First and Goal (from the 4)

1) As the final seconds of the Colts-Giants game were ticking away, I switched over to ESPN to catch the 8pm Sportscenter. Just thinking about watching Boomer and Tom Jackson run down the day’s action in the Blitz made me embarrassingly excited. To my dismay, apparently, the baseball season hasn’t officially ended yet and they were still showing an intense battle between Leyland’s Tigers and the ChiSox. The Tigers are up 4 with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Alright, this should be over soon, right? Then I remembered it was baseball and it’s never over soon. Sure enough, the White Sox rallied and forced extras. Luckily, Fox Sports West always shows episodes of NBA’s Greatest Games: Lakers Edition. It turns out the White Sox inept bullpen was a blessing in disguise, as FSN was playing the Lakers-Blazers Game 7 from 2000. One of my favorite personal challenges is to try to identify as many players as I can before the announcers say their names. Obviously, I got the easy ones. Kobe, Shaq, Sheed, Arvydas Sabonis, Scottie Pippen, Detlef Schrempf, Robert Horry, Damon Stoudemire, Rick Fox (who I recognized more from Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns). Next, I tried to pick out the more obscure role players: Bonzi Wells, Glen Rice, Brian Shaw, Steve Smith (who had an amazing third quarter). But I squinted on my non-HD TV to try to ID the fifth Laker player. AC Green?!? That’s right. AC Green was still on the 2000 Lakers. I just wanted to pass that on and hope someone else was as shocked as I was. (Highlight of the game: During a big Blazer run, Ahmad Rashad interviewing a furious Magic Johnson, who was wearing a stylish powder blue zip-up polo. Magic concluded the interview with “I’m mad, I’m just really mad.”)

2) Back to football, let’s overreact about everyone’s record after week 2 for awhile. Bucs and Chiefs in the Super Bowl. I’m calling it right now.

Undefeated Teams through week 2:

New Orleans (Point Differential +8)

The Saints haven’t looked dominant, but winning on the road on Monday night against a talented team isn’t easy. The Reggie Bush injury will hurt. He’s the best decoy in the NFL.

Pittsburgh (+14)

I’m completely biased, but the Steelers could make an argument for the best team through two games. This has got to be the earliest in the season any team has been forced to play with their 4th string quarterback. Batch wasn’t even supposed to be on the team at the start of training camp. A game in a half in and he’s the only QB the Steelers had left. Despite of that, they are 2-0 after two difficult games. Think about when they get their Pro Bowl quarterback back in week 6. The defense might not give up more than 21 points all year.




Green Bay (+34)

Clay Matthews struggled to start in college at USC, now he’s the early-early-early season favorite for defensive player of the year. He’s on pace for 48 sacks this year which would break the record of 22.5 held by Michael Strahan. And, reportedly, 17 Wisconsin newborns have been named Clay in the past 2 weeks.

Houston (+13)

Arian “Brotherhood” Foster went off for 231 yards and 3 touchdowns in week 1. Matt Schaub threw for almost 500 yards in week 2. However, the most important stat as the year progresses may be that they’ve given up an average of 430 yards passing per game. That’s ridiculous.

Tampa Bay (+16)

Tampa Bay being undefeated is like the guy who continually goes after the ugliest, most desperate girl in the room and then brags because he got laid. Yeah, you’re undefeated, but come on, you played the Browns and Panthers.

Bears (+12)

Devin Hester’s one handed catch would have been the best of the weekend, if it weren’t for Randy Moss. Moss’ catch was just showing off. It reminded me a little of my college intramural football days. Back to the Bears: I’m about 95% sure I’m going to regret this statement but the Bears are starting to look like a poor man’s Saints. A ton of weapons, a pass catching running back, and a QB that spreads it around. Again, in three weeks, I’m going to try to forget that I said that.

Miami (+9)

They were lucky to get the Vikings early, before Favre gets back into form. Despite their 2-0 record, I still think they have looked like the 3rd best team in that division. It’s good that they are winning early though. They are going to be invisible in that city once the NBA gets underway.

Kansas City (+9)

One way they could win the division: Play Jamaal Charles 80% of the snaps instead of 40%. He could be the third best running back in the league and we may never know.

3) When I first moved to San Diego, one of the most shocking culture changes was a commercial they played for the Chargers. They have to actually advertise for their games. This is one of the biggest cities in America, there is no team in nearby Los Angeles to compete with, and, for the past 7 or 8 seasons, the Chargers have been one of the best teams in the league. Yet they still have to advertise to get people to go to the games. In the first 20 years of my life, I had never seen an ad to buy tickets to a professional football game. Hell, aside from a few Giant Eagle spots trying to sell Jerome Bettis sticky buns or Hines Ward black and gold cookies (or Big Ben rape whistles), I can’t remember commercials for anything about the Steelers. They didn’t have to advertise. The Steelers are the biggest thing in Pittsburgh, you don’t have to go on television to say that.

But in San Diego, it’s different. People still love the Chargers, but not enough that they are actually willing to go to the game. With traffic, a 3 hour game turns into a 6 hour experience. That’s an hour and a half before and after the game that they could be surfing if they just watched it at home. Going to the game is a sacrifice. That’s why the Chargers were blacked out in local markets this past weekend.

Yet, still, Chargers fans are upset because the team won’t shell out the money to sign Vincent Jackson and Marcus McNiel. The radio shows and the papers are up in arms that the owners are too cheap to strike a deal with the two potential All-Pros like the Jets did with Darelle Revis. They won’t spend the money on a team that doesn’t even come close enough to selling out it’s home opener to avoid a black out. The fans are just as much to blame for this as the Jackson, McNiel, and the ownership.




4) Finally, in an effort to steal as many gimmicks as I can from Peter King, here’s my favorite quote of the week:

Minnesota Vikings Defensive End, Jared Allen, on whether he still follows the mullet way of life now that he’s cut his hair:

“Well I still do three of the four things. I still cut the sleeves off my shirts. I still love America; that’s a big one. And I still respect others that rock the mullet. I just don’t do the fourth one: rock the mullet myself.”

I feel like he’d get along well with Mac from It’s Always Sunny.