NFL Thoughts, Week 9

I must first confess to barely watching any football this weekend. I only caught the first hour of the Jets-Redskins game—which did not exactly inspire me to put pen-to-paper—before flipping over to the Celtics-Raptors game. And then, although you’d think I’d be glued to my seat for the Patriots-Colts game, you’d be wrong, because I switched to the Bobcats-Heat matchup. My irrational love for a basketball franchise that is so inept that its major offseason acquisition was purchasing the domain name “bobcats.com” from some hillbilly breeders in Montana aside, I think it’s possible to hype games to a fault.

I might be and possibly am the only one who thinks like this, but I find that the level of attention a game receives actually has an inverse effect on the chances I’ll watch it. In an era with instant accessibility to highlights and analysis via the web, ESPN, podcasts, your cell phone, snappy Keith Olberman one-liners, etc., I find the net effect to be a reduction of the necessity of watching the actual games live. For me, ESPN actually defeats its own purpose with its perpetual motion hype machine, similar to movie trailers that give away the whole story. They set the stage so thoroughly that all I really need to know is the end state. I’m results-oriented and I have lots of competing interests (some of which are four-legged and a threat to urinate on my furniture at any moment), so if I have no rooting interest in either team, and I also know beforehand that I’ll have a 3+ hour affair boiled down to a compact, 2-minute package of key plays (complete with a shouting Bob Costas/Chris Berman narrative arc) if I just wait until it’s over, why bother sitting through it?

If only David Carr could condense his football games to two minutes. “I don’t think David deserves a lot of criticism,” FB Brad Hoover told reporters after the game. No, what he deserves is an ice pack. Carr ate the turf 7 times and threw for fewer yards than Adrian Peterson could probably pee after chugging a bottle of Gatorade. I’m starting to think Carr’s got one of those victim-mentalities, and getting sacked is all he knows. He’d probably be the type of lifetime convict who continues to commit crimes because he misses jail. And I had such high hopes for him when the Panthers signed him too. Not that he’s had any help. The defense has managed just seven sacks the entire season, our running backs are apparently still “a year away,” and Jon Beason is the only one who has distinguished himself amongst the younger players (Dwayne Jarrett is a few DNP’s away from becoming the answer to a trivia question).

Offensive Player of the Week: Adrian Peterson, Vikings. It’s hard to argue with breaking the all-time single-game rushing record. Adrian Peterson is like Michael Jordan on the ’86 Bulls: an incredibly magnificent rookie who elevates his team to…mediocrity. As an added bonus, he also SOUNDS like a 1986 Mike Tyson. Have you heard him in an interview? Some reporter needs to ask him to repeat the line: “I’m the greatest fighter in the world. I fear no man.”

Defensive Player of the Week: Shaun Rogers, Lions. 2.5 sacks, a pass defense, and a 60+ yard interception returned for a touchdown. He probably lost 5 pounds alone on that pick-six that lasted longer than a UAW negotiation.