Yet Again

Today was (is, as I'm writing this) a travel night for me, with a flight out of Newark (surprisingly OK airport, at least in Terminal C, and can avoid driving via a working NJ Transit system that isn't sucking Amtrak exhaust on an off-peak hour). So I got to see the end of the Cowboys-Patriots game in the terminal, and the SNF game on the plane, because my flight had Direct TV and I have a willingness to swipe a credit card for six hours of More Sports when I can't get connection on my computer. So.

The screen that I watched Cowboys-Patriots on had a broken closed caption, so the screen didn't update from the last thing that was said, which was "Yet Again." And I gotta tell you, those two words were far better NFL analysis than, I am sure, Phil Simms was providing in the CBS A game of the week. Cowboys stall in the red zone and have to settle for field goals? Yet Again. Patriots get the callas and plays they need to pull off a win, even when they won't play very well. Yet Again. Some asinine ad gets shown for the 30th or 40th time this NFL season, making you wonder if watching NFL games without a clicker and multiple games to bounce to as something akin to self-inflicted torture? Yet Again.

As for what I actually saw from my unexpected access, the Vikings are clearly quitting on Donovan McNabb, who was about as accurate and good as he can be anymore, but the ceiling is just too small, and when your team is stupid enough to kick it to Devin Hester, you kind of deserve what you get. Christian Ponder is the better choice for this team right now, because when you have very few healthy offensive linemen, you might as well run a guy out there who can run for his life, rather than stagger. There was a play in this game in which Julius Peppers, on a bad knee, closed and shoved Five down like he was an old sack of laundry, and that's just not a play that you ever expected the one-time total field threat to have happen to him. It used to be that people wondered if McNabb could be accurate enough, or durable enough, or whether he had the leadership or whatever... but now, you get to challenge the wheels, too.

It's what happens, folks. Yet again, to McNabb. Bet on age and all that it entails; when you've had a margin of error with your legs, losing them just makes you kind of ordinary. And the Vikings are too bad to put up with ordinary.

(Oh, and Don? Don't give your folks tickets to games anymore. Seeing your mom bail on you before the Vikings did was all kinds of sad. I guess there was soup to be made, or something...)