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Rules of Thumb: Christmas Edition
Authored by Jeff Risdon - 22nd December, 2008 - 10:33 am
Peyton Manning's playoff resume has been greatly debated. Here is how his numbers compare to the regular season, along with Tom Brady and more than two dozen other all-time greats.
There’s a difference between a favorite and a lock. When up against a team with playoff-level talent, it’s rare that the team with the better record ever appears in the second category.
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What an amazing weekend of football!
Winter kicks off and the playoff jockeying produces some great gut-check performances and some eye-popping outcomes. It made the frightful weather outside a treat, being snowed in and forced to do nothing but huddle around the TV. When the snow is drifting higher than your doorknobs, and you can't see the house across the street through the blizzard-like conditions, as it is here in West Michigan on Sunday, it really sets the Christmas spirit. And the NFL delivered some real presents...
Thumbs Up: To the Atlanta Falcons and Miami Dolphins, for engineering two of the greatest turnarounds in NFL history. The Falcons went from 3-13 and an organizational nightmare to qualifying for the playoffs by winning in Minnesota. Rookie head coach, rookie franchise quarterback, playing in a division where all four teams will win at least 8 games, it all didn't hold down the resurgent Falcons. There is a great "spirit of the season" lesson around this team, that a genuinely good person like owner Arthur Blank gets sweet redemption by admitting his faults and not being afraid to start over, standing proud and tall in the face of unprecedented turmoil. Good things happen to good people, even in the darkest of circumstances.
The Dolphins still need to beat the Jets in Week 17 to capture the AFC East and a playoff berth, but even if they lose, the change of fortune from 2007 to 2008 is astonishing. I'm a frequent (some would say obsessive) critic of Bill Parcells, but I give the Tuna nothing but credit for the unbelievable turnaround in Miami. He came in with a dramatic plan that took some dramatic actions, and nearly every one paid off. He might be a horribly overrated coach, but what Parcells did with this downtrodden franchise over the last nine months is worthy of unending praise. And how sweet would it be for Chad Pennington, cast aside like a soiled diaper in New York, to bury the free-spending Jets by leading the likes of Davone Bess and Brandon London from 1-15 to 10-6 and the most unlikely division title in NFL history?
To the memory of Sammy Baugh. Slinging Sammy died this past week, and I have been pleasantly surprised at how much recognition and respect has flowered over one of the all-time greats. His career ended right after Eisenhower first got elected, so it's not like anyone under age 70 would have any firsthand recollection of his playing career. Yet the effusive praise and admiration for his innovative, game-changing career shows that the NFL has not forgotten, and that's a wonderful holiday treat. Next summer when I visit the Hall of Fame, I'm going to spend a little extra time in front of Baugh's statue with a newfound knowledge of just how amazing a player Slinging Sammy Baugh truly was.
Thumbs Down: To Fox For forcing us to watch every last second of the Saints-Lions' game. The score was 42-7 at the start of the fourth quarter, and two other Fox games (STL-SF and SD-TB) were within a touchdown at that point. I couldn't switch fast enough to the Pittsburgh-Tennessee game, and every time I checked back the poor Fox crew was still trying to paint lipstick onto the crispy bacon that was the Lions' game. I know the other matchups weren't exactly sexy, but show some mercy for my fellow Lions' fans and don't force us to watch that abomination to the very end.
To the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's one thing to lose three games in a row after a 9-3 start, but it's another entirely to get dominated in those three games. The 6-8 San Diego Chargers went into Tampa and trounced the inept Bucs' defense, the third week in a row that Monte Kiffin's troops have looked slow and inadequate. From playoff front-runner to needing lots of help in the final week just to back into the #6 seed, the collapse in Tampa deserves more attention than it's getting. Maybe a coaching change will shine a brighter spotlight on one of the biggest late-season choke jobs this side of Tony Romo (whose team holds the tie-breaker, thanks to Brad Johnson). Special thumbs up to the Chargers and Norv Turner, on the verge of turning around a 4-8 start and still winning the putrid AFC West.
Thumbs Twiddling: To the Dallas Cowboys. Humiliating defeat Saturday night, but pretty much everything that needed to happen for them on Sunday did. They once again control their own playoff destiny, thanks to unexpected losses by the Bucs and Eagles, the team they face in the finale. This brings up an interesting dilemma: would the Cowboys be better off knowing they needed help, and therefore having less weight on their performance? They controlled their fate headed into the emotionally-charged Texas Stadium finale against Baltimore and looked very much like a team with no ability to handle any sort of pressure. After watching Philly throw up a major clunker against lowly Washington, the Cowboys certainly stand a real strong chance to sneak into the playoffs. But I can't help but think they'd be better off if they needed some help, that not having so much lying on their own shoulders might produce a better chance for Romo & Co. to seize the final NFC playoff spot. Then again, if their defense plays to its potential, they should have little trouble dispatching their first round foe.
To the prospects of an 0-16 season in Detroit. As a Lions' fan since the Gary Danielson era, I can't stand the thought of going winless through a 16-game season, thereby cementing this group as officially the worst in NFL history. I have enough of a relationship with some of the players and staff that I would hate to see them branded as such historic losers; there are some very good people both on and off the field who don't deserve the ignominy. But at the same time, I'm a big fan of history and records. No team has ever started 0-15, and losing the finale in Green Bay, where the team hasn't won since Jimmy Carter was President, would be a fitting, historically inept coda to the Matt Millen era. When you're that terrible, it becomes both endearing and hopeful -- it can't get any worse, the elevator can only go up. Special thumbs sucking to those who want Rod Marinelli to remain as coach, whether they win or not. Marinelli is a truly good man who has done some good things with the deck stacked against him, but to all of us Lions fans, he represents failure and ineptitude. Right or wrong, he is the face of 0-16 and the worst team in NFL history. This organization cannot go forward without completely purging all the symbols of negativity and losing, and that most certainly includes the head coach. To Pat Kirwin, Howie Long, and others who should know better than to lobby for Marinelli, you just don't understand the depth of the hole here. If Marinelli is still the coach, the Lions are telling the depressed (both emotionally and economically) fans they are still digging.
Thumbs Sucking: To ESPN For manufacturing "news". All day Saturday, the lead on the NFL crawl on ESPN was something to the effect of "ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reports sources tell him Chiefs coach Herm Edwards isn't going to quit, but his status is unresolved beyond this year." No kidding. Why exactly is that noteworthy? Did Mort really think Herm "We play to win the game" Edwards was going to throw in the towel after a lousy season that the Chiefs' brass decided last April was going to be a developmental year? How is Edwards' status any different from Wade Phillips or Eric Mangini or Brad Childress? And does Mort really need "sources" to ascertain this? I have a reliable source who told me at the Combine last year that he deliberately feeds Mort bad information just to see him run with it and make a fool of himself. If Mort's need for attention is extreme enough that he needs to report that a coach under contract through next season isn't quitting and ESPN trumpets it as breaking news, maybe you should look elsewhere for your NFL news needs. Here's some breaking news I can report, with no source needed: The Detroit Lions suck. That's the equivalent of what Mortensen was telling you. I never used to understand the old Chevy Chase bit about Franco still being dead, but now I do.
To the local stations who cover up the game ticker with weather information. I'm perhaps a bigger fan of the weather than just about anyone, but I'm also watching football for a reason. I had no idea what the score was the entire day on CBS, because our local affiliate covered up the bottom quarter of the screen with weather info and church closings. It's really not difficult to shrink the feed and run the closing and blizzard info below it, instead of superimposing it over the important information from the game. If you really cared that much about the snowstorm as a station, perhaps you would have run live weather coverage instead of infomercials and four hours of Jesus all morning.
Have a wonderful holiday season, and try to remember the spirit of kindness and joy over all the crass commercialism and annoying relatives stinking up the bathroom.
