NFL Thoughts, Week 2

Sorry I didn’t write earlier, but I was at an all-day conference on Monday. I had been holding out hopes that it wouldn’t last the entire day, but I knew I was in for a long one when the speaker opened things up with, “First I’d like for all of you in the audience to give yourselves a round of applause for being such special people yadayadayada…” That’s always a red flag when that’s the opening line, because it pretty much translates to, “I have nothing informative to say, so I’m just going to go for some cheap sucking-up.”

In other office news/tedium, I’ve been asked by the cleaners to please remove my coffeemaker from my desk, because it’s apparently a fire-hazard. This was frustrating, because I’m not sure this cheap little coffeemaker would be a fire hazard even if you actually struck a match and set it on fire. It’s a piece of garbage—literally, because I found it next to a dumpster one day and decided out of excessive cheapness to take it home and use it—so it’s no big loss, but I liked it because a) it allowed me to lazily avoid walking to the public coffee machine, a trek that’s got to be in excess of 50-feet, and b) the public coffee machine only allows for single-cup pouring, and I tend to ingest coffee in quantities of 3 or more cups at a time (I enjoy wielding a Dirty Harry-sized mug).

My professional frustrations were at least partially offset by the fact that I did get cable in time to catch the weekend NFL games. And boy, it’s great to see all the old faces again: 1) Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who looks and sounds exactly like Al Bundy would if Married...With Children had continued on to circa 2030; 2) Troy Aikman, who—like every other sports broadcaster—has for some reason not been able to grasp the grammatical concept of possessive nouns (instead of saying, “Brett Favre’s arm,” we get “the arm of Brett Favre,” see also: “the legs of Brandon Jacobs,” and—my personal favorite—“the electricity of Brian Westbrook”); 3) Randy Cross, who—also like every other broadcaster—has forgotten that defenses “defend,” not “defense” (Randy, the Jets were NOT having difficulty defensing the Ravens running game, they were having difficulty DEFENDING it); 4) Al Michaels, who—also like every other broadcaster—continues to add indefinite articles to players’ names (example: “That’s what a Tom Brady does for your offense,” as if Tom’s some sort of brand new kitchen appliance or something). With the good, however, also comes the bad: I don’t know why the Sunday night broadcast has gone with those odd-looking down-marker graphics that look like comic book speech balloons, and I hate how the Sunday night show has been stripped almost entirely of highlights. NBC’s doing away with them the way MTV did away with videos in favor of more “branded entertainment,” which essentially means lots of shots of Tiki Barber’s teeth, brought to you by Sprint. Maybe this wouldn’t be so annoying if I hadn’t had such terrible service from Sprint through the years; half the time I’m told I’m roaming even when I’m in my own house.

Not that I wanted to watch anymore than one play of the Panthers’ game. What a disaster. Ahman Green, who was deemed expendable by the PACKERS, mind you, averaged almost five yards a carry against us. And Andre Johnson is talented, but seriously, who else did Carolina have to worry about? I’m not sure Houston even lines up another receiver; I think they employ a 3-tight end/4-right guard formation most of the time, so I don’t know why the Panthers couldn’t focus better on Johnson. And I’m still puzzled by Steve Smith’s quote afterward: “We’re too up and down, too inconsistent. Reason why? I could speculate, but there’s no need to do that.” On the contrary Steve, there’s PRECISELY a need for that. This division is completely winnable, but not if we’re going to drop games at home to Houston. Someone better speculate and figure this out.

Offensive Player of the Week: Jamal Lewis, Browns. Hard to argue with 216 yards and a touchdown. Plus he allows me to continue my streak of making at least one convicted felon a Player of the Week.

Defensive Player of the Week: Rosevelt Colvin, Patriots. Two forced fumbles, two sacks, and an interception—Colvin was like a Scooby Doo villain for New England. With all the obvious suspects, in the end he was the real bad guy. If Randy Moss was the mean old owner of the haunted amusement park and Tom Brady was the creepy night watchman, Colvin was the quiet concessions stand worker. It was downright scary the way the Pats crushed the Chargers this week in late-80s Mike Tyson fashion, and just think: they were without Seymour and Harrison.