This Football Blog

I’ve got a question on my mind this afternoon. It’s this: Who, exactly, is the stupidest man in the NFL? Is it Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio Smith, who, it appears has lived up to the criticisms I leveled in my post a few days ago and pissed away an entire season (should I have gone with the let a season go up in smoke pun, instead?) of what would seem to be an increasingly brief NFL career? Is it Cleveland Browns tight end Kellen Winslow Jr., who apparently will be sitting out the 2005 season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament sustained in a dumb-ass motorcycle accident? Or is it Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban, who apparently is actually interested in bringing Ricky Williams back to his team? Or is Ben Roethlisberger and Tommy Maddox, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ committed helmetless motorcyclist quarterbacks?

It’s a tough call, really. But let’s look at this stuff case by case and see if we can’t come to some conclusion.

Let’s start with Smith, mostly because I can get through his situation quickly, having said most of what I had to say in my last post. The thing of the thing is that this guy is now gonna spend an entire year watching football on TV — and his team, which looks like it could actually make a run at the Super Bowl this season, is gonna be short one very potent offensive weapon — all because Onterrio, who’d already served a four-week suspension last season for smoking dope, couldn’t put his career and his commitment to his team ahead of momentary pleasures. That’s pretty fucking sad for Onterrio. It should be a wake up call to the Vikes. Yeah, he’s talented, but you’ve gotta divorce yourself of this loser, because he’s gonna get himself kicked out of the league for life eventually, and if you’ve got him under contract when that happens, you’re gonna be left holding the bag. (The puns won’t stop!)

You know, as I’ve said before, I think it’s absurd and improper for the NFL to have a policy on players smoking pot. If it doesn’t enhance performance, it should be between the guy and his team. But that’s neither here nor there. The policy exists. And this kid has shown that he can’t live within it, even with millions of dollars on the line. He’s a loss, Vikings. You have plenty of depth at RB (though I’d argue no one on the team has Smith’s raw talent). You should let him go smoke dope and try to come back elsewhere if another team will give him a chance (note to Al Davis: don’t even think about it, bub), but get rid of him as soon as it makes cap sense to do so. Odds are easily 9 to 1 you’ll be glad you did.

As for Winslow, well, earlier this week I was thinking maybe he deserves a bit of a break. Yeah, he’s about to miss an entire season. And, yeah, that means the highly paid 2004 first round draft pick (actually, he’s bigger than that — the Browns gave up a second round selection to move up and get him) will have played in exactly two games in the two years since he signed a six-year deal worth $40 million (though it appears it’ll be far less now, since the Browns will probably be taking back a big chunk of his signing bonus, which is, incidentally, virtually the only guaranteed money an NFL contract includes). But the 14 games Winslow missed in the 2004 season were the result of a football injury, so you can’t attribute all of his problems to stupidity as you can with Smith.

Then it came out that the accident in which Kellen tore his ACL took place not while he was simply riding a motorcycle, but while he and some buddies were attempting to do tricks on motorcycles. They’d been to see a stunt riding show and, it appears, decided to do some stunt riding of their own. That’s the kind of decision you’d expect from a bunch of 10-year-olds on bicycles. That’s some kind of stupidity, especially considering that this guy is at least supposed to be a professional athlete, someone who should know intimately that just because you see a pro do something that doesn’t mean you should conclude you could do it yourself. (Of course, as noted Winslow’s experience with pro sports is pretty limited.)

Winslow, who’s dad was a great NFL player, apparently was more than a bit of a headcase in college. And it’s looking like he remains a bit of a headcase more than a year out of school. Looks like he thinks he’s indestructible, despite significant evidence to the contrary. He’d best shape up and start acting like a pro, though, because even if this shit doesn’t kill him, it will destroy his career. And I’m certain it’s not making a good impression on new Browns coach Romeo Crennel, who knows full well from his experience as Patriots’ defensive coordinator that there’s no player you can’t do without, and a few you can’t do with.

Then there’s Saban, who would do well to take a close look at what’s going on with Onterrio Smith before he seriously entertains thoughts of bringing Williams back to the Dolphins. Forget that Williams royally fucked his team by deciding to retire out of the blue on the eve of the 2004 season. Forget that the guys who remain on that team, and who had to suffer through an awful season without Williams (though Ricky’s absence certainly wasn’t entirely to blame for Miami’s troubles last season) can’t possibly be happy about the idea of having to share a locker room with this flake again. Forget that for all his enormous talent, this guy clearly isn’t committed enough to the game to remain worth the money (and cap space) you’d have to commit to him if he were to return. Just consider the fact that this is another young man who has demonstrated an inability to discontinue getting stoned long enough to have an NFL career, even though he knows he’s putting his future, and his team’s fortunes, on the line every time he sucks in a bong hit. Is that someone you want playing for you, Nick? Is it? Really?

And finally, the helmet-free brigade down in Pittsburgh. Are these guys for real? They wear helmets to play football, but not to ride motorcycles? What the fuck is that all about? And the best part of it is, they don’t even seem to think it’s a real safety issue. Witness Maddox’s ridiculous comments in that ESPN.com story, which include this: “You have to look at life, obviously you have to be smart, and I try to be smart because I have a wife and two kids, not because I’m playing a game.”

Maddox tries to be smart, he says, because he has a wife and two kids. He has a wife and two kids. And he’s riding around on a motorcycle with no fucking helmet. And that’s being smart. Because, probably, he has tons and tons of money in the bank. And big life insurance and disability policies. So if he comes off the bike and smashes his head into meat sauce, his wife and two kids will be taken care of financially. Or if he comes off the bike and puts a giant, non-fatal dent in his cranium, his wife and two kids will be able to put him in a nice nursing home, or hire good help to wheel him around and wipe his drool and his ass. Well, that’s OK, then. Because smart wouldn’t amount to making decisions that will let your wife have someone to grow old with and your kids to have a functioning dad around, would it? I mean, that’d be asking way too much. Fucking idiot. Maddox, you may try to be smart, but you fail. Wanna know why? It’s because you are a giant fucking idiot. (And you know what else? Adults are called Tom or Thomas, not fucking Tommy. Jackass.)

As for you, Roethlisberger, Jesus, son, you’re a year out of college. You just had the best rookie season of any quarterback in NFL history. You could very well have an incredible career out in front of you. You almost certainly have a very nice life out in front of you if you make a few decent decisions. But here’s the deal: A strip of pavement is going to knock something very different from sense into your thick skull. You’ve gotta take care of the sense bit yourself. But I bet you won’t. Because I bet you’re just as fucking stupid as Maddox.

Have I reached a conclusion about who’s the dumbest? Not so much. You? Go ahead. Take your pick. I won’t argue with you either way. Because the truth of the matter is that these guys are probably all the dumbest. And I guarantee you, there are 100 guys lined up behind them waiting to get into the competition. Just you wait and see.

There are a few differences, Onterrio, between being a pot smoker and being a pothead. Wanna know what some of them are? Well, let’s start here: Being a pot smoker isn’t a bad thing. (I won’t say it’s a good thing, because I’m relatively certain it’s possible to go an entire lifetime without smoking weed and come out of it just fine. I’m not sure why people deny themselves that or any other pleasure, but everyone’s got their thing, and it’s mostly all cool. So let’s say it’s a good thing to be if you dig it.) Being a pothead (for more than, like, a long weekend here, a beach vacation there) is a bad thing. Why’s that? Well, a) because people who are high all the fucking time (like people who are drunk all the fucking time, and, frankly, people who are anything — including dead-on sober/serious — all the fucking time) are a total drag to be around; and b) because being a pothead means being someone who makes decisions based on getting high over every other thing that’s important to them in life. And being one-dimensional just isn’t good for you. But it looks to me, man, like that’s you.

I’m gonna go ahead and guess, Onterrio, that football is pretty damned important to you. And I’m gonna feel good about that guess, too, because I’ve been watching the sport long enough and closely enough to be certain that no one makes it to the NFL unless football means a shitload to them. It’s just too hard to get there. And while you are unquestionably an incredibly talented young man, no one (that’s no one) is talented enough to make it to (never mind in) the NFL on talent alone. You’ve gotta work at it like crazy. So I know you’ve worked at it like crazy. And the fact that it appears there’s a good chance you’re gonna throw it all away — all that hard work, all that preparation, all that being a part of something that clearly meant something to you once if it doesn’t now — simply because you can’t stop smoking a substance that is entirely non-addictive tells me that you’ve got yourself a bit of a psychological problem. Its technical term is potheadedness. It seems to me that you need to decide either to get over it or to let it swallow you. And if you’re gonna go the letting it swallow you route, you owe it to your team, your teammates, and the fans who have paid your salary to date to get the hell out of the way.

Your team is paying you to play to the best of your abilities. And while you and I both know that smoking weed won’t hinder you physically (as long as you’re not high at game time), it remains a fact that the league suspends guys for smoking dope. The NFL’s prohibition of pot smoking is stupid, but it was on the books when you signed up and you know full bloody well that it’s a rule they enforce (at least when guys like you break it often and visibly enough that they can’t overlook it). And since you can’t play to the best (or even the least) of your abilities if the league doesn’t allow you to play at all, it follows that continuing to smoke dope after you’ve been caught once (or, in your case, twice) amounts to shirking your responsibilities as a professional. (You get that you’re supposed to be a professional athlete, right?)

Your teammates, meanwhile, have a right to be on a team with other people who are actually committed to winning. And when you act in a manner that’s likely to remove you from the lineup, you’re showing that your first priority isn’t winning. So if you wanna wake and bake, you need to give up that roster spot (and all that cap money) so the Vikings can replace you with someone who cares about being part of a team. You owe that — or, preferably, a renewed commitment to playing and playing well — to those guys.

And the fans — the folks who buy the tickets and the merchandise, and keep the TV ratings up, and do all that stuff that keeps the money flowing to you, the team and the league — have a right to know that the team they support features players who are not only talented but committed and professional (there’s that word again). They also have a right to see games played, week in and week out, by the best players all of the league’s teams can put on the field. That means players who take the work that pays them ridiculous amounts of money (which comes from … that’s right) as seriously as the fans take their teams and the game.

Right now, Onterrio, it’s looking very much like pot is more important to you than any of those other considerations. It’s also looking — claims about the Whizzinator being for your cousin (who plays what?) notwithstanding — like too much burning may have severely clouded your judgement. (I mean, really, dude, how did you not know you were gonna get caught? And who do you think is buying the cousin story?). That’s another sign that you may be a pothead rather than an average pot smoker.

Why does this shit bother me so much? I don’t know. Maybe because it confirms for people who don’t know better all the negative stereotypes about pot smokers (though why I care about that, I can’t really say). Maybe it’s because it invariably distracts the league and the fans and the media from real problems that actually affect the game. Problems like steroid use. Or maybe its because as a fan, nothing disappoints me more than when players let their personal problems make professional football even slightly less enjoyable than it could be. Take your pick. Or pick none of the above. I don’t care. I’ve said my piece.There are a few differences, Onterrio, between being a pot smoker and being a pothead. Wanna know what some of them are? Well, let’s start here: Being a pot smoker isn’t a bad thing. (I won’t say it’s a good thing, because I’m relatively certain it’s possible to go an entire lifetime without smoking weed and come out of it just fine. I’m not sure why people deny themselves that or any other pleasure, but everyone’s got their thing, and it’s mostly all cool. So let’s say it’s a good thing to be if you dig it.) Being a pothead (for more than, like, a long weekend here, a beach vacation there) is a bad thing. Why’s that? Well, a) because people who are high all the fucking time (like people who are drunk all the fucking time, and, frankly, people who are anything — including dead-on sober/serious — all the fucking time) are a total drag to be around; and b) because being a pothead means being someone who makes decisions based on getting high over every other thing that’s important to them in life. And being one-dimensional just isn’t good for you. But it looks to me, man, like that’s you.

I’m gonna go ahead and guess, Onterrio, that football is pretty damned important to you. And I’m gonna feel good about that guess, too, because I’ve been watching the sport long enough and closely enough to be certain that no one makes it to the NFL unless football means a shitload to them. It’s just too hard to get there. And while you are unquestionably an incredibly talented young man, no one (that’s no one) is talented enough to make it to (never mind in) the NFL on talent alone. You’ve gotta work at it like crazy. So I know you’ve worked at it like crazy. And the fact that it appears there’s a good chance you’re gonna throw it all away — all that hard work, all that preparation, all that being a part of something that clearly meant something to you once if it doesn’t now — simply because you can’t stop smoking a substance that is entirely non-addictive tells me that you’ve got yourself a bit of a psychological problem. Its technical term is potheadedness. It seems to me that you need to decide either to get over it or to let it swallow you. And if you’re gonna go the letting it swallow you route, you owe it to your team, your teammates, and the fans who have paid your salary to date to get the hell out of the way.

Your team is paying you to play to the best of your abilities. And while you and I both know that smoking weed won’t hinder you physically (as long as you’re not high at game time), it remains a fact that the league suspends guys for smoking dope. The NFL’s prohibition of pot smoking is stupid, but it was on the books when you signed up and you know full bloody well that it’s a rule they enforce (at least when guys like you break it often and visibly enough that they can’t overlook it). And since you can’t play to the best (or even the least) of your abilities if the league doesn’t allow you to play at all, it follows that continuing to smoke dope after you’ve been caught once (or, in your case, twice) amounts to shirking your responsibilities as a professional. (You get that you’re supposed to be a professional athlete, right?)

Your teammates, meanwhile, have a right to be on a team with other people who are actually committed to winning. And when you act in a manner that’s likely to remove you from the lineup, you’re showing that your first priority isn’t winning. So if you wanna wake and bake, you need to give up that roster spot (and all that cap money) so the Vikings can replace you with someone who cares about being part of a team. You owe that — or, preferably, a renewed commitment to playing and playing well — to those guys.

And the fans — the folks who buy the tickets and the merchandise, and keep the TV ratings up, and do all that stuff that keeps the money flowing to you, the team and the league — have a right to know that the team they support features players who are not only talented but committed and professional (there’s that word again). They also have a right to see games played, week in and week out, by the best players all of the league’s teams can put on the field. That means players who take the work that pays them ridiculous amounts of money (which comes from … that’s right) as seriously as the fans take their teams and the game.

Right now, Onterrio, it’s looking very much like pot is more important to you than any of those other considerations. It’s also looking — claims about the Whizzinator being for your cousin (who plays what?) notwithstanding — like too much burning may have severely clouded your judgement. (I mean, really, dude, how did you not know you were gonna get caught? And who do you think is buying the cousin story?). That’s another sign that you may be a pothead rather than an average pot smoker.

Why does this shit bother me so much? I don’t know. Maybe because it confirms for people who don’t know better all the negative stereotypes about pot smokers (though why I care about that, I can’t really say). Maybe it’s because it invariably distracts the league and the fans and the media from real problems that actually affect the game. Problems like steroid use. Or maybe its because as a fan, nothing disappoints me more than when players let their personal problems make professional football even slightly less enjoyable than it could be. Take your pick. Or pick none of the above. I don’t care. I’ve said my piece.

You know what I can’t do? I can’t offer anything approaching expert analysis of the NFL draft. Why? Because it’s a full-time job, and I’ve already got one of those. And, yeah, I wish my full-time job involved scouting and assessing college players seeking to enter the NFL, but it doesn’t. What I can do is offer my impressions — as a fan, as a long-time observer of the league and the draft, and as general know-it-all — of what I observed over the weekend and what I think might happen with a few of the players selected. If you find some value in that, read on. If not, go to one of the usual places and find the expert analysis you’re looking for.

Let’s start with coverage. And that amounts to me saying I don’t think I’ll ever watch the draft on ESPN again after having listened to Sirius NFL Radio’s coverage this year. I ended up listening to the draft on Sirius after having watched it on ESPN for years and years due to circumstances that made it impossible for me to spend Saturday in front of the TV (specifically, I’ve been redoing my porch and if I want it finished before summer rolls around for real, I can’t afford to miss a minute of potential work time — even when it means not watching the draft and getting rained on like fucking Noah).

The broadcast couldn’t have been better. Adam Schein, who I listen to daily on the Afternoon Blitz, did a phenomenal job of hosting. No surprise there for me. I don’t love Schein. He’s a bit of a radio guy for me (which is to say he sounds like what he is — a guy who went to Syracuse to learn how to be a radio host, and did, and now sounds like a guy who went to a big communications school to learn how to be a radio host — which, when you were raised on ’70s FM underground radio, can’t help but hit you as a bit slick and insincere, even when you think the host in question is probably entirely sincere). But Schein is certainly a fine radio host. He’s great on the air daily, because he knows how to keep things moving and he makes his callers feel like their contributions are valued (which does exactly what it’s intended to do — keeps the callers calling and makes the rest of the listeners feel like they’re a part of the show too). And he was perfect on draft day, making sure all the assembled experts — from Schein’s weekday partner John Riggins to Cris Carter to Pat Kirwan and Gil Brandt — were part of the discussion leading up to and following each pick. And that discussion was great. Far more often than not, the panel predicted exactly who would be picked by each team and explained why that player would be the pick and what the implications were for the team. They also spelled out in detail — and with compelling arguments to support their positions — whether they believed each pick was the right one.

Sirius also got lots of draftees on the radio shortly after they were selected. The interview with Aaron Rodgers, the Cal quarterback who was supposed to be a top pick and ended up going to Green Bay at 24, was worth the whole day by itself. (Mr. Rodgers, while clearly delighted to be going to the Packers, is not happy about having been bypassed by 23 teams and plans to make as many of them as possible pay for the insult once he takes the reins from Brett Favre in a year or two.) All in all, a great way to take in the draft.

As for my thoughts on the draft itself, well, here’s what little I’ve got concerning the teams I care about (and a few others where something actually comes to mind).

I know there are a lot of Patriots fans who are nonplussed (and a few who are actually disheartened) by New England’s selection of Logan Mankins in the first round. I’m not. Here’s why: First, I’ve heard Brandt singing the guy’s praises a few times and if there’s one thing about pro football I know for absolute certain it’s that Gil Brandt is still the greatest scout in the history of the game. Second, there are no better assessors of talent currently working in the league than Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli. And the fact that they took a guy who was projected as a second- or third-round pick at 32 tells me they saw something in this guy that’s so special that they weren’t willing to chance letting him go elsewhere. O-line means an awful lot to the Pats, and they had a big hole to fill with the departure of Joe Andruzzi in free agency. Obviously, they believe Mankins is good enough to merit a first-round pick. And given what I’ve seen over the last four years, I’d can only take their word for it. The rest of the Pats’ draft looks as solid as any other to me, but what the hell do I know?

I’m very excited about Oakland’s first- and second-round picks, Fabian Washington and Stanford Routt. Guess I couldn’t call myself a Raiders fan if I weren’t partial to speedy guys, and these are two speedy, speedy corners. Although NFL.com has Washington’s 40 time at 4.48, I’ve seen it listed elsewhere at 4.25, which is lightning fast. And Routt, who was a track star in high school and college, was projected by some experts as a first-round pick. So that’s nice. Says the end is near for Charles Woodson, a guy who has become king of the underachievers, a guy who has lost all discipline. And, with luck, it means new life for Oakland’s secondary, which has been a serious problem the past two seasons.

Other than that, there are just a few things I know in my gut from having been a fan for so long.

One of those is that Rodgers is certainly going to turn out to be a better NFL quarterback than San Francisco’s #1 pick, Alex Smith. And Jason Campbell, the guy Washington grabbed at 25, is gonna be better than either of them, though it may be a while before he gets a chance to prove it since the Redskins are determined to continue to challenge the Raiders for the title of league’s most disorganized team. How do I know this stuff? Well, I know Rodgers will turn out to be better than Smith, because he was considered a potential #1 pick himself and because San Fran passed him up largely because had they picked him over the higher-priced Smith it might have looked like a money move. I also know Rodgers will be better than Smith because he then slipped all the way to 24, and whenever the top 23 teams in the NFL draft agree on a player whom the outside experts like, they always turn out to be wrong. And I know Campbell will be better than both of them because no one even considered drafting him ahead of those guys even though he’s generally seen as equal in raw talent — and, again, draft consensus among NFL teams is virtually always wrong. (I also know that someone picked in the second round or later will go on to have a better career than at least two, and possibly all three of those guys. Maybe it’ll be Oakland’s third-round pick, Andrew Walter or New England’s seventh-round pick, Matt Cassel. Probably not. More likely, it’ll be Cleveland’s third-round pick Charlie Frye. Or maybe not. But it’ll be someone.)

Similarly, I know that Carnell “Cadillac” Williams, who went to Tampa Bay at 5, will turn out to be better than his Auburn Ronnie Brown, whom Cleveland grabbed at 3. That’s not because Cadillac started ahead of Brown at Auburn, but because Brown got drafted first and the guy you could’ve taken is always better than the guy you took. It’s a simple fact.

I’m very sad to see that the New York Jets drafted kicker Mike Nugent in the second round. It was nice to know you could count on the Jets to blow big kicks at the end of games. Those days, it would seem, are over.

I’m equally sad to see that Denver appears to have figured out that you can’t get by with a one-man secondary. That’s too bad, because I really, really liked knowing that however good they made their offense, Denver would never be a true factor because of their defensive weaknesses. I don’t think they’ve solved all of their problems on D, but they’ve clearly discovered that they exist, which is the first step.

And I’m glad to see that Pittsburgh doesn’t really seem to feel the need to address the loss of Plaxico Burress in free agency. (No, I don’t think gangly fourth-rounder Fred Gibson is gonna get the job done there.)

And, one last thought (for today at least). With the exception of Matt Jones, the college quarterback turned wide receiver, who went to Jacksonville at 21 in the first round (and who I believe is gonna be a huge force in the NFL — I was very relieved the Jags grabbed him before the Steelers could), the player I’m probably most interested to see on the field is Brandon Jacobs, the Southern Illinois running back the New York Giants grabbed in the fourth round. Jacobs, who transferred from Auburn rather than compete for carries with Williams and Brown, is fucking gigantic: 6′ 4″, 256 pounds. But he’s fast for his size, running a 4.56 40. He’s mostly a third-down back (though he could line up at H-back — or at tight end if he’s got the hands he’s supposed to have), and even if that’s all he does, he could be a major factor for the Giants. He should really help Tiki Barber, who, incredible a season as he had in 2004, could use a little relief. I can picture Jacobs breaking through the line and picking up some serious yards a few times a game. (This kid averaged 6.7 yards per carry in college, so he’s got the ability to explode.) And, let’s be real here, if this giant gets into the secondary, it doesn’t much matter how much faster than him the DBs are, because he can probably keep moving with two or three of those guys riding on his back. Could be exciting to watch.

I’ve got just one question regarding this thing with Monday Night Football moving to ESPN. Does this mean that as of the end of the 2005 season fucking Hank Williams Jr. will finally be out of my life for good? Because if that’s the case, I don’t much give a shit what else happens (I mean, as long as there’s a game on some channel on Monday nights), I’ll be a happy guy.

Seriously, I mean I know there’s a lot of noise being made about this move out there, but what’s the difference? There’s still gonna be a Monday night game. And there’s still gonna be a Sunday night game. And Al Michaels (who’s a douchebag, but a great play-by-play guy) and John Madden (who’s an idiot — albeit a mostly loveable idiot — about everything but football, but a great analyst, because he knows every goddamn thing there is to know about football) will land somewhere. And the Sunday night crew from ESPN, which one has to imagine will end up doing the Monday Night games, will still suck, only on a different night. And there will actually be yet another NFL studio show — since NBC will be doing one on Sundays whereas ABC never did one on Mondays (ESPN did it then, but it was mostly the same as their Sunday night show) — and it’ll probably include Bob Costas and a few other mostly insufferable, self-satisfied jackasses. And, the important thing will be that the games will still be the games. So the beat goes on — except, I hope, not for fucking Bocephus.

So after who knows how damned long without much of substance going on in football worth commenting on (yeah, yeah, free agency — but, shit, man, does the world need one more goofball analyzing every fucking signing?) all of a sudden there’s all kinds of stuff happening that simply has to be noted, and it happens on an amazingly busy day for me. Still, I can hardly be expected to resist. So, in as few words as I can hold myself too (or as many as time will allow, depending on how it works out):

Smart, guys. Real smart.
Here’s a piece about some draft prospects — remember, the NFL draft is just around the corner, April 23 & 24 — who pissed positive for pot at the fucking combine. What the fuck? I mean, is it just me or is it beyond fucking idiotic to go into a situation where you’re gonna be sized up for the potential to make hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of dollars — and you know that sizing up is gonna include a piss test, and you know pissing positive for weed will cause you, at the very least, to slip in the draft (which means slip in potential pay) — with goddamn pot lingering in your system? What the hell is wrong with these guys? Now, don’t get me wrong. I still think the NFL has no business testing anyone for pot (or any other drug that doesn’t enhance performance) or having a policy about anything that doesn’t hurt a players’ ability to perform on the field. But the fact of the matter is that the league does have a fucking policy on that; it’s a legal policy; it’s a policy that has the OK of the NFL Players Association; and it’s a policy that the league has demonstrated it plans to enforce. So, gents, put the fucking joint down when you know you’re gonna have to piss. Just put it down. Yeah, smoking dope is fun. And, yeah, there’s really absolutely nothing wrong with smoking dope. And, yeah, it’s your last semester in college, and shit if that stuff isn’t everydamnedwhere you look, but this is your fucking career here. And to top off the fact that you’re now gonna slide in the draft — not because anyone thinks pot hurts your ability to perform, but because everyone knows pots hurts your ability not to get fucking suspended by the league and no one wants some pothead riding the pine while their team’s playoff chances are on the line (as they are every week in the NFL) — you’ve also gotta face getting pissed twice a month for at least the next season, which means that instead of quitting pot for like a month, you now pretty much have to quit for a year. So you fucked yourselves twice. Morons. Morons.

T.O. the asshole strikes again
It’s what, two and a half months since Terrell Owens won the respect of pretty much everyone in the football watching world with his gutsy performance in Super Bowl XXXIX and here he is determined to throw it all away. T.O. wants to renegotiate his seven-year, $49 million dollar deal with the Philadelphia Eagles, because, get this, last year when he agreed to the contract his then-agent had no leverage in negotiations. It’s true, of course. Terrell didn’t want to play for the 49ers anymore, and he didn’t want to be traded to the Ravens, so he squirmed his way out of that deal with help from the league and the Eagles and, no fucking kidding, Philly used it’s strong bargaining position to its advantage. Because that’s what you do in business. So poor goddamn Terrell now has to play football for a measly $7 million a year. Can you believe it? He can’t. And he wants a do-over, only this time with him in the catbird seat. But that’s not how business works. If Terrell wanted more money, he could have gone to Baltimore, where he’d have held all the damned cards. But he wanted a chance to win championships, so he settled for what the Eagles had to offer. And when you make those kinds of compromises, you’re expected to live with them. I keep thinking what would I do if the person who sold me my house were to come back and say, “You know, when I sold that house, I just needed to get out of town and move to Boston. I wasn’t in a good bargaining position and you took advantage of that to negotiate a good deal. Now I want some extra money.” I say I keep thinking, by the way, not keep wondering, because I don’t have to wonder. What I’d do is laugh in their face. You live with the deals you make. Crybaby. Fuckwad.

Ron Mexico
I was trying to figure out if I had anything to say about the whole Ron Mexico thing when Scott wrote to ask for my take. You know about the Ron Mexico deal, right? Ever since it came out in a suit that Atlanta Falcons quarterback apparently uses the alias Ron Mexico, people have been ordering Falcons shirts with Vick’s number and the name Mexico on them from the NFL Shop. But no more says the NFL. The league has banned sale of the shirts. Why? Who knows? Well, actually, I know. It’s because the NFL, a great league in many ways, has a big fat stick up its ass when it comes to anyone having any kind of sense of humor about it and its precious product. I mean, look, something tells me Vick can handle the heat. Actually, something tells me that with the suit that’s hanging over him hanging over him, he’s probably got bigger things to worry about than whether people are having some fun at the expense of his porn star name or whatever it is. (This is not to imply Mr. Vick is, was or ever will be a porn star, by the way, Mr. Attorney Whatever-Your-Name Is — but go ahead and send the cease and desist letter if you must; I could use the page views — it’s a gag about aliases — you know the thing where you’re porn star name is like your middle name plus the street you were born on, neither of which may be the case with Vick, if he even uses that name — but, oh, fuck, you know what? It’s a joke about his stupid alias. Get it. Stupid name. Stupid.) I don’t know. To my mind, this, not anything to do with rules changes, is why the league deserves the tag No Fun League.

The NFL has announced its 2005 schedule (for team-by-team schedules, go here) and, baby, I’m licking my chops. Just 148 days to go (and only 10 until the draft, which is very exciting).

Both the Patriots and the Raiders have four prime time games on their schedules. So, given that one of those, the September 8 season opener, will pit the teams against each other, that’s seven extra exciting night games for me. And I think the fact that the defending champs will play both the first and last night game of the season (they play the Jets in the Meadowlands the day after Christmas), is pretty neat.

The rest of the Monday Night Football schedule don’t look so bad, either. I mean, I’ll be a bit surprised if the New Orleans/Atlanta matchup still means anything (other than possibly affecting the Falcons playoff seeding) come December 12 and I’ll be absolutely shocked if Green Bay (which has fallen apart during the off-season) has anything left to play for when they travel to Baltimore December 19, but that Pats-Jets game could turn out to be huge. And Pittsburgh-Indianapolis (November 27), Indy-New England (November 7), Baltimore-Pittsburgh (Halloween) and the proper MNF opener (that is, the first game on an actual Monday night) September 12 between Philadelphia and Atlanta should be spectacular.

A lot of the Sunday night games look great, too. I can’t wait to see the reception Eli Manning gets when the Giants travel to San Diego September 25. The San Francisco-Arizona matchup in Mexico City October 2 should be an interesting spectacle, even if it promises to be a pretty awful game (I think Arizona should be just improved enough to put a hurting on the still-rebuilding Niners). And it’ll be interesting to see Romeo Crennel lead his Cleveland Browns against their bitter rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers November 13. If that game were scheduled early in the season, I’d be expecting a bit of a train wreck, but by week 10, the Browns ought to be fairly well adapted to Romeo’s system. The Steelers still have probably too much firepower for the Cleveland (Romeo and Phil Savage are obviously building for 2006 or 2007), but Crennel’s Ds have given Bill Cowher’s Steelers fits in the past — and quarterbacks who have big rookie years often stumble a bit in their sophomore campaigns — so you never know.

Thanksgiving looks a bit disappointing to me. I mean, I believe Detroit will be a much better team this year than last, but it looks to me like Atlanta’s improving, too, and I can’t imagine the Falcons will have too much trouble running away with that game. Denver at Dallas should be better if the Cowboys find a way to protect Drew Bledsoe, since Denver’s deteriorating secondary won’t be able to keep up with the Dallas wideouts if Drew has time to find them. But I expect Denver to have a lot of offensive success this season, so if their pass rush can be effective, they could have it put away early.

Looks like a suitably tough schedule for the defending champs to me. I don’t see a true no-questions-about-it gimme on the slate, though I can’t imagine the New Orleans, Kansas City and Tampa Bay games will be the toughest the Pats have ever played. And I’m not expecting Nick Saban to have his Dolphins in good enough shape to present too much of a challenge to New England even as late as January 1. (Still, the Fins shouldn’t have beat the Pats last season, so, you know, anything’s possible).

Looks to me like the Pats should finish somewhere between 12-4 and 15-1. How the Raiders will do has everything to do with whether Kerry Collins can get the job done and whether the defense figures out how to play football. I’m gonna guess 8-8, maybe 9-7, which wouldn’t be as horrible as last year, but doesn’t get you into the playoffs.

But you know what? Why am I making predictions now? There’s still a draft, months of training and potential transactions, and a pre-season to go. We’ll see.

The experts’ consensus on the reported forthcoming trade of wide receiver/deluxe model asshole Randy Moss from the Minnesota Vikings to the Oakland Raiders appears to hold that the Raiders are getting the better part of the deal. In fact, in listening to Sirius NFL Radio, watching ESPN and reading the various online football sites, I’ve encountered no one who believes the Raiders are making a mistake and a solid few who believe the Vikings have fucked up royally. I beg to differ.

Let’s, for a second or two, pretend Moss has no baggage (which is so far from the truth it borders on the absurd even to entertain it as a hypothetical, but still …). Let’s look at this situation as if the Raiders were simply trading an underperforming linebacker (Napoleon Harris) and the seventh overall pick in a rather shallow draft (and, you know, a throwaway seventh round pick, which doesn’t matter anyhow), for a guy who’s arguably the most talented wide receiver in the league. That might look good on paper, but it isn’t.

The Raiders are a team that has something to the tune of $8 million in dead money under the salary cap. That is, while most teams in the league have $85 million to spend on player salaries for next season, the Raiders have only $77 million (because of stupid spending moves of the past). That’s 9.4 percent of their total cap allotment being spent on nothing. They’re also a team that just last week signed their number one wideout, Jerry Porter, to a new contract. They’ve also got some talented receivers behind Porter. And now they’ve got Moss, at something like $7.25 million a year. And, yeah, Moss is a great player, but you can’t go spending all your money on receivers, particularly when you have huge problems on your offensive line, Kerry Collins (who’s got an amazing talent for finding the open DB in any passing situation) throwing the ball, no wideouts to speak of, and a secondary that’s falling apart and that features one of the all-time great underachievers in the league in Charles Woodson (who, one can only hope, will be traded sometime between now and September). Even under the best of circumstances, this team could have done better with it’s money and its first-round pick than Moss.

The Vikings, meanwhile, (and remember, we’re pretending they didn’t just dump off a disruptive force that has hurt the team more than helped it in recent years), now have two first-round picks, one of which they can deal if they choose, a linebacker who isn’t great but who is good enough to start and can help them make the switch to the 3-4 defense, and piles and piles of money under the cap, because outgoing owner Red McCombs has been one of the cheapest in the league. If new owner Reggie Fowler plans to spend anywhere close to the cap, the Vikes can be a major force in free agency. And with receivers like Plaxico Burress (who they won’t touch, because why replace one personality problem with another), Derrick Mason and Muhsin Muhammad available on the free agent market, they can easily find someone to help Nate Burleson (who was fantastic while Moss was out injured part of last season) at the receiver position. Or they could trade for a Laveranues Coles. Or they could pick up a receiver in the draft. They’ll be OK at that position one way or the other. And they’ve still got more running backs than they know what to do with, a terrific pass-catching tight end, and a pretty solid O line. So after dealing with the gap at receiver, they can concentrate on fixing their defensive issues. I think Minnesota, if it makes the right moves going forward, should be in pretty good position to go 11-5 or 12-4 next season, which should give them the NFC North and quite possibly a home game in the playoffs.

The Raiders, it would appear, believe they can succeed with a long-ball offense. They’re wrong. This ain’t the AFL, and hasn’t been for some four decades. You also can’t succeed in the NFL these days by sinking all your money and resources into your offense. Just ask the Indianapolis Colts. The reality of NFL (and especially AFC) football right now is that if you’re gonna win championships, you’ve gotta find a way to get past New England (and probably Pittsburgh and the New York Jets, and maybe Baltimore, next season) and you’re not gonna do that by putting all your dough into wideouts.

So you almost can forget about the fact that Moss is a shithead, a guy who cares about himself and not the game, his team, or winning, because this wouldn’t be a good trade even if he weren’t. But the fact is, he is a problem. He’s a problem on the field and off. He’s a problem in the locker room and a problem on the street. And all his talent isn’t going to fix that. So unless Norv Turner has some kind of magic formula for turning Randy Moss into a committed professional and team player (’cause I guarantee you, all Al Davis sees is raw talent and the potential to put asses in seats — which is all Al, God bless him, ever sees), the guy is gonna continue to be more of a headache than any level of talent is worth.

And, not that it matters, but just a theory for those who can’t understand why the Vikings were willing to make this trade now, when the draft is still months away and when Reggie Fowler, who will be taking over the team soon, has publicly stated he’s not interested in trading Moss. Why, I’ve heard guys ask on NFL Radio, is Red McCombs making this move when he’s getting rid of the team? Why saddle Fowler with the repercussions of a move he’s said he wouldn’t make? My thought is this: Fowler knows as well as anyone that Moss is bad for the Vikings and has to go, but no one (except Jerry Jones) wants to start his term of ownership by making a move that has the potential to create a fan backlash. If by some chance the Vikings fortunes should slip, and the Raiders get some great play out of Moss, the fans in Minnesota likely would never forgive Fowler, making his term of ownership difficult to say the least. So he and McCombs make an agreement: Fowler tells the press he doesn’t wanna trade Moss, then McCombs goes ahead and makes the trade. Fowler gets what he needs for his team and McCombs, who’s getting out anyhow, takes the blame along with his $379 million in profits from the sale of the team. Everyone wins. Except, of course, for the Raiders, who, let’s face it, have once again made their own damned bed.

So yesterday this reporter out in the Boston area contacted me asking for my thoughts on why Tedy Bruschi, the Patriots linebacker who suffered a mild stroke Wednesday, is so well loved by Pats fans. But he didn’t end up using what I had to say — I don’t know why; maybe it wasn’t that interesting, maybe he didn’t have space, maybe I got back to him too late, doesn’t really matter — so I figure I’ll expand upon my email to him a bit and just post my thoughts here.

First, though, I guess it makes sense to point out that what really matters here is that apparently Tedy’s going to be OK. I don’t mean OK to play; we still don’t know about that. I mean just generally OK. With luck, he’ll be OK to play, too, not just because he’s such a key member of the team, but because it’d be terrible for the guy’s career to end because of something like this. Tedy’s had a good run: nine years in the league (which is forever in pro football) and three Super Bowl rings. That’s something. If his doctors tell him he should give up football, he certainly won’t walk away feeling like he missed the opportunity to make big plays in big games. So that’s good. But it would still be nice if he had the chance to play until he chooses to retire. So now that we’re relatively certain his life isn’t in jeopardy, let’s hope the guy gets a chance to decide for himself when it’s time to exit the league.

That’s all sorta beside the point, though, because it’s not what the reporter asked about and it’s not what I wrote to him. What he asked about was why I think fans so admire Bruschi.

I could have told him I think Pats fans love Bruschi because he’s been a big part of why the team has won so many games (and so many big games) and I wouldn’t have been wrong. Tedy’s leadership has helped make the Pats defense the impressive unit it is. Inside linebacker isn’t an easy position to play — it demands a lot both physically and mentally — and Tedy, who was never supposed to be a great pro football player, has been a monster in the position. He’s also made more than a few of the big plays in clutch situations that the Pats D has become famous for. So I could have said that Pats fans understand exactly how much Tedy has contributed to the team, and I wouldn’t have been wrong. But I didn’t say that.

I also could have gone on about how Tedy sort of embodies the spirit of this Patriots team, noting that he’s a guy who isn’t supposed to be a superstar, and who never acts like he thinks he’s a superstar, but who plays like a superstar (better than a superstar) every time he’s on the field. Pats fans love the humility and the class their team shows, and Tedy is all about humility and class, so of course the fans love him. But I only mentioned that in passing.

What I focused on in my reply to that reporter was how the first thing I thought about when I read the reports about Tedy’s stroke wasn’t what it might mean for the team, but what it might mean for Tedy and his family. The first image that popped into my mind wasn’t his interception in the Super Bowl, but the footage they showed (can’t remember if it was before the game or at half time) of him earlier in the day clowning around on the field with his two little guys. And as the day went on, that’s the exact thing I kept hearing about from the Pats fans I talked to. They worried about the man and his family and they talked about that footage of Tedy and his kids. Some folks talked about his play in the Super Bowl and in other games; others didn’t. Some worried that the Pats wouldn’t be able to replace him easily if his career does end now; others didn’t. But they all (every single one of them) mentioned that footage. And they all said that Tedy’s health, and his ability to continue to clown around with those kids, was more important than whether he’d return to the playing field. Maybe that’s simply because something like this is so much bigger than whatever effect it would have on the Pats, but I think it also has a lot to do with the affection people have for this particular guy. And I believe that affection goes well beyond an admiration for Tedy as a player.

I think that footage of Tedy and his kids showed Bruschi to be what so many professional athletes are held up to be, and often pretend to be: a real role model. Here was a guy whose job is as physical and as aggressive as they get, and he wasn’t on the news, as too many professional football players have been, for hurting someone or doing something stupid; he was just on TV smiling from ear to ear and playing silly games with his little kids. That said a lot to me, and to a lot of fans, about the kind of person Tedy Bruschi is, specifically, that he is the kind of man you can and should admire, because he’s not just a great athlete, he’s also a good man. I think Pats fans value that. I think just about everyone values that.

I kept thinking about that later on and I got to thinking that Bruschi is sort of the antidote to the Randy Moss types who get all the attention in the NFL. He’s a guy who doesn’t spend a lot of time talking to the press about how great he is, who doesn’t expect all the attention to be on him all the time. He’s also a guy who isn’t out there treating fans and other people poorly. He doesn’t seem to be someone who believes being a star athlete excuses him from the obligation to be a decent person. He’s a guy who goes out and plays his position exceedingly well and that’s that. And then you see him with his kids and you know why he isn’t thumping his chest all over the place: He gets it. He knows what’s really important in life. He clearly enjoys playing football, and winning, and he isn’t shy about celebrating triumphs, but he doesn’t make too much of himself and he doesn’t demand that anyone else make too much of him. And when you look around the league and see a Moss here, a Freddie Mitchell there and (and a whole lot of Ray Lewises, Michael Pittmans and Samari Rolles everywhere), you can’t help but feel a connection to, and an admiration for, a guy like Tedy Bruschi.

Well, I’ll say this: It’s been a while. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve had an incidence of alleged domestic violence involving a professional football player to comment about since I started this blog (I used to write about this stuff on my other blog). That’s like six months, which has to be a new record.

This time out, we find Tennessee Titans cornerback Samari Rolle accused of beating up his wife on Valentine’s Day. Awww, how sweet. Remember, that’s accused, not convicted. Rolle remains innocent until proven guilty, which, given the way domestic violence cases tend to play out in general and the way most criminal cases against professional athletes tend to play out (except the drug cases; even pro athletes go to jail sometimes in drug cases — sometimes for as much as one fiftieth as long as they’d go to jail for the same offenses if they weren’t professional athletes, because that’ll show ’em), will almost certainly never happen regardless of whether Rolle did it. But if he did it, my, oh, my, what a wonderful way to celebrate your love for the mother of your two children. I mean, you’re a professional athlete — no, I’m sorry, it’s more than that, because you’re not a golf or ping-pong pro, you’re a pro football player, which means you’ve gotta be stronger, in better condition, and a good bit more aggressive than … well, than pretty much everybody — and you need to assert power in your marriage by beating up your wife. What could possibly be more loving than that?

And you know that if, by some odd chance, Mr. Rolle is convicted in this case, the NFL will fail to sanction, or even censure, him in any meaningful way. The league has, after all, demonstrated in case after case, with player after player, that it does not consider domestic violence a serious problem. Not like drug use, that’s for sure. Players who violate the league’s drug policies end up serving lengthy suspensions — smoke a joint and you could sit for a month. And why? Well, because football players are role models, of course. We wouldn’t want to give impressionable kids the idea that the National Football League thinks its OK to blaze a spliff and sit around playing Madden with your buddies. The very fuckin’ structure of our society is at stake. But, you know, a little bit of wife of girlfriend beating here or there, eh, what’s really wrong with that? I mean, you know, a guy rams his wife’s car or something, then you’ve gotta slap him on the wrist. But a smack here, a punch there, that’s to be expected.

What do you get for it all in the end? I don’t know. I mean, maybe one day, if worse comes to worst, a player some player or ex-player will do something like, you know, lunge out of a hedgerow and brutally murder his estranged wife and maybe even some innocent bystander or something. But, you know, even then, he’ll probably have enough money to mount a hell of a defense and get away with it. So nothing really to worry about there. Not really.

God, you know how I know I truly, truly love this game? Because if I didn’t, the behavior of some of the people who play it would have turned me against it a long, long time ago.

A few post-Super Bowl observations, some of which are pretty obvious, though you’d never know it from reading the newspapers or listening to the radio:

The New England Patriots won Super Bowl XXXIX. “Really?” you respond. “You don’t say. Any other news to break?” Well, that’s not what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know the deal. New England came out ahead 24-21, posting its third Super Bowl win and cementing its dynasty status. Don’t think the Pats are a dynasty? Good for you. Go get your own blog and fucking say so there.) Fair enough. But the question I keep reading and hearing is, “Did the Patriots win or did the Eagles lose?” Fuck, man, both. Of course. But the point of the question is, “By what degree may we devalue the Patriots’ victory?” And the answer is, not at all. You’re damned right the Patriots won the Super Bowl. No, they weren’t perfect. Yeah, they didn’t score every time they made it into the red zone. And yeah, the Eagles made some mistakes. Doesn’t matter. The Pats scored enough points to win the game. They completely shut down the Eagles ground game, to the point where Philly simply abandoned the run. They confused not only the Eagles players on the field (on both sides of the ball), but the coaches on the sidelines, who should have been able to see something of what the Pats were doing and make some adjustments. And more important, those Eagles mistakes didn’t happen in a vacuum. The Pats forced some of them by keeping after Donovan McNabb, and they paved the way for others by mixing up their sets on offense and defense, making constant adjustments to their game plan that even the announcers failed to pick up, and leaving Andy Reid and the rest of the Philly coaching staff standing dumbstruck as their team failed to make an effort to do what it needed to do at the end of the game. That’s a win. And fuck you, media, for even suggesting otherwise.

I believe the Patriots can become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. I’m not saying I believe they will do it — clearly, the 2005 regular-season campaign in the AFC (and particularly the AFC East) is gonna be absolutely fucking brutal — only that they can. In terms of players, the Pats should only get better. They’ll have players — like Tyrone Poole and Ben Watson — who missed much or all of this season coming back into the lineup. They’ll doubtless make some great draft picks. And recent history suggests they’ll make at least one key free-agent acquisition, perhaps shoring up their defensive secondary or offensive line (which has played brilliantly, but which could use a little help). We’ll see what happens with the coaching situation. Whether Eric Mangini sticks around to pick up where Romeo Crennel left off will be big. But either way, I expect Bill Belichick will find the right guys to be his new coordinators. And as long as Dante Scarnecchia is still around, you can expect to see the offensive line continue to play at the high level that has allowed Tom Brady and Corey Dillon to have the kind of success they’ve had this season.

I suspect that if the Patriots do make it to Detroit (Detroit? what the hell was the NFL thinking?) for Super Bowl XL, they could very well find themselves in the first consecutive-years Super Bowl rematch since Dallas stomped Buffalo in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. The Eagles also stand to get better in the off-season. They’ve got tons of room under the salary cap and very few real needs. If they can find a running back (there are several talented guys available in free agency) and allow Brian Westbrook to catch more balls, find a decent second receiver (pushing Todd Pinkston to three, where he belongs and dumping Freddie Mitchell, who should be playing in the Arena League), they’ll be in damned good shape come next season. They’ve also gotta make some adjustments on D. Blitzing every play just doesn’t work. But they can do that. And the NFC could be an even weaker conference next season. So they should be able to get back to the show if all goes well.

I, for one, would love to see a second Patriots-Eagles Super Bowl matchup. I’d just be so happy to see an Eagles team with a healthy Terrell Owens lose to a Patriots team with a healthy defensive secondary. Then, Eagles fans would almost have to shut up about how their team “could have won, if only … .” (They couldn’t have, because they didn’t, and that’s that. But it would be nicer if there were no room to ask stupid questions.)

Super Bowl XL will be played February 5 at Ford Field in Detroit. To date, there have been three Super Bowls played in the month of February. All three have been won by the New England Patriots.

There are 74 days until the 2005 NFL draft. There are 212 days until the beginning of the 2005 regular season. I’m already champing at the bit.