Silence and violence

The Belichick Mafia is still every bit as tight as you heard. Cassel to the Chiefs is apparently a reality. We'll discuss next week.

The me in team

The NFL is unlike other professional sports leagues in the way coaches are given so much free reign over the formation of their teams. That is to say, there is an incredible value placed on a coach’s ability to choose who and how his team will play. Imagine, for example Larry Brown going to coach the Cavs and then reducing Lebron James’s role on the team because he didn’t fit Brown’s “vision for the team.” The notion is ridiculous; Brown would be expected to find a way for his vision to accommodate the considerable talents of a player like James. In other words, vision and reality would be forced to meet and create some new, unforeseen reality for the team, one different from the way things were but also not entirely dependent on the way the coach wants it to be.

This is what makes the stories coming out of Cleveland, such as Eric Mangini being lukewarm on Brady Quinn or the team trading away elite pass catching tight end Kellen Winslow for undisclosed draft picks (anything less than a second and fourth and they got ripped off) so disheartening for me as a fan of so much of the talent the Browns have stockpiled. Anyone who watched Mangini make the awkward switch form a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense understands the kind of frustration that results from a man forcing his identity onto a team and assuming that we, as fans, should embrace that change for the simple fact that he’s making it. While it’s no secret that I’m a proponent of football teams tailoring their systems to their personnel, and that forcing incredible talents into less than ideal schemes is frustrating, there’s something worse about what Mangini is doing here and has done in the past. Jettisoning talent in order to establish the identity you crave is worse than just poor management; it’s dishonest.

Winslow and Quinn are excellent examples of what’s going on here. If Mangini stooped to meet his players, he would be responsible for the progress they had already made. Excuses would be forced to address the fact that Mangini arrived to find several wonderful toys already in the closet, and any lack of resulting fun would be made that much less acceptable. Instead, Mangini now gets to lower expectations under the cover of creating a new identity. It’s rebuilding over a house that’s already there, and regardless of the flaws in the structure, removing everything to buy more time for a vision that may never even get 10 wins (which Mangini did once in New York…with a team that wasn’t “his people”…).

I suppose the real problem I have with this is that it sacrifices the potential of players who have proven that the can succeed for a vision that has done no such thing. Worse still, these players then float off into a league filled with coaches looking to establish their own visions, and unless their talents, however considerable, fit, they likely continue to float for a long time (Culpepper is a good, if flawed example). Sending Kellen Winslow does a lot of things, but it certainly does not make the Browns more talented than they were with one of the leagues best pass catchers on their team. Whatever Mangini’s hopes for the team are, are they so rigid that they can’t accommodate a player with a rare skill set at his position. If they are, can anyone be comfortable with a path for the future that is becoming narrower with every passing day? That kind of relentless pursuit of a singular vision can be admirable, but only when the vision is one that is worth pursuing. Going biblical, if the tree is already bearing bad fruits, doesn't that tell us all we need to know about the tree?

Football Fortune Cookie Wisdom 2-26-2009

Storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

Michael Vick will, as of July 20th, be freed from prison and transferred to a halfway house, marking the start of what could be the long road back to the league. Ignore the vaguely racist banter of both the article and the comments (and I like PFT, but come on...dude has already lost his reputation, his career, and a vast portion of what he owned...), and just remember that this is a man who made a mistake, but was nevertheless a tremendous athlete and a tremendously exciting football player. Anyone who watched him carry the Falcons on his back without any help from his receivers should be excited for him to at least get a shot at a comeback.

And, of course, there's the rub, because teams seem to be lining up as fast as possible to deny any interest in giving Vick a shot on their squad. This includes the losers, such as the Lions or the long quarterback-deprived 49ers, or even the Bucs, who never met a quarterback they didn't like (for at least a month, anyway...). Never mind that Michael Vick did almost two years and paid an unheard of price for a crime in which no people were hurt while we Leonard Little served an eight game suspension for his drunken role in the vehicular homicide of a human being. No, it's more important that each of these teams toe the line that the league has set its moral standing on for THIS issue, and heaven forbid that anyone experiment with their own stance on that morality.

It's bigger than X's and O's, people...

Football Fortune Cookie Wisdom 2-25-2009

The song remains the same.

Detroit GM Martin Mayhew has decided that he’s going to start using psychological testing as a part of the player evaluation process. This is stupid for two reasons:

1. They’re playing football, not holding weekly trust building exercises. Maybe pick a defender who can actually tackle, and forget about whether or not he’s going to spend his bye week wearing a suit made of human flesh.

2. It seems unfair to use this testing to evaluate potential players for the Lions. After all, if someone told you that you’d be playing for them soon, you probably wouldn’t be too psychologically sound either.

Massive Hysteria

Hurt - T.I.

Albert Haynesworth to the Redskins, and all of a sudden the world in the NFC East just got a lot more confusing. After all, if the Redskins one glaring weakness was an inability to disrupt the pocket with the front four, could there be a better solution than the one man demolition derby at DT? Furthermore, in a division built on apparent extremes of identity (Giants = Brutality, Eagles = Quick strikes, Cowboys = Relentless, overwhelming offense), have the Redskins become the most balanced team in the pack? Obviously, not everyone is as strong a believer in The Behemoth as I am, but you can’t deny that he made the big third year starter transformation into a reliable passer. Throw in a developing receiving corps with speed and (finally) size to boot, a linebacking corps that should finally see its athleticism unleashed on fewer blockers, and a defensive backfield that is older, but still cagey enough to take advantage of rushed pass plays, and this move is looking like a sea change in a division that routinely seems to morph from year to year.

That said, there’s always the fear with this team that big free agency moves will take the place of developing the considerable talent they’ve picked up through the draft (this has, in fact, become this team’s own extreme identity over the years). Doing so, and failing to build an offense that is big enough in scope to accommodate the considerable talent it has, would make Haynesworth almost useless to this squad, as a division with this kind of offensive firepower is going to put up points no matter what. As crazy as this sounds, especially with a player of Haynesworth’s considerable impact, he needs to become a piece facilitating the development of the team’s real focus, rather than the newfound focus itself. Otherwise, it’s just more wear and tear on an already frustrated Portis, and a year of wasted development for three second year pass catchers who could all develop into starters.

Or maybe they should just pay a bajillion dollars for Marvin Harrison. That also seems like a solid Dan Snyder move.

UPDATE: Well, apparently the Skins have downgraded to "pursuing" Haynesworth. This is what a down economy does to the league, I guess.

What Dreams May Come 2009 - Pat White

In order to prepare for the NFL draft (and survive the unbearably long offseason), we've decided to check in on this year's draft class from time to time and discuss some of the potential future characters of the League that stand out for some reason or another. To start things off, today, we discuss QB Pat White of West Virginia.

If this site is about encouraging fans to get behind players that force the league to innovate to match their talents rather than having them submerged into prefabricated schemes and coaching that tailors to personnel rather than personal preference, Pat White’s draft status is the litmus test to see if anyone else believes like we do. I’m not just talking about the round in which he’s selected, either. If that were the only issue, this wouldn’t be as serious as it is, and it wouldn’t have me on the verge of boycotting ESPN. Instead, the very right of Pat White, who did nothing but shatter records and win games under center at a BCS school, to even play quarterback at the next level is being called into question. You can feel it every time scouts discuss how he should try some receiver drills, or how his 4.5 second 40-yard dash makes him intriguing as an Antwaan Randle-El type of receiver, especially in the Wildcat era of NFL offense. The fact is that Michael Vick managed not only to ruin his own opportunity to change NFL offense; he’s made it where unparalleled athleticism is actually becoming a NEGATIVE trait for aspiring quarterbacks. But if I were Pat White, I’d pull a move that Seneca Wallace still has my respect for trying back in 2003: Burn the boats and insist that teams either draft me to play quarterback, or move on. Money isn’t going to be as big an issue as people are claiming (he’s likely not going higher than the third round no matter what), and as a quarterback, he could establish himself at worst as a starter, and potentially the iconic athlete-slash-quarterback that Vick and Young have, in their respective ways, left us wanting.

I understand that I’m prone to hyperbole, particularly when we’re talking about rare athletic specimens who can pass a ball that I feel are being underrated (FREE TROY SMITH), so let’s just let the numbers speak for themselves. 56 TD to 23 INT suggests that he takes smart shots through the air. The fact that his season TD total increased ever year of his college career suggests that he got better as he played many more games, which has always been one of the signs that a quarterback can succeed at the next level. His average yards per attempt hangs at over 7 yards, and that includes the bizarre regime change at head coach that could have derailed his ability. Oh, and I know we’re viewing this as a minus now, but he did break the NCAA record for rushing yards by a quarterback. Forget deserving a chance; if this weren’t the era of NFL GMs living in fear of anything that falls outside of their neat collection of marked terms (POCKET PASSER, WIlDCAT…), White would be a first round pick.

Instead, teams are desperate to hedge their bets, communicating as little as possible and willfully refusing to try and interpret the language of a player like Pat White. Does he have the gaudy passing numbers of Matt Stafford or Mark Sanchez? No, but those quarterbacks had to do what they did because they couldn’t do what Pat White could. Instead, Pat White won games and did so by forcing defenses to adjust to his skill set, only to eventually reveal that they had no idea just how expansive his skill set was. Indeed, what has been most remarkable about White has been his unique adaptation of his physical skills to the requirements of his position. Instead of sacrificing either craft or talent for the other, he has worked to make the two meet. His final bowl game against UNC, in which the UNC defense looked broken about halfway through the game, was like a showcase of what offense should look like. White threatened with his feet, then punished defenders for ignoring his aerial attack. At the NFL level, with better coaches (Bill Stewart seems like a nice guy, but a mastermind he is not), more talented wide receivers (other than Devine, none of White’s targets seemed to get the concept of “separation”), and a league that is starting to toy with the idea that there is no spoon in offensive game planning, White could become a catalyst for the future of NFL offense.



So no, he shouldn’t be a wide receiver. In fact, it’s insulting that teams are even considering using him as such. The notion that any football league, let alone the league that prides itself on being the pinnacle of the sport in both concept and execution, would banish a singular talent like White to the neat and soul-crushingly boring box of being an “Antwaan Randle-El” type ought to be offensive to the intelligence of every football fan. It’s like the league is telling us that we’re not comfortable with change because it has never, ever, EVER been comfortable with even a hint that things don’t need to be the way they’ve always been. I don’t care if it drops him two rounds; Pat White should not play a single down at wideout before he takes snaps as a signal caller. Truth be told, I could care less about White’s draft round, because if he goes late, at least then we’ll know that whoever takes him has no need for him to be something that he’s not, allowing him to be everything that he has the potential to be.

End of an Era – The surreal temporal existence of Herm

[At Herm Edwards's new job...]


McDonald’s Drive Thru Customer: Hi…um…I think I just want a double cheeseburger.


Herm Edwards: Come on, man!!! Are you kidding me?!? Why do we play?!? We play to win the game!!!

Customer: What?

Edwards: Let’s build on this!!!

Customer: The meal?

Edwards: Play to win the game!!!

Customer: Um, ok, I guess I could get the meal.

Edwards: Now we’ve got to get on a roll!!!

Customer: No, no I think I’m fine.

Edwards: What doesn’t kill you makes you strong!!!

Customer: No, please, that’s all.

Edwards: Ok!!! Give me two minutes!!!

Customer: Ok.

[20 minutes later]

Edwards: Let’s build on this!!!

Customer: Where the hell did you go?!? I’ve been waiting here forever!

Edwards: Two minute offense, baby!!!

Customer: That is absolutely ridiculous. And where the hell is my order?

Edwards; (/hands customer a cobb salad that is on fire)

Customer: What?!? McDonald’s doesn’t even SERVE this?!? And how the hell is it on fire?

Edwards: I put it in that microwave, and then I made some symbols appear, and then these numbers started shifting around!!! It was crazy stuff!!!

Customer: Are you joking me? That’s a clock, you jackass! Go get me your manager!

Edwards: Fine, just give me three fortminutes!!! (/leaves)

Customer: What? No, wait!!!

[3 hours later]

Edwards: (/returns)

Customer: DO YOU HAVE ANY CONCEPT OF TIME?!?

Edwards: Absolutely!!! Just ask my manager!!!











Art Shell: I can tell you that this man shows up every aftermorning at 23 b’glock, right on time.

Edwards: Let’s build on this!!!

Not the big breakup, but the other one

The Man Of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts - Sufjan Stevens

In an offseason that is surprisingly full of free agency moves and players leaving their respective squads (a topic whose significance is best handled over at fuhbaw by TiT amigo cian), a hefty amount of press has been devoted to the way fans feel about Brett Favre laving the game, this time for good (unless he hates his own legacy). Reactions from the national media are understandably fawning, but the press here in The City has taken one of the weirdest tones imaginable for a player of Favre’s stature. Rather than being heavy with reverence (understandable considering the legend), or kind yet ultimately indifferent (understandable considering the performance), the tone of much of the Favre discussion here has been this strange tension between "commanded" respect and derision, or at least disappointment, like devout Catholics trying to find a way to determine their least favorite Pope.

I have to admit that this matches my own feelings about Favre leaving, which makes the fact that he was ever here one of the most decidedly bittersweet experiences I’ve had with the league. I loved watching Brett Favre play, and was thrilled that I got the chance to see him play live, for my team, but at the same time I now find myself pushing him out of the way I view the team, and doing so happily. Sure, he used to be great; so did a lot of people. That doesn’t give him or them the right to use their past to manipulate my present, let alone the present of a city full of loyal fans of an organization. Maybe that’s the big difference between here and Green Bay. Even if he hadn’t performed in such mediocre fashion, here he was just a part of an already established history; there he became the history from which that team is still growing (or recovering, depending on who you ask).

As strange as the tone of the conversation here is, though, it strikes me as the most honest way to look at Favre now, regardless of where you reside. True, it would be wrong to let the melodrama and anticlimax of the past year cover the rest of his story, but the time in New York was still part of who he was. Indeed, it was even more true than the time in exile of Namath or Unitas. Those men were clearly just famous names attached to bodies that could no longer live up to them. Favre was still every bit the Favre who took the Packers to the doorstep of the Super Bowl last year. That might be what explains the undercurrent of anger in the way New York is looking at Brett right now. We weren’t just grasping at blind faith here; we were entitled to something more (look at the 8-3 record at one point if that seems presumptuous).

If all of this seems confusing, it’s because that’s the way these kind of subtle betrayals leave you. On the one hand, I don’t doubt that Brett Favre did everything he could to win. On the other, I remain convinced that he owed something more than he gave. The gap between those two measures is the rift that I think everyone here is wrestling with. We don’t know whether to feel glad that he’s gone, despondent about turning the team over to someone else, happy for his time here, or bitter that he didn’t give us what we remain convinced he could have, even if his performance on the field indicated otherwise.

Still, I don’t know if any of this is significant to anyone outside of The City. After all, unless you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to understand what rooting for Brett Favre is like (something that cian warned me about before the season began). I assume it’s something like that feeling I get when I drink to the point of blacking out, even though I’ve sworn to myself that I’m done with that (that charming “test pattern” time in your memory of the night before becomes less charming at a certain point). It was a thrill to get to that point, but no matter how many times you do it, you still leave feeling like you shouldn’t have let yourself get sucked in to the experience. This was the feeling I wound up with for the bulk of the weeks I spent pulling for Brett Favre to do enough to get out of messes that he would often be responsible for. Yes, I understand that was part of what made him great. But from someone on the inside, it was also part of what made his exit such an exhale of pent up frustration. And as fun as the whole thing was (and I’d be lying to say it wasn’t), it’ll be nice to breathe normal air again.

After the war

The Beginning After the End - ...

One thing that seems to have gone unmentioned amidst all the patting on the back for the Patriots for keeping both Matt Cassel and Tom Brady on their roster is the distinct possibility that after one of the best single season performances by a quarterback in recent memory, the career of Matt Cassel could be buried alive next year. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that you shouldn’t lose your job to an injury (karma STILL hasn’t stopped destroying the Bills for going Any Given Sunday on JP Losman), but it seems equally wrong that we’re about to take a stat sheet that includes an almost 2 to 1 TD to interception ratio, the 10th best QB rating in the league (and that includes Matt Schaub and Jeff Garcia ahead of him, both of whom threw over 100 fewer passes), and the 10th most TDs thrown this season, and we’re about to let it fade into obscurity. Up to this point, nobody appears to be approaching the Patriots to talk about a trade, and the Patriots seem keen on keeping their newfound talent on the bench as a backup plan to their golden boy. For anyone who’s team is struggling through the wasteland of having no clear options at quarterback, that should be infuriating (as a Jets fan, I’m at the front of this line); for anyone who’s a fan of dynamic offensive football, that should just be sad.

Yet all we hear about is one of two things. First, that this is a brilliant move by the Patriots. This is certainly the case, although it’s worth pointing out that this sort of absorption of the individual into the team is indicative of what has always made this team our favorite villain (which every story needs). The second, however, is more troubling. Somehow, with the franchise tag and it’s over 14 million-dollar deal established, all the talk has been about how Cassel’s performance has earned him this contract. I bristle at this talk, mostly because the idea that the arrival of a future star merits nothing more than a contract to sit and do nothing flies in the face of the view of football as a story built on stories. In short, Cassel didn’t just earn his new contract; he earned the right to craft his own place within the story of next season, and seasons to come.

This is what bothers me so much about the Patriots holding onto him to keep him on the bench. Here we have a player who has proven his ability to lead in a league where leaders under center are in high demand and as short supply as ever (this has been the case for a while; just look at the Matt Schaub deal from a few years back). Yet instead of watching him rise to take his place shaping the identity of one of the many lost offenses in the league, his incredible talent is being forced back underneath the blanket of already established stars. Where are the columns calling for any of the struggling teams in the league to offer the Pats anything they want for the chance to get a young quarterback with the talent to run a pass first, 11 win offense that was near unstoppable toward the end of the year? It’s as though we’re all uncomfortable with the idea of a seventh round backup breaking out of obscurity and seizing the kind of adulation reserved for draft picks whose stories are groomed for heralding (note that this is the EXACT reason why I have such tension with the Pats: They play the game better than anyone, and yet they feel the need to destroy identities in order to do so).

Obviously, it’s hard to feel sad for someone who is set to make over $14 million in one year. Still, I guess what I feel most sad for is the fact that if this lasts for a year, and the Patriots are able to keep everyone from getting Cassel, isn’t there a chance that we’ll forget all about him? That this will turn into some sort of sweet story (Jeff Garcia filling in for McNabb) instead of a star arriving, finally being given the opportunity to shape the story of the league (Kurt Warner on the Cards this season). Those stories need beginnings, and those beginnings aren’t always easy to come by. Letting one slip away just seems like something we’ll regret.

End of an Era – Jon Gruden will never, ever, ever work again.

[At Jon Gruden’s new job…]

Jon Gruden: YOU F**KING F**KS THINK YOU’RE GOING TO F**KING GET BY WITH THAT SH*T?!?! THIS HORSESH*T COULDN’T FERTILIZE A HORSESH*T TREE ON A HORSESH*T ORCHARD!! WHAT THE F*CK MADE YOU THINK THIS WOULD BE F**KING OK?!? YOU A**HOLES WANT ME TO F**KING LET THIS BY, LIKE THIS PURE UNADULTERATED SH*T SHOULD BE TOLERATED ON ANY F**KING BODY’S F**KING WATCH, LET ALONE MY F**KING WATCH?!? I OUGHT TO STICK MY FOOT SO FAR UP YOUR SS THAT I CAN F**KIGN USE YOU AS A F**KING TOE PUPPET!!! YOU SH*TF**KERS




















Child at Disney World: (/whimpers) But…but…I thought I was tall enough to ride space mountain…

Manager: This isn’t going to work, Jon.

The End of an Era - Mike Shanahan

[At Shanny's new job...]

Mike Shanahan: You absolute imbeciles! You incompetent fools! Do you really think you know better for yourselves than I, Mike Shanahan, THE ULTIMATE LEADER?!? Your every strategy has already been analyzed, deconstructed, reconstructed, and CRUSHED by my superior mental facilities! You inconceivably pea-brained MORONS!!!


McDonald’s Customer: Excuse me, but my son and I don’t have to take that sort of talk!

Shanahan: Why can’t you ignoramuses see that I’m simply being a master motivator! Yet somehow you still think it is appropriate to question my infinitely wise methods!

McDonald’s Customer: All we want is a Big Mac and a cheeseburger Happy Meal.

Shanahan: YOU HAVE THE SOPHISTICATON OF A TROGLODYTE! My planning and preparing have ggeared events such that you have no CHOICE but to order Chicken McNuggets, sliding your sodium levels to unprecedented heights and setting in motion my offensive scheme to corrupt your cardiovascular system.

McDonald’s Customer: That seems unreasonably complicated and overly dickish. Why would you do that?

Shanahan: BECAUSE THUS IS THE FATE OF THOSE WHO MOCK THE BRILLIANCE OF MICHAEL SHANAHAN, THE ULTIMATE LEADER!!!


Customer’s Kid: Daddy, why is the loud man hurting my eyes?

McDonald’s Customer: Because all that newfound free time of his is tearing through the Colorado supply of bronzing cream. Don’t look directly at him.

The big merci.

Never fear, because even though football season is done, we at TiT industries are going to be industriously industryfying over the entire offseason, including draft talk, a draft live blog, free agency, coaching changes, and any other minutiae to get us our fix while large men aren’t bashing helmets together.

Also, at this point it makes sense for us to thank out sponsors, whose ads you should be clicking. This includes www.barrystickets.com. Honestly, no matter what you need tickets for, Barry’s Tix is the place to go. Sporting events? They’re on it. Concerts? You bet. Crazy underground fetish events (BABY FIGHTING!)? We’re not at liberty to comment. The point is that if you like the blog, please support the people who support us.

Thanks for a great second season, and we’re looking forward to the offseason and our hat trick season.

The satisfaction of being unfulfilled

It's been no secret to anyone who reads this blog that this season has been a strange one, to say the least. So it's fitting that the final game of the year would be an equally strange mix of wild highs and opportunistic capitalization that has defined the entire year. On the one hand, there is Larry Fitzgerald emerging from the brink of Super Bowl irrelevance to prove that yes, the Cardinals did belong here. There was Ben Roethlisberger defying the notion of a quarterback as a byproduct of offensive protection, creating time where none should have reasonably existed. Then there was Santonio Holmes, who cemented his place in Steeler history by singlehandedly decimating the Cardinals defensive backfield on the final drive.

But at the same time, there were also the strange errors and questionable circumstances that have tainted the whole experience of the 2008 season. The final "fumble", the uncharacteristically dumb offensive play calling in the first half, the inability of either team to really utilize their greatest strengths to their advantage, all of these seemed to take away from the matchup, making the game itself less meaningful. The analogy would be Brady's injury at the start of the year, taking the entire contest of the season and bringing its significance into question. This whole year, in fact, has felt less like gladiators showing their strength than scavengers circling, waiting for the next opportunity to prowl onto the scraps and become king of the corpses. Fun to watch for any fan of strategy, but not exactly the stuff of inspiration.

And yet the game somehow felt alright. Really, can you ask for anything more than a fight that comes down to the last punch? True, it wasn't pretty, but it was every bit the fight that you would have wanted from these two teams, matching their paces for the season, if not their abilities. The Steelers setting the tone, the Cardinals defying the convention, and then the Steelers finding a way to make it all work despite the bumpy trip to the finish. If the season was disappointing because teams seemed to focus more on destroying the characters around them than etching their own into the league's story, at least this final conflict seemed to make sense of the chaos that brought both of these surprising survivors to the arena.

In the end, I suppose the real level of satisfaction with the game will be similar to the level of satisfaction with the season, depending on what images you choose to take with you. There are those who will be unable to erase Kurt Warner pelting a ball right into the chest of James Harrison, followed by Harrison stumbling behind bewildered offensive players, the end to a season built on mistakes, mishaps, and the inability to recover from either. That's a valid image. Then again, there are those who will remember Santonio Holmes grabbing a ball out of the sky that Big Ben manufactured time to throw, a meeting of two talents lifting each other up out of lowered expectations. That's a valid view, too. Perspective can be tricky like that.