Video Killed the Radio Star:
With FMQB and FFMQB going back to Rapid City for Thanksgiving, we had a 6 hour football radio-fest in the car on the way home on Sunday. I’ve done this several times before on trips back to school (it seems to ease my pain of missing football), but not going to lie, Sunday’s radio-fest was the best so far! It was either due to the fact that FFMQB has NFL mobile on her phone, thus allowing us to listen to any game we wanted, and even get to chose the Home or Away announcers. Or else it was due to the fact that maybe the Triptophan from Thursday drugged up the announcers to say some really goofy things. In the Bengals game after they clinched the game, one announcer went haywire screaming “BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, and one more nail in the coffin for good measure, BBAAMMM!!!!” Paul Allen of the Vikings must have learned a new word over the holiday, because he used “Spectacularly” in every other sentence (I’m not even exaggerating). There are only so many spectacular plays in football, I doubt a 3 yard run on 1st down could have yielded a spectacular juke. They must know something in Philadelphia that we don’t, because the announcer wouldn’t say Lesean McCoy, he only referred to him as “Shady McCoy.” Which was weird when right away all we heard was “And Shady made a nice block,” or “Shady gets dumped at the 23 yard line.” But my favorite came in the Broncos game. We were listening to the Chargers announcers and they were describing what you have to do to win against Tebow. They kept referring to him in the third-person and as an object, it was hilarious! The best line came when one announcer said “If you want to win against the Tebow, you have to Punish the Tebow.”
Stop Me before I Run It Back Again:
Last year Los Tramposos where chided after punting it to Desean Jackson as time expired, and watching him run it back for the game winning TD which eventually knocked the Giants out of the playoffs. Devin Hester has crushed the return TD record in only his 5th year, and yet teams keep kicking right at him nearly every game. The Rams apparently haven’t learned either. In Week 9 in OT against the Cardinals, the Rams punted to Patrick Peterson who ran it back for a game winning Punt return TD. In Week 12, only 21 days after this happened, the Rams punted directly to Patrick Peterson. Anybody want to take a guess as to what happened? Peterson ran it back for a TD. In a contest that was to be won by 3 points, the Rams special teams cost them the second game of the season to the same team, same player!
Do Fans really know more than John Fox?
Before reading too much into the headline, let it be known that FMQB likes John Fox as a coach, possibly because he coached the Panthers, but I feel like he is a great coach that never gets any respect. Anyway, at the beginning of the season, Fans were clamoring for Fox to bench Orton and play Kyle Tebow. Billboards were purchased, Tebow was chanted after any Orton mishap, and a backup QB’s jersey became the highest seller in the NFL. After a 1-4 start, it looked like the Denver Secretariats were going to have another horrible season, until Tebow came in. Tebow has led them to a 5-1 record as a starter, and has the Secretariats only a half game out of the playoffs! Let me be honest, it’s super fun to watch the fans rally around a crappy team and cheer for a backup, but the coaches are in the locker room 24/7 and they know the ins and outs of the offense. They are at every practice, and can tell which QB is really going to give them the best chance at winning. This is why coaches rarely listen to fans, but instead use their own judgement. To tell you the truth, who wants to be told by someone else how to do your job? In this case the Fans were right, but that is very rare. But what happens if Tebow is put in Week 1? Are the Secretariats 8-3 instead of 6-5? Are they contending for the #1 seed in the playoffs? Who knows…except maybe the fans.
Stat of the Week:
Percy Harvin had a kickoff return of 104 yards and did not score. This is the longest play in NFL history that didn’t result in a TD.
It All Stays within the Family:
Apparently shooting yourself in the leg has become a trademark for AFC East teams. FMQB noted the Patriots fan who shot himself in the leg a few weeks back. Plaxico Burress gets out of jail after a nightclub incident where he shot himself in the leg, and signs with the Jets. This past week, Bills receiver Stevie Johnson made it into the endzone and pretended to shoot himself in the leg. This was by far the funniest celebration we’ve seen in the past 5 years!!! He got fined 10k for it, but people will be talking about this for awhile. I totally miss the days where TO could sign a football, Joe Horn could call his mom to tell her he scored, Chad Ochocinco could do an Irish Jig, or Steve Smith could use the pylon to putt the football. Those were the good old days, but now the NFL (No Fun League) has banned nearly all of that and fining players who disobey. I’m not going to lie, I side with the players on the celebration rule. If you want to keep them from celebrating, keep them out of the endzone! Thanks for taking me back Stevie!
Your main job is still to catch the ball:
While we’re talking about Stevie Johnson, what is with him and dropping passes? It seems like he’s hindering his own celebrating opportunities more than the defenders! Last year Stevie cried his heart out after dropping a wide-open pass in the endzone against the Steelers. His Tyrannosaurus Rex arms have led to 2 further drops in the endzone this year. Then on Sunday, he dropped 2 passes on the final drive, one more of them in the endzone! Stevie has advocated that he’s an elite receiver in the league, he needs to prove himself in clutch situations before anybody agrees with him.
Quest for Perfection:
Barring Mike McCarthy deciding to rest players, the Packers have only one more difficult test between them and perfection. That happens to be this week at the New York Giants. Los Tramposos are so wishy-washy though, they either play magnificently or like a pop-warner team still learning how to wear a cup properly. But one thing that has remained consistent is the Giants’ pass rush. If they can get to Rodgers, they have a shot at winning this game, although that chance is going down with the news that Osi Umenyioria is out Sunday. If the Packers can win Sunday, only their coaching decision stands in the way of being 19-0.
Quiet Streaks:
There are some very important streaks going on in the NFL right now that has changed the playoff picture in the past month. The Raiders have very quietly gone on a 3 game winning streak with Carson Palmer getting in the groove. The Texans still have a 5 game winning streak despite a rash of injuries. On the flip side, the Chargers, Giants, and Buccaneers have basically sealed their playoff absences with losing streaks. Once at the top of the AFC West, the Chargers have gone from a hot 4-1 start to 6 losses in a row and a 4-7 record. The Giants also led their division at 6-2, but have since lost 3 (about to be 4) to be 6-5. The Buccaneers were in the hunt of things with their 4-2 record before also dropping their last 5 for a 4-7 record.
First Jacksonville Sighting of the Year:
There are 3 things that are certain in Jacksonville; Death, Taxes, and Jack Del Rio. Well not anymore. The longest tenured Jaguars coach was fired this week, and the team was sold to a Pakistani born businessman. Jacksonville has always been in a tough spot, they are in a tiny market with other Florida teams grabbing the headlines, and they never sell out any games. I feel like the firing and the selling of the team is a GIANT red flag that another one of FMQB’s predictions will be coming true. I bet that the new owner decides to pull up shop and move the team to LA in 2 years.
Vikings releasing McNabb
Last night the Vikings straight up released McNabb. What an embarrassing tenure that was. Living in Minnesota, McNabb got so much hype when he came to town that everybody was talking about a return to the playoffs, but not FMQB!!! The Vikings spent $5 million for McNabb to play in 6 games, and a Pro-Bowl and Super Bowl quarterback was benched for a rookie. Here is my next QB prediction (I’ve been pretty spot on with them all year)! McNabb will be picked up by the Texans who are in dire need of a QB, but he will lose the last 4 games and dump another team’s playoff hopes. Let me throw these other teams out there, McNabb could be picked up by the Jaguars, Colts, or a reunion with the Eagles. But my guess is he goes to Houston.
Props to Cam Newton on killing the Colts’ last shot at a win (quota met).
OOOOO It’s Your F-in Nightmare!
Let’s all pop the champagne people, with the Nightmares lost last night to the Seahawks, they officially cannot do better than an 8-8 season this year, which means the “Nightmares” nickname can stick around for the rest of the year! But seriously, what happened to the Eagles this year? They ended last season as one of the hottest teams in the league, Vick had resurrected his career, McCoy was poised for a breakout season, and they still added Asomugha, Rodgers-Cromartie, Jenkins, Young, and Brown! I was to the point that I could understand injuries, but in the back of my head I kept thinking “One of these weeks, the Eagles are going to start cruising and not look back at all.” I thought their victory over the Giants was that week. A loss to the Patriots is understanding, but being embarrassed even worse by the Seahawks? This will probably go down in history as one of the more disappointing teams in NFL history. There was incredible hype surrounding the Eagles, Vince Young called it a “Dream Team,” and yet now Andy Reid (the longest tenured coach in the NFL) is staring down the barrel and could very well likely be fired at the end of the year. Perhaps it was the curse of trusting in Michael Vick, a harsh animal abuser, that put the Eagles in the doghouse this year. In honor of the Avenged Sevenfold concert I am going to this weekend (Woooooo!!!), I will leave you with some of their lyrics which the Eagles should have listened to. “Flesh is burning you can smell it in the air cause men like you have such an easy soul to steal. You should have known, the price of evil. And it hurts to know that you belong here, yeah. Ooooo, it’s your F-in Nightmare!”
FMQB 