no matter how it goes down, and with said election less than two months away.

So, um, YB? Please don't give me any further reason to lump you into my Compromised Media pile, OK?

And as a side note... the Lemur decided this week that it's also sports to tell you how Cindy McCain enjoys racing cars.

This election can't come fast enough, folks...

Potpurri for Five

In reviewing my fellow members of Blogfrica this morning, these small points that don't add up to a full bite. Consider it your continental breakfast of FTT, and the continent is Antartica, given that continental seems to mean "prepared without heat."

> "I can still hit if somebody wants me." - Mark McGwire, on the tenth anniversary of the greatest baseball moment of the Steroid Era that no one will admit to still remembering fondly

Um, Mac? To the great majority of the populace, thanks to your love of the junk, you could now never hit. No one wants to remember what you were like as a player, the good times in Oakland early on when you and fellow pariah Jose Canseco ruled MLB like a merry fraternity, or the later years in St. Louis where Tony LaRussa rode you back to Genius Status.

When players in the future pass you on the all-time home run list, there won't be a loving montage to your memory. Instead, they'll mention it in passing and with shame, and move on to the umbrella promotion in the upcoming 3-game homestand.

Oh, and in your last year in 2001, you hit .187, albeit with 29 home runs. I'm thinking that in your current condition, you'd be fortunate to get half of either number, and that's assuming you can pass the drug tests and fit in a uniform.

So, um, yes, you can technically still hit... only less good then, say, Cecil Fielder, Fred McGriff or Bob Horner. You know, like other guys who are not going to get jobs in MLB. (And about a tenth as well as Barry Bonds, who will also never play in MLB again.)

> Shawne Merriman to undergo surgery and go on IR

Wait, wait, wait... shouldn't he get five or six more opinions first?

Oh, and in further news, it takes two working knees to play well in the NFL, even if you are extremely talented. (Merriman had two more tackles than a dead man in the Sunday loss to Carolina, neither of which prompted a spasmodic dance routine, otherwise known as a sack.)

In related news, the bigger issue is that the Chargers were also without MLB Stephen Cooper, who led them with 179 tackles last year, for (drum roll please) testing positive for a banned stimulant. He'll miss the first four games of the season, and become another player in the list of Charger defenders who have missed time over banned substances. In Cooper's absence, the Panthers controlled the game with over 100 yards of rushing in the first half, and outgained the home team en route to their win.

Is anyone else noticing a pattern here in SoCal? And to be completely fair, if that pattern existed for one of the historically hated teams in the NFL (i.e., Patriots, Cowboys, Raiders, etc.), wouldn't their PR suffer more than those happy go lucky Lightnin' Bolts?

> Tampa beats Jon Papelbon in Boston to keep their lead in the AL East

That gives the previously struggling young club a game and a half lead in the division race. Unfortunately for all of us who dream of a Fox Armageddon Non-Major Market MLB Playoff, the Sawx still have a six game lead over Minnesota, a 7-game lead over Toronto (who knew?), and an 8.5 game lead over the Yankees for the wild card.

So your AL playoffs are shaping up as Boston vs. Anaheim in the first round (possible revenge for the Angels, though I think they'll lose yet again to Boston), and the Central survivor (the White Sox or Minnesota) vs. the Rays. There are still 20 games to go in the season, but you'd be surprised how often a game and a half lead will hold up with that much time to go.

By run differential, the Sawx are clearly the best team in the AL... but that's not how you play the games, and other than Jon Lester, there isn't a Boston SP that really looks like a playoff hammer this year. Yes, Dice-K Matsuzaka wins a lot of games, but his WHIP is very high (1.36) for a top tier pitcher, and his playoff history is not good.

After that, you've got a mix of the questionable (Paul Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Tim Wakefield) and the overrated (Josh Beckett, currently sporting a 5.56 ERA). If Dustin Pedroia wasn't giving them a ridiculous year, the offense wouldn't be all that scary either; Mike Lowell reverting to his career norms and David Ortiz's injury woes are making them pretty ordinary. A first round exit is not out of the realm of possibility, especially now that New England Fan is convinced that God has turned his back on the region in the wake of the Greatest Tragedy in Sports History, aka the Brady Injury.

> Vince Young is hurt, and also might be insane

After being diagnosed with a knee problem that will keep him out for up to a month, Young was unaccounted for over four hours. Depending on who you believe, he was also driving around with a loaded gun and thoughts of suicide, and talked about retiring in preseason.

Now, some very large chunk of me wonders, as I always do when the player getting the remarkably bad publicity is a minority member, if some of this is overblown. Lord knows that in my town of Philly, there are people with irrational hatred towards Donovan McNabb, aka the best quarterback in franchise history, for reasons that make a fellow go hmm. It's also not as if Nashville is the hotbed of tolerance.

But I suspect there's more smoke than racism here. Remember, Young's Wunderlic score in the combine got leaked, and it was remarkably low for a quarterback (though extremely good for a houseplant). He was clearly the worst quarterback to get snaps for the Titans last year, and when you consider that the other guy getting time was Kerry Collins, that's saying something. His decision making was questionable at best, and he only really looks comfortable when the game goes into sandlot scramble mode. He may be mobile, relatively fearless and gutty -- heck, for all I know, he might still turn into Steve McNair, which was clearly the plan here all along -- but it's also quite possible that he'll be a head case flameout.

Ed Note and update... Young's mom (!) says he isn't interested in playing football any more, and even if he changes his mind or the report isn't true, I'm not sure how you come back from that. The Titans have signed Chris Simms to back up Kerry Collins, and the scary thing is, their QB situation might be better right now. Let's just say that I'm not very concerned with the Titans making it back to the playoffs this year...

> An assistant high school coach in CA doesn't react well to a coaching change (H/t, With Leather)

Startlingly, they caught the guy. (For non-clickers, he was a 34-year-old assistant who responded to a termination by trying to burn the school down. That'll show 'em! That'll show 'em all!)

And that brings us up to today's main FTT sponsor. This forehead smacking moment is brought to you by Swingline Staplers, who remind you that when you take someone's Swingline, you may be burned to death!



Remember, for the stapler that men go to prison for, it's Swingline!

Ending Badly

This is how messed up Philly Fan is from the decades of championship-free major sports: people are worried that our hopes are too high.

No, I'm serious.

You see, it's not enough to just savor, for a little while, a home opener when the weather was as perfect as the home team. Patriots Fan watched The Horror Of Tom Brady's Knee Injury (I think they should have taken him off on a wheelchair, then had him fall in a heap as he tried to run back on the field -- and why, yes, I am Still Bitter over Faker Pierce).

Colts Fan watched Peyton Manning whiff at home against the Kyle Orton Bears, mostly because they no longer seem to have a center. Chargers Fan watched their team get smacked in the face by a Steve Smith-less Panthers team. You'd think that with the Injury Gods passing over us on this day, and even the special teams looking like the Super Bowl Year, it was just a good day to sit back and relax.

You would, of course, also have no real clue how Eagle Fan thinks.

While the game was on, the Shooter Sister was counseling against exuberance, because she had been to a game Just Like This One (i.e., the 2006 home opener, when the Giants hit on an improbable fourth quarter comeback).

After the game was out of hand and the Rams were "driving" towards their one field goal score of the day (albeit with no third down conversions), the room started to grumble.

And on sports talk radio later (yes, I know, I shouldn't have given them the opportunity), the hosts were also saying how this meant nothing, and things would be very different and much harder against Dallas in Dallas next Monday night. As if that didn't go without saying.

Let me save all of the haters some time here. Of course it's all going to end badly. Of course McNabb is getting hurt and Andy Reid's Kids will go on a six-state crime spree and the players will get hurt and yada yada yada.

But you know what? Life ends badly, too. There is no reason for you to think otherwise, or that your candidate will win, your kids will grow up to be healthy and successful, your job will be another but a brain-killing timesuck, and so on, and so on.

Pull the wool over your own eyes. Give yourself the possibility of a pleasant outcome. Act like you've been to the winners circle before, and expect to go there again.

Or, um, be an Eagles Fan...

Epic Drop: Top 10 Pieces of Fantasy Football Trade Bait

A pretty well researched piece today over at the Carnival, complete with a pretty naked push towards inflating the worth of DeSean Jackson, who I own in one league and should probably move... but also, probably, won't. Anyway, go click.

Sex Differences in Sports

There's a pretty fascinating piece in the NYT today (you will have to register to read it, but it's not a bad trade-off) about the role that society plays in gender differentiation. It's mostly about how less industrial societies have fewer gender differences than people in more industrial societies, since they are doing more similar jobs. But where it matters to us in this little corner of the blogosphere is how it relates to sports.

Running is mentioned as the perfect test case. It's a nearly universal sporting activity, and what you'd expect to happen -- i.e., males to be more competitive, and have greater separation from best to worst then females -- turns out to be the case on a damn near universal basis -- even in places where men and women have the same roles and jobs and fewer pronounced differences between genders. So there is, as per the study, an enduring "sex difference in competitiveness."

Now, I realize this is all a little dry, but the takeaway is this... in my lifetime, there has been an increasing amount of interest in women's team sports, with folks trying to get people interested in events like soccer and basketball.

It hasn't really worked from a ratings standpoint, with the occasional burst/fluke moment like the US women's soccer team, or the compromised effort that is beach volleyball, where you've got prurient interest adding to the competition. (I'm going to avoid talking about the individual events like golf, tennis, figure skating and gymnastics for the most part, because those seem to be more about individual personalities.)

Many people have posited that this is because of a lack of coverage, or the older generations not having grown up with the endeavor, or some other more nefarious plot, mostly involving patriarchy.

But what this study is showing you is that, on some level, there's just less variance in performance, independent of the culture. You can give me any reason you like as to why that is, but it doesn't really matter; the sun rises in the East, water is wet, and men have greater competitive differences.

Strong variances make for better viewing. When teams and athletes are similar in abilities and performance, you don't have upsets, drama, storylines; you have parity on an individual competitor basis, which is to say you've got a lot of the middle muddling about.

Sports is about seeing who is better, and feeling that the differences are not utterly random, and that the differences matter. Women's sports simply have less of that; you can juice it up all you like with all kinds of reverse engineering and marketing, but it is what it is.

And I wish it weren't so, being the father of daughters and someone who feels the odd twinge of guilt over the fact that my kids don't see Dad watching girls play sports. Moving on...

Your Annual FTT Post About Tennis

Can anyone win a tournament without reenacting the moment of their birth?

The Brady Effect

It's been kind of fascinating to scan the various fantasy football sites and gauge the reaction to the end of Tom Brady's season. Like all things involving Patriot Fan, it starts with coddling and moves right to provoking a desire for face-slapping... and this is coming from a guy that won Brady at auction in my most important league, investing not just a high pick, but 20% of my team's salary in him.

Darren Rovell, seemingly the only man in sports to have a working knowledge of economics, estimated the shift caused by the Brady injury at $150 million. No one knows exactly which orifice he pulled that number out of, but in so doing, he got himself another note in the collective memory, so good for him.

Considering that the injury happened after the season had started, the "impact" is simple -- some teams that might have won their league won't, while some other teams will. Nothing more, nothing less.

Depending on your league, Brady probably went as high as 2, and as low as 10 -- in other words, more or less exactly where Stephen Jackson and Larry Johnson went in their doomed 2007 seasons. Where was Darren Rovell then? Why didn't Yahoo lead off their fantasy coverage with "Stay in the game" headlines for Jackson and Johnson's owners?

Oh, right, because they are running backs on teams without significant fan bases. Which means that the people who drafted those guys might have been bummed or bent out of shape, but they weren't as likely to take their ball and go home because Tommy Dweamer wasn't going to give them numbers. (Maybe -- and just maybe -- it's also because the switch from Brady to Cassel means lower numbers for your other Patriots like Moss and Welker. I'm still not buying it, though.)

If I were a longtime Patriots Fan (and not a 2007 Masstermind, inspired by their outstanding moral character), I'd be offended by this level of coverage for my team. Injuries happen; we're men; move along. When Randall Cunningham went down for the year against the Packers in Green Bay in week 1 in his prime, I was bummed out for weeks and Randall was never the same. I also don't remember nationwide support group meetings over my loss. Same with Donovan McNabb's various injuries.

Once again, Boston Fan has Special Emotional Needs that need to be addressed, and the rest of the nation will wonder what's in the drinking water up there to turn them all into such whiny ass titty babies. Especially since they have, you know, won a lot of things recently, really.

Oh, and while I'm going here, let's give them a good farewell scare. Booga booga, terror plot!

Epic Drop: Top 10 Reasons Why The NFL Keeps Putting The Raiders On Opening Night

Your link is here, and it's becoming the opening weekend equivalent of the Lions appearing on Thanksgiving -- national exposure for no good reason, just to ensure that more people can see the team in question as they suck.

I'd say more about it, but I think I'd rather go to bed. The Raiders are, really, just that bad...

How To Celebrate A Touchdown

College football officiating covered itself in glory this weekend, as the ending of the Washington-BYU game was compromised by the decision of the refs to give an unsportsmanlinke conduct call for this play. Please view, if you haven't seen it already.



Washington missed the subsequent 35-yard extra point, and lost the game.

Now, the easy thing to do would be to chastise the refs for making what seems to be, at best, a ridiculous call that put them square in the crosshairs of extreme criticism, but I'm not going there. Instead, I'd like to make the following suggestion for Washington's coach, to implement for the rest of his team's ruined season.

Teach your players to do the following in the event of future touchdowns. The player that scored will, upon seeing the ref signal touchdown, cease running and drop to one knee, as if receiving communion. With trembling hands in the face of the great and awesome power that is some bloated 50-year-old white guy on his weekend job, he will raise the football up to waist level, while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the ground.

When the referee has relieved the scoring player of the football, he will rise to both feet, keeping his eyes on the ground, and proceed at a light jog to the sideline. When he gets to the sideline, he will be allowed, if he chooses to, to accept a subdued handshake (or, perhaps, one small consoling pat on the back to help deal with the knowledge that he is one touchdown closer to the end of his career). The offensive unit can also engage in a moment of group prayer, to ask the Lord for forgiveness for their sinful thoughts of happiness when a touchdown is scored.

If this is all too elaborate, the offensive player can also just drop the ball and walk off the field angrily.

I'm sure that will be much more fun for everyone to watch, and we'll all get back to what we're really watching football for -- an emotion-free exercise in which everyone behaves exactly the same.

Can I get a whispered amen? amen.

Badly Beaten

Welcome to Atlantic City, and "Badly Beaten," Spiked TV's latest effort to fill the nation's airhole with poker coverage. Tonight, we're proud to give you live hidden camera footage of random amateurs attempting to play poker with high-larious consequences. Let's get to the action!

Biff Biffley: Tonight, we've got Shooter, a man that's held his own in a monthly basement games with friends for six months. He's walking into a casino poker room for the first time this weekend, after getting crushed at the blackjack tables. We're in for some good fun tonight, aren't we Norman?

Norman Chad: We certainly are, Biff. Not only have we stacked the deck to make sure that when Shooter folds any kind of hand it will appear on the flop, we've also given all of the other player access to his hole cards via special monitors in their cup holders. Finally, his chair has been specially wired to give us his vital medical signs. This is in addition to his usual tell, which is looking pissed off at crap hands, means we're in for hours of stepping on a rake fun!

Biff: To add to the torture, we're going to give Shooter something to play every 15 hands. We're up to that now, and he's got nine-ten clubs as his hole cards.

Chad: And he's in for the flop! Let's look at those vitals now, Biff. You see, he's so beaten down, there's barely any movement in his pulse or blood pressure. He's beaten before he even gets cards!

Biff: Seven players for the flop, bringing the pot up to a robust $14. Shooter's vitals have picked up beyond comatose, Chad. Isn't that charming -- he has hope of actually making some money on this hand.

Chad: It's like Charlie Brown with the football with this guy, Biff. You've got to respect that... all the way to the bank.

Biff: The flop is the nine of spades, the ten of hearts, and the queen of clubs. That gives Shooter the only community pairs, a chance at a flush and a straight, and his first scent of hope at getting some of his money back. How are his vitals, Chad!

Chad: Almost up to a hospital patient, Biff. With cancer in three places.

Biff: Shooter has last action, and since this is a limit game, nearly every hand goes to the river and beyond, since it's been pretty cheap to see the cards -- every other hand has at least gone to the turn tonight. And that's six players checking. Will Shooter bet and watch them all drop, or check and see more cards that will eventually kill him?

Chad: Any sane man would bet here and hope that some money would follow him in. Shooter's puzzling it out for a few seconds... oh, isn't that adorable, Biff! He's trying to actually make the other players think he has bad cards!

Biff: Nice work on the part of the other players from not busting out laughing as they look at Shooter's hole cards on the small monitors we've placed in their cup holders. Shooter finally bets, and... everyone else folds, in a new record time of 3.5 seconds. That's even faster than the last time he had cards, Norman.

Chad: Right you are, Biff. But Shooter's the big winner with a $12 profit from his first good hand in two hours. And the best part is... he's actually pleased to have won the $12. God, I love this kid. Let's take him out back and rape him after the show. Whaddya say?

Biff: Of course, Norman. You want to take him from in front or behind?

Chad: Well, I'm uglier than you, with more visible lesions. I'm going topside.

Biff: Works for me. After these hands, his ass is going to be so well-lubricated, it'll be like hitting an oil slick.

Chad: But just for you, Biff, thanks to your Humiliation brand sandpaper condoms. Remember folks, for the kind of top-shelf reaming they'll remember, look for the label that says Humiliation Brand sandpaper condoms!

Biff: And that's all the time we've got tonight on "Badly Beaten." See you again in three weeks, when Shooter returns to Atlantic City with all of his friends!

Happy Birthday

The Philadelphia Eagles have been playing since 1933, which means that they have played 76 games that have qualified as home openers. They have never had an easier one than today.

How dominant was this beatdown? Just look at the numbers. 26 to 8 in first downs. The Rams did not convert a third down (0 for 11). Total yards were 522 to 166. Donovan McNabb was not sacked; Marc Bulger went down four times. The Eagles won the time of possession battle by 10 minutes, and just looked like a hot knife through butter all day.

When you beat a team by five touchdowns without a single turnover, special teams or defensive score, you've utterly humiliated them. And when Orlando Pace went to the locker room in the third quarter, it was hard to not see how the Rams were going to recover from this long enough to win more than four games the rest of the year. If you have Bulger, Stephen Jackson or Torry Holt on your roto team (or worse, all of them at once), it's looking like 2007 all over again.

Here's the intriguing thing about this Eagles team, that makes me think that what happened in this game was more than a beatdown of a bad team. They just had a swarm, a feel to them that was plainly visible. It's more than the adrenalin of a home opener. it's what you get when a healthy Brian Dawkins and Assante Samuel turn Sean Considine and Lito Sheppard from iffy starters to outstanding nickel backs, and Joselio Hanson into a fantastic special teamer. For the first time in years, the Eagles look dramatically more talented at the tail end of the roster.

It's also on offense, where rookie DeSean Jackson just has this poise and presence as he runs his routes and adds to their time of possession with home-run hitter (and, to be fair, big misses) punt returns. His presence, added to the ferociously inept Rams secondary, gave the Eagles three wideouts with over 100 yards -- Jackson, Greg Lewis and Hank Baskett. And even the special teams look like world-beaters today, with Sav Rocca playing punt and catch on two downed balls inside the five with Quintin Demps. I'm even down with the fact that the world seems to just be ignoring the whole thing, between The Brady Nightmare, the Favre Start, the Cowboys and all the rest. It's hard to under the radar with a 35-point win, but there it is.

Oh, and it all went down on the Shooter Mom's birthday, as me and my siblings wrapped up a weekend of good times away from our kids and spouses, to just roll with the remarkable person that made us all who we are. It was nice of the Eagles to add the present of an utter laugher to everything else that we did this weekend... and to make me cautiously optimistic going into next week's showdown in Dallas. But only cautious.

NFL Wrap Up, Week 1

Great googly moogly, has there ever been a greater shift of power in the first week of the season? Let's review everything we no longer know about the league.

(I'm also going to ignore the MNF games for now, and hopefully later, in that the Raiders will be involved. Let's just move on.)

> After the Brady injury, the Patriots are no longer the favorite to win the AFC East, let alone the Super Bowl.

Will they miss the playoffs without Dreamboat Brady? They shouldn't; they still have great wideouts, a reasonable line, some good running backs, an above average defensive line, good special teams, a ruthless coaching staff and, most importantly, a kitten-soft schedule. Matt Cassel can win games against bad teams. More than that, not so much.

> The teams that everyone thought were the challengers to the Patriots' throne -- the Colts, Chargers and Jaguars -- all lost, and mostly looked terrible in the process.

The Chargers gagged up a home game against a Panthers team that most people thought was a .500 club, and didn't even have the terminally stupid Steve Smith. Don't be fooled by the last-second play; the Panthers were the better team today, especially in the first half.

The Colts were simply punched in the mouth repeatedly by the Chicago Bears, and looked like the old-time finesse team that could be run on with impunity. There was also a huge mistake from Marvin Harrison opening the floodgates to a shocking loss, and Peyton Manning looked rusty and immobile.

The Jaguars lost to a Titans team that got more yards out of the running back than the quarterback, with mistake-free David Garrard turning it over three times. The division is too tough to lose manageable games, especially if you're entertaining dreams of a Super Bowl run.

Add it up, and if you're a Steelers fan, you're probably dancing in the streets right now. It's all breaking your way.

> The Browns look to be a 6 win team. At best. It's no shame to lose to a team with as much talent as the Cowboys, but when you were never really in it for your home opener, that's a whole 'nother kettle of suck. They can't defend the pass and got brutalized in the pits, and some good skill players on offense aren't going to paper over that.

> The best division in football is now the NFC East. You've got the defending champion, doing exactly what they've done during the stretch run last year. The Cowboys gave Tony Romo so much time against the Browns, he looked bored. The Eagles took out the Rams in the easiest opening game victory in the history of the franchise, in a game that's probably going to annoy the coaching staff, in that if will leave them very little to work to improve. Only the Skins look bad, and yes, they are very bad.

> I'd say something about the Jets, but the rest of the world will do that to death. Let's just leave it at the idea that my frequent picks of Jericho Cotchery (2 leagues) and Thomas Jones (2 leagues) don't look so bad today.

> Oh, and let's just call a spade a spade here... if Brady really is done for the year, his decision to walk off the field rather than take the cart, is not a moment of bravery or honor or courage. It's a defiantly selfish act from a player who cared more for his reputation than his team... because if the knee really is done, his responsibility is to get well. Period. Not stalk off the field through the pain and be muy macho.

Epic Drop: Top 11 Condolence Gestures for Patriots Fan Over The Brady Injury

Ready for the real inside story behind the Tom Brady injury? It's very simple: I own him in my most important league.

It's just the latest and greatest moment in my Masstermind Fandom, but don't worry, Patriots Fan... I'm not going away! You've got me for the duration, all the way through the upcoming season and beyond, as the good times fade and the rest of the league delights in your misery, your horror as other teams pass you by, and as it all turns to hell... it'll just be you and me, Patriots Fan!

But it'll all be OK, because I'm sure that all of you will be there for the team on the ride down, right? Let's make a pact. Nobody off the bandwagon!

NCAA Winning Picks Week 2

Okay, off to a good start this season. Even though we went 2-2 on games last week, we went 4-2 on bets (tripling up on the Texas game). There are a lot of games I like this week and my picks are late, so no time for in depth analysis. Just follow my picks if you want to make some coin. Lay 1 unit on each game and 2 on the lock of the week.

Northwestern -6.5 at Duke. Coach Fitzgerald has done a fantastic job of continuing the rebuilding of this program. I like the Cats by 2 TDs in this game.

Boston College -6.5 at Georgia Tech. No analysis, just a gut feel.

West Virginia -7.5 at Eastern Carolina. Am I missing something here? Mountaineers roll in a laugher.

Oklahoma -21.5 vs. Cincinnati. Bob Stoops is gunning for a BCS championship. He's going to run it up on whoever he can. Cincy is the latest victim.

Pitt -13.5 vs. Buffalo. Wanstadt needs to win big. Today, he does.

Wake Forest -7.5 vs. Ole Miss. 7.5 on the road is alot for Wake to give up. I think they cover. Barely.

LOCK OF THE WEEK
Notre Dame vs. SDSU OVER 43.5. Look, I hate putting two units on the domers. But frankly there D is going to suck again this year. Same with SDSU. Both teams will score early and often. Two units on the over here.

Epic Drop: Jaguars Preview

Another one, and man alive, what do you say about the Jaguars that hasn't already been said? Take a click and see.

Pulling A Daunte

I would like to, in a similar moment at age 39, announce my retirement from the NFL.

And MLB.

Also, the NBA.

It's a tough day for me. Please excuse me if I start tearing up.

But kudos, Daunte, for taking your ball and going home... when you were already home. Quitting when no one will hire you will always be known as Pulling A Culpepper from now on, taking the proud mantle from Derek "Operation Shutdown" Bell.

Thank you, and good night. I need to wrap this post up before Brett Favre calls me to tell me to come back...

GU 63

Hey, do you want to know how truly effective Gene Upshaw was a union labor leader? Look no further than the fields with the GU 63 marked on them, or the single player from each team who will wear a black armband, or the moment of silence that will also probably happen, and already has at a bunch of exhibition games.

Do you know what MLB's ownership will do when Marin Miller dies? Dance. Probably lead a conga line with the mascots. Denigrate his memory in private, and maybe even in public. Continue to snub the man from his rightful inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Seriously -- if you want to list the most influential people in baseball history, the list goes Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey and then Marvin. Fifth place is probably Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Marv will go into the HoF only when he's dead, and it's kind of criminal that the players haven't raised a stink about it up to now, but that's baseball players for you.

Marv, by the way, is 91 years young today, and has outlived many of the people whose lives he made somewhat less robber-baronly. Kudos to the man. Love him or hate him, you have to respect the hell out of his service; no one ever got more for his charges.

The difference in treatment between Miller/Upshaw, some would have you believe, was because Everyone Respected Gene because He Played The Game. Um, bullshit. Gene was a great offensive lineman and a key to the Raiders' success; he also would have been more or less forgotten if he hadn't taken the NFLPA gig. Don't believe me? Quick, tell me what Conrad Dobler is up to these days. Or the last time you thought about Mike Webster. Does anyone remember Art Shell for his play, instead of his breathtakingly incompetent Oakland coach era? I'll stop here and let you continue to think that I'm not incredibly ancient.

No, the difference is that the owners of the NFL *loved* Gene Upshaw about as much as ownership can love a union. He might not have been quite as incompetent as his NBA contemporaries -- seriously, David Stern against those guys is Globetrotter v. Generals-esque -- but only just.

Unlike his baseball contemporaries, Upshaw never got his charges guaranteed contracts -- in the most violent team sports in the US. Unlike Miller, he was unable to convince the public that scab football was something that wasn't only shameful, but invalid. Unlike Miller, he didn't have a strong enough union to shut down the sport for the long-term betterment of his players. He was able to get back-door free agency in a clever fashion with union decertification, but it's a fairly limited free agency that most players will never get to taste.

I'm not saying this in the spirit of glorifying Miller; MLB's labor woes have contributed mightily to the declining fortunes of the sport, along with the persistent revenue inequity between small and large markets that makes fans in smaller cities perpetual punching bags in the long term. But keep it in mind when you hear the eulogies for him in your NFL games this weekend. If the man had truly been effective at sticking it to the owners, they wouldn't be honoring his memory now.

And the players all know it.

NFL Picks, Week 1: If These Picks Blow, It's Still Preseason

Welcome to another year of losing money with class, fellow degenerates. Here's how it works: I'm going to write and pick every single damn game of this here NFL season, and you're going to, if you are smart, go the opposite way and make money. Now that we all know what to expect, let's begin. The home team is in caps, and my spread pick is in italics.

Washington at GIANTS (+3.5). How bad did the 'Skins look in the preseason? Bad enough that people are shying away from Clinton Portis as a fantasy pick not because he's kind of crazy and injury prone, but because they don't want to own a #1 running back from a team that's going to be behind by two touchdowns or more in most of their games. It's hard to imagine that Washington doesn't right the ship a little bit, at least before their offensive linemen suffer from their annual bout of polio, but oh, man, have they been bad... and it's very possible, given that their head coach hire (Jim Zorn) is a historic reach, that, well, they are going to be this bad.

The Giants, of course, are primed for the Super Bowl Hangover Year, especially with their pass rush corrupted by injury and retirement, but it won't hurt them in this game. Expect Manning to Burress after a steady diet of pounding runs, and the G-Men to pull away late.

NEW YORK 28, Washington 17.

Detroit (+4) at ATLANTA. How bad are the Falcons going to be this year? So bad that the team is having to discount the *season opener* to try to get them past the horror of an opening week blackout. Of course, this is Atlanta, home of the worst sports fans in America (you think I've forgotten about your half-empty baseball playoffs? Not so much), and the game does involve the sad-sack Falcons in Year Two of The Vick Penance. Matt Ryan gets the start and could surprise the world a little; I certainly do hate giving points on a road game involving Jon Kitna. Matter of fact, I'm not going to.

Detroit 24, ATLANTA 21.

Jets (+5.5) at MIAMI. Will Chad Pennington get his revenge? Will Brett Favre know what to do when the local media doesn't polish his knob in the post-game? Is Bill Parcells serious about this whole Ricky Williams timeshare with Ronnie Brown? And why am I asking so many questions of two teams that probably will both whiff on the playoffs, anyway?

Once again, I hate to lay the big number on the suspect road favorite, but this time I'm going to swallow my pride. I just can't see the Fish keeping the handle enough to prevent a little run up at the end here, and a bit of a coming-out party for Thomas Jones, who might even see a hole or two this year. Besides, with Favre on board, I'm pretty sure 10,000 Jets fans will fly out for the game.

Jets 31, MIAMI 24.

Tampa Bay at NEW ORLEANS (+3.5). Did you know that home favorites covered the spread 85% of the time when they won the game in 2007? Neither did I, because it's not exactly true, but for a second you thought you were going to have a real gambling insight, didn't you?

Anyway, the Saints are going to have a pinball offense this year if they can run the ball at all. Against the Bucs at home, they'll be able to, and the Bucs won't be able to keep pace. Take the over, too.

SAINTS 34, Bucs 24.

Houston at PITTSBURGH (+7.5). Can the Texans continue to make the slow walk up from Expansion Awful? I like their chances to stay close in Week 1, as Rashard Mendenhall is still combating rookie fumbling issues, and the Texans have some healthy weapons on offense and a much better running game than advertised. In the end, Big Ben will pull out a win, but not by the full nut.

PITTSBURGH 27, Houston 21.

Jacksonville (+3.5) at TENNESSEE

Gawd, the blog ate my Jags-Titans pick. I hate when that happens. Anyway, imagine something witty here about a game that would wrap up in about 90 minutes if you took the commercials out, because neither team will want to throw much. If you like your football from the mid-70s, this is your game of the week.

Jacksonville 17, TITANS 10.

St. Louis at PHILADELPHIA (+6.5).

Vegas and the Football Outsiders love the Eagles, which means they always come with a 1 to 2 point penalty if you are going to bet them. Andy Reid's teams have laid eggs on Opening Day before, and the Rams are going to pose a problem with their not yet stricken offensive line and weapons... but I'm thinking the Eagles defense will actually force a turnover or two this year, and the Eagle offensive line should exert its will late. It won't be a blowout, especially with the Eagle WRs all banged up, but I think they get it out and get the cover. Barely.

EAGLES 24, Rams 17.

Seattle at BUFFALO (+0).

Your classic pick something else game, in that you've got a bad road team with no healthy wideouts (the Seabags) against a road team that's mostly devoid of talent. I'm going with the Bills here, because Marshawn Lynch should be able to sway the game by himself, and Seattle is just that bad on the road.

BUFFALO 20, Seattle 17.

Kansas City at NEW ENGLAND (+13.5)

There's been some wailing and gnashing of teeth in New England over the quality of their secondary and the health of their quarterback. The first won't matter this weak, and the latter is more or less complete bull, because it's the Patriots and they lie, lie, lie. Kansas City will be behind early and often in this game.

NEW ENGLAND 38, Kansas City 17.

Cincinnati (+2.5) at BALTIMORE

The number has been creeping up here because the world is not ready for the Joe Flacco era, and people think the Bengals are good because they own them in fantasy leagues. I'm going with the home dog, because I think Ray Rice will run wild, and the Bengals are just Gut Less. But if you're betting hard on this game, you need help.

RAVENS 17, Bengals 16.

Carolina at SAN DIEGO (+7). Can the Panthers pull off a week 1 road upset? Probably not, especially with Steve Smith on the voluntarily stupid list, but hope springs eternal with Norv Turner on the opposite sideline. The Panthers might be able to run and keep this game manageable, but I suspect that they won't be able to keep drives alive on third down... and that the Chargers will run the ball late to get the cover.

CHARGERS 24, Panthers 16.

Arizona (+1) at SAN FRANCISCO. A shootout game awaits, with the road team going with their best quarterback (Kurt Warner) while the home squad will be debuting their Mike Martz Offense. Let's just say I'm not a Martz fan.

Cardinals 27, 49ERS 21.

Dallas (+6) at CLEVELAND. The more I see the Browns this year, the less I like them. The offensive line might be good, but Derek Anderson has been terrible, Jamal Lewis could get old in a hurry, and I have no confidence that their defense has gotten a lot better. Dallas is loaded with talent that knows how to win in the regular season, and I'm smelling a blowout here. It's going to be a long year in Cleveland.

Cowboys 34, BROWNS 20.

Chicago at INDIANAPOLIS (+8). The Colts can't ask for a better match-up to start their year -- a grass team, a bad quarterback, in a dome in the night game -- and yet it still has to be worrisome, given the injuries to center Jeff Saturday and health issues of Peyton Manning. But to go the other way means taking Kyle Orton, and there's no more of that sentence that needs to be written. It's the Super Bowl all over again, really, in that the Colts will run the ball and win.

COLTS 27, Bears 16.

Minnesota (+1) at GREEN BAY. Welcome to the first slap in the face to Aaron Rodgers, in that the bookkeepers aren't even making him a home favorite in their first game of the year against a team with a terrible quarterback. I think the Pack rolls here, and that the questions will be more on the Vikings quarterback situation than the Packers.

PACKERS 21, Vikings 17.

Denver (+0.5) at OAKLAND. As part of ESPN's continuing effort to make Monday Night Football utterly unwatchable, here's a home game in Oakland that will make you forget that you missed football. As usual, it will make Bronco Fan think they've got a better team than they do.

Broncos 28, RAIDERS 17.

Epic Drop: Arizona Cardinals Preview

More preview work for the Carnival, this time taking a good swing at everyone's favorite treadmill, the Arizona Cardinals. Plus, there's nearly nothing about Matt Leinart!

That's So Lions

Don't miss this... the story of Tatum Bell, in the midst of being cut by the Lions, stealing the bag of the guy that's replacing him (Rudi Johnson), and getting caught by security cameras.

Words fail, folks. Words fail. (And if someone else in the league gives Bell another job, my gast will be even more flabbered.)

H/t, Five Tool Ninja and Pro Football Talk...

Epic Drop: Seattle Seahawks Preview

Another heaping pile of Shooter Words here, with plenty of parting shots at Shaun Alexander's expense. I'm going to miss that guy, much in the same way that you miss your old drunk uncle who was also shambling around the edge of family events before falling down. Untouched. For no gain.

Epic Drop: Top 10 Jerks In Your Fantasy Football League

Here is today's link, and yes, I'm already suffering with many of these people... which made me think that, well, so are you. Take a click and see if you agree.

Oh Hell, Don Yell

In one of those breathless e-mails that always make me feel vaguely sad for the PR intern that had to write it, the Sixers announced today that they've signed Donyell Marshall, because he was too soft to get a Euro offer.

No, wait, it's because the seventh team in fourteen years (really, seven and fourteen? I'm old and so is he) is going to be the charm for the "perimeter threat with playoff experience."

But hey, he was from here originally, so it's a feel-good story, right?

Um, no.

Let's just call Donny Badball for what he is: a bench guy with questionable heart, who takes a ton of threes when given any opportunity. Since he's big and not especially good at it, he's always open, so his offensive game mostly consists of floating in space, spotting up and missing. He's Robert Horry without the defense and smarts, or Antoine Walker without the low-post moves and court vision. In other words, nothing you really want on your team.

If the Sixers use him for 8 to 15 minutes a game as a garbage man / designated fouler / three-point specialist, he might stick on the roster all year and give them a trace of value. Heck, maybe he even wins them a game or two; it's not like the team is lousy with guys with confidence (justified or not) from beyond the arc.

But if he actually gets significant burn due to injury or insanity, he'll put up his usual poor man's multi-cat numbers... while aiding and abetting the breakout game of anyone who is facing him on offense.

Oh, and that vaunted playoff experience? In 41 games under the big lights, he give you 7.3 and 4.5 board in 21 minutes per game (or, well, remarkably worse than even his previous levels of eh). That's playoff experience you can believe in, my friends!

Hopefully, they don't think he's more than situational minutes and big man fouls to give, because other than that, he's got nothing. Oh, and if Mo Cheeks somehow decides he needs Donny's Veteran Savvy instead of minutes to Thaddeus Young, he should be hung and strung. (Let's just say that I have some cause for worry.)

Epic Drop: Top 10 Fantasy Football Keys To Failure

Your link is here, and this concludes the Nerdiest Day in Five Tool Tool history. We've spanned the gamut from awful (the teleton) to geek-tastic, and I hope you're happy with yourselves, that you've let me stay up all night to give you this, you ingrates. Now, dammit, I want to hear those phones ring, and if they don't, so help me, I'm not doing this again next year, because... (bursts into tears, stomps off)

Something You Could Not Possibly Care About

My starting fantasy football teams, for the record.

H2H 14-team Yahoo League (Work league)

QB Drew Brees, Kurt Warner
RB Marion Barber, Earnest Graham, Steve Slaton, Andre Hall, Lamont Jordan
WR Greg Jennings, Jerricho Cotchery, Anthony Gonzalez, Derrick Mason
TE Heath Miller, Ben Utecht
DEF Green Bay, Philly
PK David Akers

Points 12-team Auction League (Private)

QB Tom Brady, Kurt Warner
RB Ryan Grant, Thomas Jones, Slaton, Kenny Watson
WR Torry Holt, Anquan Boldin, Cotchery, Gonzalez, Justin Gage
TE Jeremy Shockey, Heath Miller
DEF Indianapolis
PK Adam Vinatieri

H2H 14-team Yahoo League (Friends)

QB Tony Romo
RB Barber, Graham, Slaton, Chris Perry, Tim Hightower
WR Jennings, Gonzalez, Nate Burleson, DeSean Jackson, Robert Mecham
TE Dallas Clark
DEF Tennessee, Carolina
PK Matt Prater

The last draft was rough, in that I got poached at least a half dozen times early and late. The teams don't really vary all that much, in that if Slaton and Gonzalez tank, I'm boned in three leagues, and Barber, Graham and Jennings could take me down in two. I'm also a little embarrassed that I didn't play QB Roulette in any league, but I just hate doing that, even if it does work out fairly often.

Anyway, those are the picks; mock at your leisure.

My Actual Fantasy Football Sleepers: Running Backs

Now that my three drafts in six days fantasy football season is over, and my league mates in all of those endeavors have already seen my act, it's time to share my sleepers with the world. Draft these guys, and you'll be guaranteed to have a fantasy football team. Whether it's any good or not is another matter. I'm going to split these out into separate posts just to make it easier to identify my mistakes later.

Earnest Graham, Tampa Bay Bucs. You'll get him in the fourth or fifth tier of running backs, and for the life of me, I don't know why. Cadillac Williams can't stay healthy, Warrick Dunn is ancient and was horrible last year, and Jon Gruden has shown that he's fine with riding one back hard. Graham showed a good nose for the goal line last year, and while the Bucs aren't a good offense or a great schedules, it's still hard to see how he doesn't give you a lot for the money this year.

Leon Washington, New York Jets. I've seen him go undrafted this year in some leagues, and that's just wrong. Thomas Jones is 30 and never has been great at the goal line. Washington won't vulture him for carries down low, but he will be on the field for third down and goal to go after Jones doesn't get in... and anyone who has watched Brett Favre in recent years has seen his willingness to prolong plays with shovel plays to the release back. Combine that with his usual good work on third down, the possibility of a return touchdown, and the very real chance that he'd get 15 touches if and when Jones goes down, and you've got a very good late round pick.

Steve Slaton, Houston Texans. In most of the drafts that I've been in, he's gone after Ray Rice of Baltimore, which makes a little sense -- Rice has also looked good in preseason, and the starter (Willis McGahee) is showing every sign of pissing away the full job with surgery and erratic performances. But while Rice will labor behind quarterbacks that wouldn't be a plus in the CFL, Slaton will have actual weapons in Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson. The Texans have other options, and might be dumb enough to continue to get something out of their Ahman Green money, but Slaton has a real chance at stardom.

Pierre Thomas, New Orleans Saints. The Saints have a good looking schedule, an outstanding receiver corps, a top tier quarterback... and their running backs are Mr. Finesse (Reggie Bush) and Mr. Old and Hurt (Decue McAllister). If the chips fall where I think they will, some significant points will be available for Thomas, who has a burst, looks good inside, and could wind up as the whole show in N'Awlins if the Saints decide to stop trying to recreate Thunder and Lightning and just go for, you know, Good.

Darren McFadden, Oakland Raiders. Oakland ran wild last year with the likes of Lamont Jordan, Michael Bush and Justin Fargas. Now, they might choose to mix McFadden into that mix, and keep him fresh for the long haul while teaching him the finer points of blocking and being an NFL player. Or they could be the Raiders, become intoxicated by his talent, and feed him the ball like there's no tomorrow. Bet on short-sightedness, especially in a division where the Broncos and Chiefs could be had, and the Chargers just got a lot less scarier with Shawne Merriman playing hurt.

Chris Johnson, Tennessee Titans. But they've got LemDale White, someone will say, and a million other guys that they keep signing and trading for. And yes, yes, a million times yes, because they know that White sucks as much as you do. If and when they give Johnson a chance, he'll earn the job and do well with it, because he's a special talent.

My Actual Fantasy Football Sleepers: Wideouts

Now that my three drafts in six days fantasy football season is over, and my league mates in all of those endeavors have already seen my act, it's time to share my sleepers with the world. Draft these guys, and you'll be guaranteed to have a fantasy football team. Whether it's any good or not is another matter. I'm going to split these out into separate posts just to make it easier to identify my mistakes later.

Wideouts were more important than running backs last year, thanks to the twin explosions of Randy Moss and Terrell Owens, and the very good years from Brayton Edwards, Reggie Wayne and many more. You might not be able to compete without good running backs, but you won't be able to win without good wideouts -- and here are some that you might be able to get for cheap.

Anthony Gonzalez, Indianapolis Colts. If Marvin Harrison comes back strong, he gets cuckolded... but the much better chance is that Dallas Clark's numbers slide back a bit this year, Harrison won't be everything he's been, and Reggie Wayne will continue to draw the #1 corner. Gonzalez is good, in a great situation, and young and unknown enough that you might be able to get him cheap. At the end of the year, he just might give you low #1 numbers for a #4 WR price.

DeSean Jackson, Philadelphia Eagles. Eagle fans who have watched the preseason, and Cal Bear fans who have watched him for years, know all about him. The rest of the country will soon learn. He's electric, could provide a return touchdown or two, and will be the #1 option in Philadelphia within a year. Don't overpay if you aren't in a keeper league, as all rookie wideouts struggle and hit the wall, and the Eagles have a perverse need to complete balls to as many people as possible every year... but if it's late and you are looking for the possibility of 1,000 yards and 8 TDs, tap Jackson.

Robert Mecham, New Orleans Saints. Let's say you are defending the Saints. You put your top corner on Marques Colston; that's a no-brainer. You're probably worried hard about what Jeremy Shockey will do to you, especially considering that Drew Brees loved to feed Antonio Gates in San Diego. Reggie Bush in the flat can make you look bad. What does that make Mecham? The single-covered sleeper, now in his second year after injury, who doesn't drop balls like Devery Henderson, and has much more explosiveness than David Patten or Terrence Copper. He might not get the number of targets you'd like to see, but Mecham could be a big play magnet this year.

Santonio Holmes, Pittsburgh Steelers. I simply love his talent, and with Hines Ward slowly fading to a role as a glorified blocking back, he's the unquestioned ace of the Steeler corps. With a better running game (Mendenhall and Parker is so much better than Parker and Davenport, it covers for the loss of Alan Faneca), the opportunities downfield will be there. Count on Holmes to deliver more than what you pay for him, partly because the Steelers are more finesse than you remember, too.

Jerricho Cotchery, New York Jets. He finally gets a real quarterback, and his stablemate (Laverneus Coles) seems to be sitting shiva for Chad Pennington. I'm not sure that the Favre Era will really mean a playoff bid for Gang Green, but they will mean at least a half dozen touchdowns and 1200 yards for Cotchery... especially because I'm just not feeling the love for the Jets tight ends, either.

Ted Ginn Jr., Miami Dolphins. You'll get him late, because his quarterback won't be able to get him the ball... but his division is bad, he'll get a lot opportunities in blowout games, they don't have anyone else, and he's been catching everything in preseason. Ride out the bad weeks -- there will be many -- and enjoy the cheap production.

My Actual Fantasy Football Sleepers: Quarterbacks

Now that my three drafts in six days fantasy football season is over, and my league mates in all of those endeavors have already seen my act, it's time to share my sleepers with the world. Draft these guys, and you'll be guaranteed to have a fantasy football team. Whether it's any good or not is another matter. I'm going to split these out into separate posts just to make it easier to identify my mistakes later.

It's a deep year for quarterbacks, in that if you don't get one of the top 3 to 5 players, you can pretty much take your pick of reasonable gambles. Here's the guys that I'd be going after if I'm playing quarterback roulette.

Donovan McNabb, Philadelphia Eagles. It's the second year back from the knee injury, with a fourth-place schedule, and a defense and special teams that looks to have added playmakers. As a bonus, you also get his starting wideouts (Curtis and Brown) being nicked up at the start of the year, which will make some shy away from him. If you aren't playing with Eagles homers, I think you'll be able to get him cheap, and for the first time in years, I think you'll be thrilled at the end of the year with the results.

Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers. I've seen him go undrafted in some leagues, which I think is kind of criminal. If you draft him, you'll need to have some good early-season options to wait out his growing pains, but with his weapons, offensive line and defense, he's not going to have to be that good to help you. A lot.

Vince Young, Houston Texans. Do you really want to watch this? Hell no. But at the end of the day, you'll be looking at 200 yards and a couple of touchdowns (probably as many with his feet as his arm) for a guy that might be available in your free agent pool. Compare and contrast that with, say, Eli Manning or Jon Kitna, and you'll see there's no real difference. There is also the chance that he's actually better than this, the Texans will surprise with Chris Johnson, and his defense will give him a lot of short fields to work with. Besides, it isn't possible that he gets worse than he showed last year.

J.T. O'Sullivan, San Francisco 49ers. OK, his team sucks, he's a career nobody, and he's got a name that sounds like a place where the waitresses are all oversized and pushing the jalopeno poppers. But on the plus side, his division is terrible, he's in a chuck and duck Mike Martz system, and he'll throw it 50 to 60 times a game. Let's say he completes 60% of those for 7 yards a completion, with a ton of garbage time prevent defense yards. What do you have? 250 yards a game, or nearly 4000 yards for the season, and some of them have to be for touchdowns. He's young enough to survive the battering he'll get, and the Niners really aren't all that interested in seeing more of Alex Smith.

Kurt Warner, Arizona Cardinals. While you weren't noticing last year, the ancient Quarterback of Jebus had 27 touchdowns and 3400 yards, and that was with the usual musical chairs routine at quarterback. He's always going to turn the ball over (17 picks and 8 fumbles last year), but he's also just plain accurate, and you can usually ride the matchups with him to good advantage. Especially early in the season (that opening week agains the Niners looks quite tasty), there's money to be made here.

Matt Schaub, Houston Texans. The schedule won't help much here, and the division is the best in football. But he's also good, has more weapons this year (see the running back post, a healthier Andre Johnson, and a more established Owen Daniels), and has exceptional accuracy to go with a quick release. If you own him, you'll need another quarterback for the weeks where the schedule is ruinous, but in the weeks that he's good, he'll be very good indeed.

What HD Is For: Telethon Train Wreck

Tonight as I was closing the books on the NFL previews and keeping an eye on SportsCenter out of the corner of my eye in the Man Cave, the powers that be at the Lemur went for Rednecks Turning Left. (No, NASCAR Fan, I am not your blog. Move along.)

So I pull up the menu of other high definition choices, because when I am in the Man Cave, I am a High Definition Only Snob.

And there, lo and behold, brought to me by the power of My9 HD from New York... the awe-inspiring awfulness that is the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.

A better and meaner blogger than me would live blog this whole thing. I am not that blogger. My capacity for self-hate stops at... 90 minutes.

Important Editorial Disclaimer: I am not pro muscular dystrophy. I am not even anti Jerry Lewis. Heck, I'm not even anti-MDA Telethon.

Oh, wait. Actually, I am. Anti-telethon, at least.

A word of background. Every year when I was a kid, I'd watch this thing; it seemed Important, Dammit. When Lewis would break down in his usual angry rant, I'd be as caught up as when a pro wrestler took a chair shot. It was, of course, as real, and as tasteful.

In later years, I'd try like hell to avoid the damn thing... and inevitably find it while flipping around channels, dreading the start of school, and finally just succumbing to the increasing horror of how, say, David Hasselhoff was going to work out his pitch.

About fifteen years ago, I finally kicked my telethon habit. Around the time that the Internet existed, really. And now, I'm watching it again for the first time in decades, and in breathtaking high def.

So what does the Telethon get you in HD?

> Full penetrating jowl coverage of Jerry -- and those jowls are 83 years old now, so dammit, you will respect them

> Maureen McGovern covering Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A Changing" as if it were written for a cruise ship

> Jerry working the crowd in Vegas, with lots of MD patients providing him with mugging background

> The audience sounding and looking like they have a median age of 76 -- and yes, HD makes it worse

> Gloria Gaynor, continuing to survive

> One happy looking black guy in Jerry's Vegas audience (I'm pretty sure he's getting paid)

> People who you weren't sure were still alive, yet alone still in show business (Jack Jones! Tony Orlando! Ludacris! Ed McMahon! Kid Rock!)

> Jerry getting all handsy with Nancy Grace in her role as the classy/slutty blonde that tells her heartfelt stories of loss

> Local telecast anchors rocking the same tuxedo look that Lewis has worn since he was, well, an actual entertainer, rather than a punchline

> Jerry miming various orchestra performances -- funny! on many levels!

> Some of Las Vegas's hottest 40 year old MILFs moving back and forth in what almost passed for rhythm

> Tacky timpani bounces with that 40-year-old Jerry caricature

> Jerry giving us his weight, and Tony Orlando's old weight, before a vaguely racist joke at Tony's expense

> Jerry getting political, without ever mentioning a political party, because when your house is no longer worth a damn and you can't fill your gas tank, you are still going to donate to HIS kids, dammit

I'm sure this little moment of hate will get me some comment or six from someone who has been helped by the MDA.

I'm sure they've done some good, too.

But, um, no.

Stop it.

Please.

For the children...

(Update... I had to come back in for the last 40 minutes. Kevin Meaney, who was funny for a few minutes in the late '90s, came in to do Viagra and drug jokes for the New York telecast. It redefined awkward in our time. Must. Stop. Watching...)