Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Top 10 Eagles-Redskins MNF Notes

10) Welcome to Philadelphia, Will Witherspoon. Is it that easy to play MLB, that a guy can move over in a week and deliver value... or is it just that Witherspoon is like a man that's gotten off Death Row now that he escaped the Rams?

9) Honestly, at this point, I'm wondering if Michael Vick has photos of Andy Reid at the dogfights. Can we please put away Line of Scrimmage Punt Return until it actually has a good play? (For the record, with 11 minutes left in the fourth, the line threw in some pancake work and got Vick a 9-yard carry around the left side to convert a third down. Woo.) I get that we need to stop any kind of momentum a sputtering offense has by constantly jerking the QB in and out, but, um, no, we *don't* actually need that, really...

8) Given that Jim Zorn no longer calls plays, why should the cameras look for his reaction shot after plays? He's got as much impact on this game as, well, you and I...

7) On 3rd and 16 at midfield in their first drive of the second half. 'Skins play-caller and senior center bingo caller -- no, honestly, we are not making this up -- Sherman Lewis called a screen to fullback Mike Sellers. Against a 3-man rush. You have to treasure the Skins in moments like this, because you're just not going to see that kind of thing from any other team...

6) The really surprising thing about this game is how the Eagles have a big lead without actually playing very well. A couple of big offensive plays by DeSean Jackson, a TAInt, and boom, it's a 17-point lead. But it feels like smoke and mirrors, despite coming against a terrible team, because when the offense isn't moving the ball and living on big plays only, that's what the world is like.

5) Jon Gruden likes Clinton Portis because he's a workhorse. A 2.5 yards per carry workhorse. I wonder if he also likes Jason Campbell, because he's really good at collecting cheap yards on give up 3rd and long calls.

4) The MNF mouth jobbers take up for Lewis, because they take up for everything. But the simple fact of the matter is that it's not that Lewis has the gig, but that he has the gig *now* -- the same way that Daniel Snyder crushed the legacy of Joe Gibbs. It's what The Daniel does, and that's why he's my very favorite Redskins owner ever. He not only kills the present, he also kills their past.

3) It may just be me, but it really seems like Sav Rocca makes one deadly awful punt a game, especially in close games. I'm not getting the infatuation here.

2) The Eagles have so many guys that can blitz! In that they have defensive players that can run to the QB and tackle him. What an amazing talent that is!

1) With 9:30 left in the game, the Lemur found it necessary to show youth QBs practicing, and it made Jon Gruden go all spazzy. Suddenly, the entire Bucs Experience of collecting awful QBs became understandable. The man's just got a fetish.

* * * * *

And a final point... with 4:40 left in the game, the Skins fumbled on one of the worst plays you will ever see in this world, as a sad little coda to their evening. At the time, my head to head fantasy football matchup swung by two points to my opponent. After a bad series for the offense (sorry, that should have read "after yet another bad series for the offense"), the Skins made it a 3-point lead with another sack... but a garbage time touchdown to Fred Davis swung it back to a point in my direction. After a failed offsides kick, it was kneeldown time for Donovan McNabb, which is to say, my QB. And he had to do it four times, and seemed to be interested in giving up extra ground as he did it... but it finally ended, with 4 yards of difference giving me the win.

The lesson: fantasy football sucks. Pass it on, really...

Ed. Note and Update: Fantasty football sucks even more when, the next morning, you see the points have been adjusted somehow to give your opponent the win. So take this as another lesson: Never use ESPN for your game. (Says the guy who just ported his fantasy basketball league over because of the auction software. Gahhhhh.)

1 comment:

Tracer Bullet said...

The best part about that screen was that the Eagles could have blitzed every person in a green jersey, any green jersey, within a 50-mile radius and Sellers wouldn't have picked up that first down. Some 120-pound high school freshman in a Ray Allen gamer would have peeled back and tackled Mr. Heavy Foot four yards short.