Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Football Loses A Star

BOY OH BOY, this one, like all who pass away so young, came out of the blue. Sean Taylor died early this morning from gunshot wounds just one day after taking a bullet in the thigh from an intruder at his Miami home.

Taylor, an all-pro safety with the Washington Redskins, was just 24 years old and leaves behind a young daughter and fiance. As an NFL player, Taylor combined the hitting prowess of a Roy Williams with the coverage ability of an Ed Reed, a rare combination in the defensive secondary.

During last year's Pro Bowl, Taylor laid one of the all-time big licks on Brian Moorman, the unfortunate AFC punter who was running for a first down after faking a punt -- a collision so vicious and violent that, although technically legal and not a penalty, seemed beyond the pale for what was after all an exhibition game. But that was how Taylor played the game going back to his Miami University days as an All-American, and it was that game-changing ability that led to his being selected #5 overall in the 2004 NFL draft by the Skins.

Taylor laid people out for a living, just biding his time on defense until he could deliver a bone-jarring hit on an unsuspecting wide receiver or running back who strayed across his part of the field. Nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of a trademark Taylor tackle, and every offensive player knew where he lined up and took great pains to avoid him at all costs, such was his reputation as one of the sport's fiercest hitters.


It seems tragedy is hanging over the NFL this year, especially in Washington, where Taylor's ex-teammate Shawn Springs has had to deal with his dad, former Cowboys running back Ron Springs, slipping into a coma recently, apparently related to last year's successful organ transplant surgery. Everson Walls, the former Cowboy, showed that words like teamwork and sacrifice have meaning far beyond the football field with his selfless act of donating a kidney to the elder Springs. Now the Taylor murder once again demonstrates that pro football, for all the joy and sorrow it brings to the millions of fans who "live and die" with the outcome of a game, is just that: a game played on Sunday afternoon for our entertainment and amusement. Let's all keep that in mind as the rest of the season plays itself out.

We were all forced to read that corny poem back in high school, To an Athlete Dying Young. Writing way back in the 19th century, A.E. Housman could not have foreseen the scourge of urban gun violence and the young victims it claims on a daily basis, but somehow re-reading those lines about senselessly dying before your time still resonates on a morning when another well-known young athlete is suddenly gone, never to play again.
"Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man."

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

NFL By The Numbers



The Week In Football

0 -- Miami Dolphins' win total after 10th straight loss, 17-7 to Philadelphia.The ancient Babylonians may have invented the concept of Zero, but it took the 2007 Dolphins to perfect it.

0.4 -- Eagles' QB Donovan McNabb passer rating in Miami game after going 3-11 for 34 yards with 2 INTs.

2 In A Row -- St. Louis Rams' win streak after losing first 8 games of 2007.

2 Clueless -- Number of referees standing right under goalpost who somehow managed to blow the call of Browns' Phil Dawson's game-tying 51-yard field goal at the end of regulation.

4 By 4 -- TDs thrown by Tony Romo and Tom Brady to Terrell Owens and Randy Moss versus Washington and Buffalo, respectively of course.

8 -- 49ers losing streak after winning first 2 games of 2007. By the way, the undefeated Patriots own the 49ers 1st-round pick in 2008, which is looking more and more like the second overall pick in the draft as the weeks go by.

82 -- Combined ages of starting quarterbacks Brett Favre (38) and Vinny Testaverde (44) in last Sunday's Green Bay-Carolina matchup, an NFL record.

8 to 0 -- Jaguars QB David Garrard TD to INT ratio after throwing 2 more TDs in 24-17 win over San Diego.

5 to 12 - Titans' QB Vince Young's TD to INT ratio after throwing 2 more INTs in 34-20 loss to Denver.

22 Skadoo -- Opening line by which Patriots are favored over Eagles in Sunday night game.

7 For 7 -- 7 TDs scored in first 7 Pats possessions versus Bills. Pats scored TDs on their last 2 possessions in previous game versus Colts, giving them 9 straight touchdown-scoring drives.

Perfect 10 -- New England, the 10th team to start a season at 10-0 since 1970, has outscored opponents 411-157, a difference of 254 points, for an average margin of 25 points per victory.

Sweet 16 -- TDs through 10 games for Randy Moss, 6 shy of Jerry Rice's record of 22 set in 1987.

26 -- TDs through 25 games as a Cowboy over last two years for Terrell Owens.

26 & 32 -- Joe Gibbs record in his second stint as Redskins coach.

33-30 -- Identical overtime scores in two Cleveland wins over Ravens and Seahawks separated by 15 days.

Great 38 -- TDs for Tom Brady on the year after throwing 5 more versus Bills, 11 TDs shy of NFL record of 49 set by Peyton Manning in 2004.

102.8 -- Yards per game receiving for Terrell Owens after catching 8 for 173 versus Washington.

105.2 -- Yards per game receiving for Randy Moss after catching 10 for 128 versus Buffalo.


Friday, November 16, 2007

Freestyle Friday

NO MOBS--NO CONFUSIONS--NO TUMULTS

Let's begin today with the often-crapulous "thoughts" of our fellow citizens.

In metro, one of our free papers here in NYC, there's a daily feature called "Today's debate" where some schmuck with a camera accosts three people on the street and asks them whatever shallow question is in the air at that moment. One such burning issue recently in the news is the preponderance of so-called hate crimes. Metro's roving reporter, or inquiring photographers, as they used to be called back in the day when every newspaper had one, posed the question this way:

"Why do you think hate crimes are up 20% in the City this year?"

The first person, a woman, responded thusly: "Not enough work, problems in the job market." Okay, I thought to myself, I can see that. I once took a sociology class at Hunter College called "The Economic Roots of Violence" or something like that, so I'm not averse to that mode of thinking.

But the second guy -- one Billy Amzallag, 49, a self-described business analyst from Brooklyn -- got even more specific: "Unemployment, rising real estate," he opined. "The job market is very tight." Wow! So I can't afford a house so let me hang a noose on someone's door or paint a swastika on the local synagogue. Damn mortgage rates! I'll teach you to adjust the prime rate, you Scalawag!
Earlier this week another raging debate played itself out in the pages of metro: "If the Writers Strike continues, what TV show would you miss most, and why?" The first two answers were nondescript, but the third one was a real winner. Juan Carlos Vargas, a 25-year-old architect from Long Island, showed off his solid grasp of pop culture by mentioning a show that has been off the air since May of 2006: "I'll miss Will & Grace because I really like Karen Walker." Way to turn the page there, Juan. Given that kind of superficiality, we'll be expecting big things from you in that whole building design thing, provided you eventually get past obsessing over a fictional television character.

It's amazing how these "Man in the Street" features always manage to find the three most uninformed human beings walking among us on any given day. But for sheer volume of uninformed, misguided and just plain batshit thought processes, sports talk radio is the forum of choice. After the Cowboys beat the Giants 31-20 last Sunday, New York fans demonstrated their complete command of the obvious, as demonstrated by the guy who called up WFAN the other morning with this trenchant nugget: "If you take away the first Romo TD when he crossed the line of scrimmage, and all the other Giant mistakes, it's a different game." Craig Carton rightly laughed the guy off the air, saying, Sure, if you take away all the TDs one team scores and eliminate all the mistakes, bad plays and penalties of the other team, guess what -- the outcome of a given game may indeed be altered in a substantial fashion. And if you took away some pertinent anatomy from your uncle, he'd be your aunt instead.

Speaking of Carton, he's half of the new morning team along with Boomer Eiasion that replaced Don Imus. At first I had written off the show because of advance word about Carton being sort of a typical morning zoo kind of radio personality, but you know what: he's not that bad, knows a lot about sports, and comes off as pretty sharp and witty. It's actually not as unlistenable as you might have expected. I still find myself switching between WFAN, ESPN and Air America in the morning before I leave the house. Years ago I listened religiously to music while getting ready for work, mostly WFUV, but my listening patterns have changed over the years. Just thought I'd share that with you while I was on the subject...

...and Speaking of Sports, I am not one of those spoiled Yankees fans who are Alex Rodriguez haters. In fact, I am smart enough to realize that this guy is one of the all-time greats in the history of the game. Not only that, but I also don't believe in booing a guy as long as he hustles and doesn't come up short in the effort department. But all that said, I do have to trot out one gigantic NEVERTHELESS when it comes to A-Rod returning to the Yanks with a big new contract.

Like most fans, I had already mentally turned the page and come to terms with an Alex Rodriguezless New York Yankees ball club next year. The way I figured it, we could NOT win a playoff series again next year WITHOUT him, just like we DIDN'T win one WITH him this year, thank you very much. It's kind of like after someone breaks up with you. At first it's tough, but once you've made up your mind to turn the corner and get your self-esteem back, the last thing you want is that person back in your life. Yet here comes Alex back into the fold.

Someone floated the theory that A-Rod is suddenly in a big hurry to get signed before the Mitchell Report on steroid use becomes public and his name gets mentioned prominently as a player who has used illegal performance-enhancing substances a la home run king Barry Bonds. That would serve the Yankees right for reneging their pledge to cut ties with A-Rod once he chose to opt out of his original contract. I know it bothered team captain Derek Jeter, who made recent comments to that effect. But Jeter may have more important things on his plate right now than taking jabs at his former BFF given news that New York State is seeking to collect millions of dollars in back taxes against him.

Another good Office episode last night with a conflicted Michael giving testimony in a deposition relating to Jan's lawsuit against Dunder-Mifflin. Have you noticed the commercials being run week after week during that time slot by companies like Career Builder and Monster are increasingly being geared toward the legions of dissatisfied, unfulfilled office drones and cubicle serfs that apparently make up the show's demographic? Makes sense...

I've watched the Caveman show on ABC almost every week since it debuted about six weeks ago, and after initially dismissing it as hideously unfunny, I have to be fair and admit that it's starting to grow on me like, well, the hair on a prehistoric man's arms. Is it just me or is this a burgeoning trend? Probably just a result of me not having cable television...
One popular series I've somehow managed to avoid up till now are the 40 or so different permutations of Law & Order spread over 40 or so different channels and time slots. But lately I've been regularly watching the Law & Order: Criminal Intent reruns being shown on Channel 9 at 11:00 in the New York area featuring the guy from Full Metal Jacket, Vincent D'Onofrio, and that blond woman (Kathryn Erbe) who plays the other detective. It's no Kojak, of course, but what is? Yet as far as the police procedural genre goes, it's pretty good: with believable plots, top-notch acting, and clever writing. D'Onofrio is excellent as the constantly fidgeting, intuitive cop who tries to get under the skin of suspects in the attempt to get them to slip up, and has a good understated chemistry with Erbe.

There was one episode on recently that I really liked concerning the murder of a college professor. One suspect, a grad student, was writing his dissertation on Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, which is a sure-fire way to keep me interested, as lyrics from that epic song on Highway 61 Revisited were being cleverly bandied about and woven into the storyline.

Saw something on the subway the other day that I had never seen in all my decades of riding the rails: An Asian woman reaching into her pocketbook and handing out two big corn on the cobs (or is "corns on the cob") to her young daughters, who proceeded to devour them with a ravenous glee. For some reason it really tickled me to see that.

I could go on, but I think you get the point...

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Tuesday Afternoon Cornerback








NFL Week 10 By The Numbers...


0 - Miami's 2007 win total after a 9th straight loss, this one 13-10 to Buffalo, increasing their very real chances of becoming Bizarro World cousins to the undefeated 1972 Dolphins team.

1 - St. Louis Rams win total after their upset 37-29 win on the road against a hot New Orleans Saints squad.

2 - Number of costly FG misses, including a 29-yarder late in the 4th quarter, by usually automatic Colts' K Adam Vinatieri in Colts 2-point loss to San Diego Sunday night.

3 - Number of costly delay of game penalties incurred by QB Eli Manning at his home stadium in the second half of Giants' 31-20 loss to Dallas.

4 - Number of home games for the 8-1 Cowboys in the next 5 weeks, including 3 straight versus Redskins, Jets and Packers.

5 - Sacks of Eli Manning by Dallas on Sunday, after Giants offensive line had surrendered only 8 total in the previous 8 games.

Pick 6 - Number of interceptions thrown by Eli's brother Peyton Manning in 23-21 loss to San Diego Sunday night, a new Colts record -- breaking Bill Troup's mark of 5 set in 1978.

Lucky 7 - Number of Field Goals kicked by Shayne Graham in Bengals' 21-7 win over Baltimore, none longer than 35 yards out.

8 Is Enough
-- Number of Tony Romo passes versus Giants in two games this year, including 4 to WR Terrell Owens.

Number 9 ... Number 9 ... Number 9 - Total wins New England will be stuck on after suffering their first two defeats of 2007: upset losses this week at Buffalo and next week at home versus Eagles. You heard it here (and likely only here!) first.

10...10...10 - Number of touchdowns, interceptions and fumbles on the season for Chargers' QB Philip Rivers.

11 - Number of TDs for WR Terrell Owens in 9 career games versus Giants.

12 - Number of Monday Night home games won in a row by Pittsburgh after last week's 38-7 dismantling of Baltimore Ravens.

Minus 18 - Total yards NOT gained on 8 rushing attempts by Detroit Lions versus Arizona Cardinals.

20-20 - Record of AFC teams versus supposedly weaker NFC in head-to-head games.

36 - Number of passes over 20 yards completed by Romo so far this year, most in the league and 3 more than Tom Brady, Carson Palmer and Derek Anderson.

71.7 - Former Dallas QB Quincy Carter's lifetime passer rating in 38 NFL games, with career completion percentage of 56.5.

74.2 - Lifetime passer rating of Eli Manning, with career completion percentage of 55.0.

245 - Where Giants' DE Osi Umenyiora, New York Daily News football columnist Gary Myers' 2007 Midseason Defensive MVP, ranks among defensive players for total tackles after finishing Cowboys game with zero solo stops and 2 assists.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Fiction Romance

“Should I be surprised if the dangers that have always wandered about me should at some time reach me?” – Seneca

Ted watched Julie talking to his father and the thought that flashed through his mind was, he wished he still loved her.

He leaned back in the Barca-Lounger and continued to look at the two of them, although in the din of the living room’s conversation, he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying to each other. But it was obvious they were getting along.

From where he sat, his vision partly obscured by two enormous potted spider plants, he felt sneaky somehow, as if he wasn’t supposed to be staring at the two of them.

He was convinced she was crazy. Not eccentric, odd, offbeat – no, she was just plain crazy. But that wasn’t why he didn’t love her anymore, or why he didn’t like her even. He could tell by the glow in his mother’s eyes that she thought this was the one, her future daughter-in-law, who would supply her with grandchildren – more grandchildren to add to his sister’s two kids. But he knew this wasn’t the one.

They met on the train, but he told everyone they met at a party.

When she eats, she looks like a lost child, her entire effort spent on the task at hand… using her fingers in place of a fork. No matter how hungry she was, she took her time.

Their first date, a movie, they bought the tickets ahead of time and went to a cheap steakhouse on Times Square, had 45 minutes before showtime, they just made it, her taking a bite and talking, another bite, another five minutes nonstop talking. It was cute, but then he rushed her at the end. Then she had to go to the bathroom again and he sulked while he waited, in danger of missing the beginning of a film, which he hated.

The thought occurred to him that she had no one to talk to, no one who would listen. Of course.

She had been in New York less than two years, he learned on the walk uptown. One good thing about her was she didn’t mind walking, loved to walk and talk, the city was still new to her, so she pointed out everything that he was too jaded to notice anymore.

She was just making it, less than making it, going whole days eating nothing but chocolate bars. He felt sorry for her, she was pretty, and if it wasn’t love it was close enough to build on.

Her apartment was big enough, but not worth the money she was paying for it. He felt like going to the landlord and bitching because nothing worked. The kitchen light, the gas, the hot water in the bathroom sink. And no furniture, just a mattress on the floor, a suitcase, and a small plastic stand with a few shelves she used to put her socks and panties in.

The first time in her apartment they sat on the mattress, listening to the soundtrack from Dr. Zhivago, her choice, and he kissed her and pushed her back and felt for the snap on her jeans. She resisted, but only for a second, and then he was on top, taking his own pants down, never taking her eyes from hers. Big brown eyes, childlike, unquestioning, full of wonder. When it was over she held him close for a long time, as if they had just been through something uncharted. He flipped the tape over and looked out the window as he lit a cigarette.

She had no phone so he had to call her at work. She told him she couldn’t really talk on the phone, so he ended up going to her job and making plans with her that way.

Their fourth or fifth date she started talking about her past, growing up in Wisconsin, her parents divorce. Her parents put her in a school for slow children until ninth grade, and she resented them greatly for it. She was raped by one of her classmates at age 15, and she couldn’t really enjoy sex because of it, didn’t like sex, it was best if she stayed celibate, it was easier that way. He took it as his mission to get her to enjoy it, viewed it as the key to all her problems.

One day she took a shower in his apartment and he saw her diary sticking out of her bag. Her handwriting was terrible, barely contained in the wide lines of the book. Sprawling was the word that came to mind. It embarrassed him to read it, not because he was uninvited, just the glimpse into her world has startled him. Childlike poems full of birds-blue sky-tomorrow’s another day sentiments. Cries for help like, I wish I could fit in with other people, be part of a team. And aphorisms like, when you don’t have money you think you’ll be happy when you get it, but then when you get it you realize it’s not that important.

When he heard the water shut off he snapped the book shut and put it back in the bag.

When she came out of the shower, fully dressed, towel around her head, the first thing she asked him was, did you like my diary? Rather than lie to her, he said he had and he enjoyed it. She didn’t get mad, instead took the book from the bad, sat down next to him on the mattress and began reading from it, evidently a play about three dead children and a friendly spirit. It was all too much for him.

After a month he realized it was pity for her and his own loneliness that kept him going back. She never called him, but was always happy to see him, and yet he couldn’t tell if she loved him or not. He liked a little mystery, he told himself, and what’s the difference anyhow, since he was sure he didn’t love her. But he liked to be with her, imagined himself her protector, her catcher in the rye.

He liked to just look at her when her attention was elsewhere. Sometimes she looked plain frightened, other times bewildered and confused. But always pretty, her orange hair falling in her eyes and getting in her mouth, and she would blow it away distractedly from the side of her lips.

“I run to work,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I run. In the morning. From my house to the train.”
“In those things?” he asked, pointing to her loafers.
“Yeah. Why not?
“Well, I could see if you were late or something, once in a while, but otherwise, it’s not ladylike.”
“Well, I just like to run.”

Her schedule at work was different every day, but they took the same train, so they agreed to always take the first car, and so about twice a week they would run into each other. They would read the paper together until she got off at 14th Street saying “You have a nice day, okay?” in that loud singsong voice of hers, and that would brighten up his day, seeing her in the morning.

One day it crossed his mind to ask her to move in with him. He would say roommates when he asked her, but he was thinking lovers. He was tired of living alone anyway. And splitting the rent would be like getting a raise. He could get her out of any lease, there were a thousand different ways to do that, and it wasn’t like they needed to rent a moving van to get her stuff over to his place.

He started to get ahead of himself, imagining them cooking dinner together and watching TV, huddled together on the floor with a blanket over their laps.

When she said no that weekend, he took it as a challenge to convince her otherwise, in subtle ways, without directly bringing it up again. She liked the feeling of independence, she said, living on her own, wanted to prove she could make it on her own.

She always talked about having kids, even had the names picked out: Yuri and Andre. Two horrible names, he thought, absolutely ridiculous. No man is ever gonna let her hang those awful names on his kids, especially me. It’s Alexander for a boy, he knew that much.

Three months into it, she got pregnant, or so she said. He couldn’t believe it, and asked her if she had made love to anyone else. She paused for too long and now he knew a story was coming.

It was simple really, the way she told it. She was shopping at the supermarket the first day in her new apartment, and left the store at the same time another man was leaving. They made small talk, he asked her if he could help with her bags, and before she knew it he was right outside her apartment door, then inside the apartment with her, and then they were doing it. Doing it, that’s how she put it.

He was really pissed. Even though it happened before they were going out, to him it was the act of a slut, and he told her so. She started to agree with him and then her words were choked off by tears.

He felt bad for making her cry, but how stupid to let someone in right off the street, he thought, and how could he be sure it wouldn’t happen again tomorrow.

They went for a blood test. He hoped it turned out not be his so he could walk away from her without any guilt. And that’s what he would have done, he was convinced, but when he learned it was his, he was overwhelmed by the thought of being a father.

The smart thing to do, if not the right thing, was to abort. But it never was seriously considered by either of them. He was 31, she was 27, each still children in their own ways, and so maybe it was time to grow up.

Where before they had never argued, however, now they began fighting about the name for the kid, about how they were going to pay for medical expenses, whose apartment they would move into. It was fast turning into a nightmare, and the unanswered questions made his head spin.

On top of this, he had accepted an invitation for them to go to his parents for Sunday dinner the coming weekend. A big mistake, but then last week it didn’t seem so bad. He just hoped she wouldn’t do or say anything that would mortally embarrass him. True, they were only his parents, but they had a way of complicating his life in a myriad of ways.

He rehearsed her as to what she should and shouldn’t say in front of his parents. First of all, of course, she should in no way bring up the fact that she’s pregnant. Everything else was minor in comparison, but he was still sick to his stomach that she would blabber away any number of disturbing things. He had watched her before as she told total strangers things about herself that were best left unsaid in any company, and he cringed at the vision of her doing it again in front of his parents.

--BW

Friday, November 09, 2007

Joined In Time

Good news and bad news for the upcoming weekend...

The good news is that I will be working Saturday and Sunday for a small midtown ad agency that needs the expert assistance of a leading freelance proofreader to help them through a project. (Apparently they couldn't find that person so they settled for me.) The bad news is that it looks like I'm gonna miss the big clash between the Cowboys and Giants set for 4:00pm Sunday, with first place and bragging rights on the line.

Ironically, almost exactly a year ago (11/12/06), I missed the Cowboys' win over Arizona on another Sunday afternoon when I also had to work, only that day I had a catering gig instead of a proofreading project.That game was notable as it marked QB Tony Romo's first career 300-yard passing performance, and we can trace his current status as one of the NFL's bright young stars to those first few games.

In fact, the 27-10 win over the Cardinals on that day was only Romo's third start at that point, all road games (at Carolina, Washington and Arizona). He went 2-1 in those games en route to starting his career 5-1, and his star has only risen steadily since then.

The 27-year-old Romo now has 18 starts under his belt, and has led Dallas to a 13-5 record in those games. He has thrown for over 300 yards in 8 of those games, an incredible percentage in such a small sampling. And I doubt too many QBs in NFL history threw 35 TDs in their first 18 starts.

To put his great start in perspective, Hall of Famer Troy Aikman played 12 seasons and threw for over 300 yards a franchise-best 13 times. But Romo has a long, long way to go if he's ever gonna come within spitting distance of Brett Favre; the Green Bay legend has come back with a vengeance this year after last season's disappointment, surpassing 300 yards 5 times this year already after only 3 such games in 2006, and he will likely add a few more 300-yard games to his career tally of 52!

Obviously, Romo's mannerisms, joy for the game, and gunslinger mentality remind many of Favre -- the QB he grew up idolizing -- but to me the touch on his passes and cool pocket presence bear more of a resemblance to 49er great Joe Montana. But I'm sure any Cowboys fan would take a hybrid combination of the two in a heartbeat.


NFL.com has an interesting poll question on their Website this morning, asking fans: "Which player would you most like to have to be the cornerstone of your franchise?" Listed are:

Tom Brady
Adrian Peterson
LaDainian Tomlinson
Peyton Manning
Tony Romo
The very fact that Romo is even listed among such upper-echelon talent says a lot about how far the undrafted QB from Division 1-AA Eastern Illinois has come in such a short time. Brady, as you would expect, leads the voting at 36%, followed by Manning (24), Peterson (20), fresh off his dismantling of the all-time NFL rushing record, then Romo (12) and LT (6). Brady was himself only a 6th-round pick back in 2000, and despite 3 Super Bowl wins and years of dating supermodels, is still only 30 years old. Peyton Manning is in his 10th season now, and the 31-year-old shows few signs of slowing down. In fact, the case can be made that a QB's prime years are often his early to mid-30s.

Now, obviously I'm speaking as a severely biased Cowboys fan, but age considerations aside, right now there are only 2 QBs I would swap straight up for Romo -- Brady and Manning. Two other top-flight QBs -- the Saints' Drew Brees and Bengals' Carson Palmer -- would also merit serious consideration. The only factor eliminating Favre, having a terrific 2007 season, is his advanced age. Otherwise, based on intangibles like upside potential and leadership as well as more black-and-white elements like statistical performance, Dallas fans should thank their lucky Blue Star that things worked themselves out precisely as they did.

And let's not overlook the decisive role one Bill Parcells played in not only taking a chance on the longshot Romo in 2003, but seeing enough of him in 2004, 2005 and 2006 to keep Romo on the roster through the QB carousel that saw Quincy Carter, Vinnie Testaverde, Drew Henson and Chad Hutchinson spinning around the position as starters after Aikman called it quits. Remember, it wasn't enough to keep Romo hidden on the Practice Squad, where any other team had a chance to claim him, but Parcells wisely kept him on the 53-man roster through most of his four seasons as Cowboys' head coach. It's that confluence of sheer luck, good timing and business sense that leads to a Tony Romo ending up on one team versus another, or making it in the league at all.

More than half a century ago, a certain Pittsburgh-born QB was drafted in the late rounds by his hometown Steelers in 1955 but was cut before the season began. The unheralded QB had a good but not great college career, splitting time as a senior with another player while passing for only 527 yards. His release from the Steelers forced him to take a construction job to support his wife and young child, but on weekends he played semipro football for $6 a game.

The next
season he was offered a tryout by the Baltimore Colts. He made the team as a backup QB, and a broken leg suffered by the starter in the 4th game forced him into action against the Bears. He completed his first pass -- but it was to the other team and returned for a TD. He botched the next play too, a fumbled handoff that was recovered by Chicago en route to a 58-27 rout of the Colts.

But the QB improved over the course of the year, leading the Colts to upset wins over Cleveland and Green Bay. And while he threw for 9 just TDs on the year, a scoring pass in the season finale would begin a string of 47 straight games with at least one TD pass -- an NFL record that still stands despite the wide open, pass-happy game pro football would become. He also would become the first NFL QB to throw for over 40,000 yards in a career.

That QB, of course, was the legendary Johnny Unitas, which just shows how destiny, fate and fortune interact in the National Football League -- still the greatest sport ever devised in the history of mankind.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Wednesday Afternoon Monsterback

HERE WE SIT at the unofficial NFL Season Halfway Point, as good a time as any for a fan like me to take stock of himself, his team and his sport.

But who am I kidding? Ya know I gotta start off with Cowboys QB Tony Romo's brilliant night in Philly -- going 20-25 for 324 yards and 3 scores. Romo started off a symmetrical 9-9 for 99 yards and never looked back.

Playing in the most hostile venue for a Dallas player, and starting his first game since signing his first mega contract, Romo passed the latest big test with flying blue & silver hues. When you can remember all of a QB's incompletions on the night, you know he played an efficient game against the blitz-mad Eagles -- an overthrow of TE Jason Witten on a deep left seam pass, a drop by Witten where it looked like the CB grabbed one of his arms before the ball arrived, a pick by Sheldon Brown where Romo had WR Pat Crayton open but didn't lead him enough, a first half throw behind T.O., and then a missed fade route in the end zone. That's it. The rest of the game Romo made all the throws, including some amazing touch passes on the run outside the pocket to RB Marion Barber.

Writing for the New York Daily News, Gary Myers is master of the cheap shot when it comes to anything Cowboys-related. His Sunday NFL column took a shot at Romo, questioning giving a player with only 17 starts such a lucrative contract. Myers wrote that Romo has parlayed a "great personality" and a 12-5 record into a 6-year deal worth close to $70 million, while Tom Brady signed his own 6-year, $60 million contract after leading the Patriots to 3 Super Bowl wins. As usual, Myers displays his stunning lack of knowledge as well as his proclivity for lazy reporting.

Myers wrote a column lampooning Jerry Jones for hiring a "retread coach" like Wade Phillips in the first place -- never once suggesting the coach he would have gone with in his stead. I'd say Jones did okay by getting not only Phillips, who has to be in the running for Coach of the Year honors by virtue of leading Dallas to a 7-1 record, but also hiring offensive coordinator Jason Garrett at the same time.

What Myers fails to mention is that Brady signed his contract in May of 2005, almost 2 1/2 years to the day Romo signed his. Even a hack like Myers knows the market for top QBs only goes up. Romo's deal is in line with what guys like Rams QB Marc Bulger and Texans QB Matt Schaub are making. Only a sorry drag of a human being like Myers would begrudge a guy like Romo, who as an undrafted free agent signed a deal with Dallas for $10,000 in 2003, even though he could have made more with both Arizona and Denver (Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, like Romo, played QB at Division 1-AA Eastern Illinois, as did Sean Payton -- now Saints head coach but back in 2003 a Cowboys assistant coach under Bill Parcells). This is not a first-round pick who signed a huge bonus-laden contract upon entering the league or who, like the Giants Eli Manning, forced the hand of the team who drafted him (San Diego) into trading him to a team in a market he wanted to play for (New York).

Myers seems to be implying that Romo somehow hoodwinked Jones and the Cowboys into a long-term deal based on such a small sampling of games by sheer force of his "personality" -- again, as with the Phillips hire, not telling his readers what he would have done if he were Cowboys management: not sign Romo, wait until the end of the year, try to lowball Romo, franchise him?
Again, all it would have taken is a call to one of the Cowboys beat writers. That's what a real journalist might have done. But Myers is a world-class shill for the New York teams, and probably thinks cheap-shotting the Cowboys plays well with his readership. Back in the reality-based universe, all the Cowboy writers were clamoring for Jerry Jones to sign Romo months ago. They had seen enough of Romo to convince themselves that Romo was the real deal, whose price was only gonna go up the longer Jones waited.

In the same article, Myers shares his half-season awards. He is probably the only NFL writer in the nation who picks the Giants' Osi Umenyiora for Defensive MVP. Now, Umenyiora is not having a bad year, with 8 sacks, but 6 of those came in the Eagles game against a rookie backup OT, Winston Justice, who is not likely to see the field again for a long while. He has 26 tackles for the season, and has accumulated those totals against severely offensively challenged teams like the 49ers, Dolphins, Falcons, Jets and Redskins. I would select about 5 other defensive players before I even considered Umenyiora.

Sports Illustrated's Don Banks, for instance, a far superior writer than Myers in every way, goes with KC's Jared Allen (8 1/2 sacks in 6 games), then lists the Pats' Mike Vrabel, Titans' Albert Haynesworth, Umenyiora and Packers' Aaron Kampman for honorable mention.
To that list I would add Tampa Bay's LB Barrett Ruud, second in the NFL with 79 tackles, and Cowboys LB DeMarcus Ware, 46 tackles and 7 sacks on the year. In fact, there are 5 players with as many or more sacks than Umenyiora: Allen, Kampman, Vrabel, Arizona's Darnell Dockett, and the Eagles DE Trent Cole, who leads with 9.

One reason you have to like the Cowboys' chances this Sunday in their NFC East showdown against the Giants is the improved play of their offensive line. Starting tackles Flozell Adams and Marc Columbo dominated against Philadelphia -- Adams holding Cole to 4 tackles and zero sacks, Columbo keeping DE Jevon Kearse completely off the stat sheet while the Cowboys accumulated 434 total yards. Holding the bookend DEs Mike Strahan and Umenyiora in check goes a long way toward nullifying one of the Giants' main strengths as a team.

A few weeks ago Peter King, also of SI, declared he was unimpressed with the Cowboys' 24-14 win over Minnesota as part of his explanation why he was dropping Dallas behind Jacksonville and San Diego in his league rankings, itself an exercise in uselessness. Dallas dominated the line of scrimmage against the Vikings, at one point holding a 250/77 advantage in yards gained, but a few fluke plays including a fumble return for a TD kept the Norsemen in the game. Dallas also held rookie sensation Adrian Peterson in check (12-63), no small feat considering this guy might be the best RB the league has seen since Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith were in their primes -- yes, he's already better than LT.

Well, King is sort of like the anti-Nostradamus. AFC "powerhouse" San Diego (14-2 in 2006) travels to Minny and gets stomped 35-17 by the Vikings. The Vikings outgained the Chargers by 299 total yards (528-229), and were absolutely "posterized" for an NFL record 296 yards rushing by Peterson.

Jacksonville had a road game against 3-4 New Orleans, who are slowly starting to right their ship after an 0-4 start. How did the Jags defense stack up against QB Drew Brees, RB Reggie Bush and the rest of the Saints offense? Let's put it this way: not very well. Jacksonville gave up a franchise-worst 538 yards in the 41-24 beating, allowing Brees to shred them for a mind-boggling 445 yards through the air. Everyone keeps saying the AFC is a far better conference than the NFC, but how can you explain games like these two "nolo contenderes" as well as the Packers' road blowout of Kansas City and Detroit's demolishing of Denver?
Fox sideline reporter Tony Siragusa appeared to be serious when he came up with this most novel defense of Bill Belichick against criticism that he needlessly ran up the score in the Patriots' 52-7 win over Washington a few weeks ago: Belichick did not want to look foolish if the Patriots were to let up, since it was still technically possible for the Redskins to come back from, say, the 45-0 deficit early in the 4th quarter if they were to recover 6 straight onside kicks. That's what Siragusa -- a poor man's Art Donovan and blustery loudmouth who looks like an extra from The Sopranos -- said to a host on WFAN-Radio the other day, and nobody called him on such foolishness. Surely we're not the only ones who believe that Siragusa is not even remotely amusing, but that his brand of smug dumbness (or dumb smugness) ruins whatever games he appears in.

Howie Long, usually a voice of reason on the often-lame Fox studio show who comes across as intelligent, prepared and dignified -- everything Siragusa is not -- has a son playing major college football. Chris Long, a senior Virginia DE, is making a name for himself with 12 sacks on the year, along with 16 tackles for a loss. And younger son Kyle, a mere 6-7 and 280, is a high school senior lineman weighing offers from both major college football and baseball programs. Pretty good genes there.

In his last two games, Saints QB Drew Brees is sizzling: 66/88 for 781 yards, 7 TDs and no INTs. That could be bad news for the rest of the NFC contenders.

Dallas manhandled a pretty good Eagles defense according to the numbers. Before the Cowboys rang up 5 TDs against them Sunday night, Philly had given up only 8 TDs total on 77 possessions in the previous 7 games.

At least some of Tony Romo's storybook ascension from raw, unproven practice squad player to successful starter has to go to QB coach Wade Wilson, a 17-year veteran of the NFL. And it seems like a long time ago now, but QB Rex Grossman had his best season in 2006 while Wilson held the same position with the Bears. If Wilson can work such a miracle with the beleaguered Grossman, who is actually a half-year younger than the flourishing Romo, then that says a lot about his coaching acumen.
Tommy Tighe works in studio for Westwood One's Sunday NFL Radio broadcasts and is known as a master pun maker who incorporates clever wordplay while delivering the day's scores and highlights. He had a good one last week on the Green Bay-Kansas City game: "Sorry about that, Chiefs. Packers get smart and 86 Kansas City," quipped Tighe, in a nice homage to Get Smart, the great 1960s sitcom created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. It's amazing how witty Tighe gets with just about every game, considering he's doing it on the fly and often delivering these lines just minutes after the scores are in.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Sunday Serenade

Without further ado, a heady melange of sports and such like...

It's Halftime for most of the 1:00 NFL games now, and by my decidedly unofficial count, we've already had three long touchdowns via return -- two standard kickoff returns by the Jets' Leon Washington and Maurice Jones-Drew of Jacksonville, and one 109-yard return of a missed field goal by San Diego's Antonio Cromartie. And that's only midway through the early games.

Sooooo nice to see No. 2 Boston College get beat last night by Florida State -- dashing their championship dreams as well as the Heisman hopes of QB Matt Ryan. As I said, anything New England-related and I wish it the absolute worst short of death by immolation. For now...

My nephew P.J. is down in Miami on vacation, and he left me a message Friday night telling me he just met Hall of Famer Michael Irvin and couldn't get over what a nice, down to earth guy he is. Hell, I could've told him that. He was the glue that held those Dallas Super Bowl teams together.

Funny thing. A few weeks ago I had jotted down in one of my trusty memo pads (which I have dubbed my Acoustic BlackBerries) that Amani Toomer is now the Giants' all-time record holder for Touchdown passes caught with only 49. I thought that was a pretty shabby amount for a franchise that's been around seemingly since just after the Crimean War. But I never got around to writing about it here on Warden's World. Then I pick up The Onion the other day (Nov. 1-7 issue) and in their sports section is the following: "Amani Toomer Breaks Giants' All-Time Receiving Touchdown Record With 14." So you see, warped minds think alike.
Just to put it in perspective, or what others might call belaboring the point, the Dallas Cowboys leaders in the same category are: Bob Hayes with 71, the aforementioned Mike Irvin with 65, then Tony Hill with 51, Frank Clarke with 50, and Drew Pearson with 48. Not only did all these players' careers span fewer years than Toomer, who's been a steady player for 12 years now, but the Cowboys franchise came into the NFL as an expansion team in 1960, with no extra draft picks, just castoffs from other players. And I'm sure most other teams have receivers who caught well more than 50 TDs holding their records.

Which is a roundabout way of saying the Giants have not had that many teams that were offensive juggernauts through the years. Even on their two Super Bowl winning teams, which were obviously driven by the defensive side of the ball, the receivers were below average. Granted, they had a great tight end in Mark Bavaro, but the WR position was manned by the likes of Earnest Gray, Stephen Baker, Bobby Jackson and Mark Ingram. Factoring in that Phil Simms played in one of the windiest and coldest stadiums for all those years, as well as who he was throwing to, and maybe he should be reconsidered for the Hall after all.

Chris Russo, know-it-all loudmouth heard daily in New York on WFAN sports radio, has picked 23 NFL games against the spread this season, and has come up a winner but six times! However, that 6-17 record will in no way impinge on his making hundreds more debatable observations on his next show that as always confuse his own opinion with objective fact, with a degree of absolute certainty commonly found among the truly mentally ill.

Have you heard those
lame-ass radio spots for the Versus Network featuring Dennis Miller? He's apparently for some ungodly reason being given yet another chance to fail with a talk show on that obscure cable channel. But if the ads contain material that they are highlighting, I can only cringe at what the outtakes contained. On the promos I heard on WFAN, one of the "jokes" Miller launches goes as follows: "You know, calling big-time college football players student-athletes is like calling Doctor J an MD." I'm not kidding. Then it's this beaut: "Reading the sports pages these days is as painful as watching Britney Spears dance." Good god, man, stop. But he doesn't.

"Of all the sports on Versus," sellout Miller intones in that by now nauseatingly canned delivery, "I know the least about bull riding. Now, bullshitting -- that's my stock in trade." And mercifully the commercial eventually ends. Now based off this painfully wooden attempt at comedy, who in their right mind would tune in for more of Miller's trademark scripted "ad-libs"? I'm guessing not a lot of fucking people.


Speaking of washed up comics, I am really getting sick of Jerry Seinfeld and his non-stop shilling for his dumb animated kids movie. What an outright bore this guy is now. He's done nothing since Seinfeld ended except release overpriced DVD sets of the by now played out sitcom. Who the hell would buy the DVD of a show that's on TV like 10 times a day!

First he flies over Cannes in May wearing a bee suit to promote his upcoming movie. I don't know, but when I read about that I thought to myself that only a gigantic jackass would do something like that. His actions of the last few months have only solidified that feeling in my mind.
Seinfeld now comes off not as the likable, unassuming guy he portrayed in "Seinfeld" but as a greedy, narcissistic blowhard. What other conclusion can you draw about a guy who goes on talk shows and gives interviews while saying stuff like: "There is nobody I can't talk to who wouldn't have any idea who I am. I mean, I can call people like, say, Oprah..." Aside from the convoluted grammar, the egotistical sentiment behind it is even more deplorable. He only called up Oprah and asked her to be in his movie because he thought it would generate X amount of publicity and lead to X amount of additional revenue that he can spend on more vintage cars or whatever it is he collects. Real deep guy here. When you think of talent as it equates to how much money a person has, Seinfeld may just have made the most of one with the least of the other, if you get my drift.

I loved it when his gold-digging wife came out with a cookbook about getting kids to eat healthy and it turned out many of the recipes were flat-out ripped off almost verbatim from a real person's cookbook. How low is that? Of course, Seinfeld defended his wife, but just the way he conducted himself in this episode was further proof of the monumental level of his obnoxiousness, as he called the writer of the other cookbook a "wacko" who was looking to cash in on his fame and said something like, why would my wife need to rip someone else off when she has more money than she knows what to do with.

What a creep Seinfeld has become, describing himself as "
old, tired and rich" in recent interviews. I would under no circumstances short of violent abduction watch this cynically over-hyped, overpromo'd and overmarketed piece of garbage. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in Renee Zellweger for appearing in this CGI-enhanced drek, and of course she will hear about it when I run into her at our next social gathering. When the revolution ultimately comes, Seinfeld will be one of the first to go in the new Puritanical Sparta I envision taking shape in America after Unbridled Greed has run its course.

Switching gears to talk about people who are still actually funny, we've now had six new episodes of The Office this season -- four hour-long and two half-hour shows. But riddle me this: why are the half-hour episodes somehow twice as funny as the hour-long ones? The other night was the best of the year, with Michael, Jim and Dwight visiting the branch run by Karen in an attempt to stop her from poaching "talent" from the Scranton branch. Whatever gets more Karen into an episode is okay by me. (By the way, did you know she's Quincy Jones' daughter in real life? I know, I know, you can thank me later.)

Rented Factotum the other night, the movie based loosely on the Charles Bukowski novel with a real good cast of Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei. But it was one of the supporting actors who appeared in just a couple of scenes that caught my eye. At first I couldn't quite place who she was, but then it came to me who the attractive redhead was: Adrienne Shelly, the actress who was murdered in her Greenwich Village apartment almost a year ago (11/1/06) to the day. She made her debut in The Unbelievable Truth, the 1989 Hal Hartley indie flick that I strongly recommend.

Shelly was murdered by her building's super, an illegal immigrant who strangled her and crudely tried to make it look like a suicide, because she complained about the noise he was making in an adjacent apartment -- which quite frankly sounds like the makings of a good Law & Order episode if it weren't so tragically real and such a waste of talent. What makes Unbelievable Truth so good is part of what makes all effective independent movies: it has characters that are offbeat and unpredictable and whose next actions are unexpected, instead of the over-foreshadowing of Hollywood movies that beat you over the head with their obviousness and inevitability.

And Adrienne Shelly herself -- a strikingly unique looking redhead -- embodied that quality in films like Trust and the recent Waitress, which she directed. (I just noticed on iMDB that she did appear in a Law & Order back in 2000, although not enough of the plot details are included to definitively call this ironic.)

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Boston Still Sucks

Yet more fallout from baseball's managerial carousal, and even a dose of that dreaded, overused word "closure"...

You know Don Mattingly really wanted that Yankees job. Even his typically classy responses couldn't hide his disappointment at being passed over for Joe Girardi. "Vengeance is not running through me at all," he said. "Trust me, I'm not all of a sudden going to start rooting for the Red Sox." Mattingly went on to admit he considers himself a New Yorker, even if it looks like he's gonna have to switch coasts now to continue to ply his trade as a coach before the next manager spot opens up.

70 years ago, another all-time Yanks great, one George Herman Ruth, was denied his dream of managing in the Bronx, and it all but crushed the life out of him. Wanting to remain in baseball after his playing days ended in 1935, The Babe took a first base coaching with the Dodgers in the middle of the 1938 season, but quit after the year ended. That was his last job in Major League Baseball. Let's hope Donnie Baseball -- who merely represented Yanks fans only real reason to keep watching during the downbeat 1980s/early '90s period -- has a happier fate awaiting him.

Curt Schilling, undoubtedly a great pitcher and a big-game performer for the ages, can also be a first-class jerk-off. Schilling keeps a blog, 38pitches.com, where his overriding narcissism is on display for all. He's been known to call up Boston sports talk shows to set the record straight. Like all great players, if he's on a team you root for you can put up with his personal brand of nonsense -- see players like Terrell Owens, Deion Sanders, Ron Artest. But Schilling just went out of his way to state that as a free agent, he would consider playing for any team EXCEPT the New York Yankees. Schilling also found the time to write letters to his Red Sox mates after the World Series. "I actually broke out a pen and paper the last couple days and wrote letters to some people here, just to say goodbye," Schilling said. "There's a very realistic chance I won't ever play with them again." Chief Bloody Sock obviously thinks the world hangs on his every word.

Somehow Schilling still found some time in his busy new life as a man of letters to take a few more cheap shots at the Yankees' search for a new manager, saying it was nice of them to make sure "we were updated every 15 minutes about when they were actually going to name their manager. I didn't give a crap. Bottom line was they're playing golf and making organizational decisions and we're still playing games." That's the classy high road we would expect from a right-wing schmuck who campaigned for George Bush in 2004, once expressed interest in running for John Kerry's Senate seat as a Republican, and more recently has criticized Hillary Clinton for her opposition to the war in Iraq.

No matter where he ends up (and Schilling lists Cleveland, Detroit, Anaheim, New York Mets, Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A., S.D., Arizona, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis and Milwaukee as teams he would deign to grace with his presence), you have to hand it to him: Schilling is the type of asshole who makes sports a little more interesting, if only because hoping for bad things to happen to him keeps fans like me coming back for more.
Here's how much I hate the Red Sox and really all Boston area teams now: Patriots, Celtics, Boston College ... hell, I won't even drink Sam Adams beer anymore -- I would rather see the Mets win it all next year than the Red Sox get anywhere near the Big Show again. Even as a Yankees fan born & bred to hate the Mets, I'm here to tell you that nothing is more insufferable than hearing arrogant Sawx fans calling WFAN and talking trash.

In 1986, when the Mets and Red Sox squared off in the Fall Classic, I was rooting hard against Dwight Gooden, Daryl Strawberry, Gary Carter and the rest of the Mets. Now, that '86 Mets team was easy to root against as a Yankees fan, but the current version with guys like Willie Randolph, Orlando Hernandez and David Wright is not as automatically detestable as it was then -- even with their fair share of me-first players and prima donnas like Lastings Milledge and Paul Lo Duca.

In fact, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the Mets reached the World Series at some point in the near future -- if only for the amount of sheer joy it would bring to the lives of family and friends who live and die with the fortunes of the Flushing Nine. My Aunt Vickie has been sick for the last few years, undergoing chemotherapy for a form of blood cancer she's been battling. She literally never misses a game and loves Jose Reyes' unbridled joy as he runs the bases. My Aunt Helen is in her 70s now and the Metropolitans are the love of her life after Uncle Sal passed away a few years ago. And close buddies like Tony, John and my boy Gatt down in Florida have been hoping for a winner for a long time now. The Mets' epic collapse down the stretch this past season had to be like a kick in the gut -- minus the actual physical pain of a sharp blow to the solar plexus. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, or maybe I've just learned to put things in perspective. But after all, it's only a baseball game; it's not like it's football or something really serious.

During the non-stop Joe Torre watch following the Yankees' elimination from the playoffs, where seemingly every minute of New York sports talk radio was dedicated to the possible scenarios and potential candidates, one ESPN-Radio host offered this analogy: Joe Torre was like the outgoing Johnny Carson when he retired from the Tonight Show, with Don Mattingly playing the role of Jay Leno and Joe Girardi standing in for David Letterman. His logic was that Leno/Mattingly was the safe choice to replace Carson/Torre, but that Girardi/Letterman was the right choice. Not a bad analogy, but like most talk show hosts, he couldn't make a point and move on but had to belabor it for more than an hour. That's 60 minutes of my life I won't be getting back, as the kids like to say...