The Crystal Ball 2008 Week 8

The Lady K and I have successfully completed our treatment for DFS. Our relocation from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh is now complete, and we’re ensconced in a beautiful neighborhood in the Burgh! We go for our graduation ceremony on Sunday, watching our beloved Steelers take on the World Champion Giants in Heinz Field! Thank you Peyton and Eli for letting us know of this debilitating condition so we could seek treatment before it became too late.


Opening Kickoff

October is national adopt a dog month. I highly recommend going out to your local shelter and adopting a dog. Trust me, the chance you give a furry four legged friend will be paid back in spades with years of love and companionship.


Recap

The Bills/Chargers game started with no power, thanks to three helium balloons that became entangled in power lines near Ralph Wilson Stadium. If only they could do that for Lion and Bungle games.

Everyone always talks about the NFL being a copy cat league, but Lee Evans catching a touchdown pass with his helmet? David Tyree should sue for copyright infringement.

Peyton Manning threw two interceptions, each returned for a touchdown in the Colts loss to Green Bay. I think Peyton’s troubles come from a lack of Tom Brady. Perhaps he was the Joker to Peyton’s Batman, each powerful, but nothing without the other.

Is Romo that important to the Cowboys, Brad Johnson that bad or Dallas just that much of a dysfunctional mess? I’ll go with door number three.

Was that the Bears and Vikings playing or an old AFL game being rebroadcast?

Kudos to Jim Zorn on another big win for the Redskins, and I know it’s your first year as a head coach but here’s a tip. Icing the kicker rarely works.

Thank goodness Ike Hilliard was not seriously injured on a frightening looking collision in the Bucs/Seahawks contest. Here’s what I want to know, if the NFL is serious about cutting down on injuries, as they say they are every time they issue a fine for unnecessary roughness, then why were the defenders not even flagged on that play, as it was helmet to helmet contact? The official was right there, and both defenders should have been flagged, and possibly tossed from the game. Come on Goodell, if you are serious about this, lets see the proof on the field, not in the fines.

Speaking of injury, Reggie Bush injured his knee in Sunday’s game, keeping the multi-purpose back out 3-4 games. As the Saints are having a whale of time finding consistency, this will not help one iota.


The Steel Pit

Do we really need to recap this one? The Steelers went out, took their time and predictably stomped a mud hole into the Bungles. A few notable items did come from the game, though.

The Good – wide receiver Hines Ward showed why he’s the fiercest receiver in the game when he laid a wicked block on Bungle linebacker Keith Rivers. The block was great, the results not so much as the hit broke Rivers jaw and he will be out the remainder of the season. Now that’s a football player kids.

The Bad – cornerback Bryant McFadden broke his forearm during the game, and will be out at least five games. Deshea Townsend will start in his absence.

The Ugly – During the same play, safety Troy Polamalu sustained a concussion when his helmet flew off during a collision. This is Troy’s seventh reported concussion since high school and could put his career in jeopardy. Concussions are cumulative and Troy has already had more than his fair share.

The rest of the week in Steeler Nation was a whirlwind of nonsense and insanity that we’ll examine below.

The plus side for the team as they go into their big showdown with the Giants this week is that Casey Hampton will be returning from injury and ready to go. The bad side, Willie Parker is doubtful for the game and Santonio Holmes is inactive for his extracurricular activities.


NFL The Alternative Universe

Jacksonville police have charged a man in the shooting of former Jaguar Richard Collier. Excellent work men, now if we could just figure out why people want to hurt others for no apparent reason, we’ll be getting somewhere special.

Kansas City Chief douche bag Larry Johnson is now being investigated for spitting in a woman’s face at a nightclub, his fourth accusation of assaulting a woman in five years. Sorry, no joke here, this guy is a jerk extraordinaire and needs a few good smacks upside the head.

In the karma is a bitch department, the Patriots suffered another blow with running back Lawrence Maroney being placed on injured reserve due to a shoulder injury. Awwww, that’s a shame.

Continuing in the same vein, there were reports that the Patriots were unhappy with Tom Brady’s situation. The situation is that Brady has had yet another surgery on his knee to fight an infection, which is not uncommon. The rub comes from the reports that the Patriots were unhappy with Brady’s decision to go with his own doctors as opposed to team selected physicians. The Patriots, of course, denied this. It is to laugh, ha ha, hee hee, ho ho.

The 49ers canned coach Mike Nolan, making Nolan the third coach sent packing this season and the second from the Bay area. Welcome to northern California, the Bermuda Triangle of NFL coaches.

On a plus side from this situation, former NFL great and Hall of Famer Mike Singletary will take over as the interim head coach of the 49ers. Good luck to Mike, a fabulous player with a fantastic football mind. It’s a shame you probably don’t have enough in the cupboards there to do anything with, but I bet you get a few wins, and hopefully a long term chance.

Retired quarterback Daunte Culpepper has rethought his decision to call it a career, stating that there are a few teams interested in his services. Considering how quarterbacks and players in general, are falling faster than dominoes, I’m not surprised by Culpepper’s decision. I am surprised it took this long for him to generate interest, though.

A class action lawsuit on behalf of over 2,000 former NFL players was put forth this week against the NFL Players Association. The suit accuses the NFLPA of cheating former players out of royalties from various sports products, specifically video games, in order to give current players a bigger slice of said royalties. The former players smoking gun comes in the form of a 2001 letter from an NFLPA executive to EA Sports, makers of the Madden NFL game, telling them to scramble likenesses of former players or the NFLPA would have to pay them. Every time you turn around, it seems the NFL really does take an out of sight out of mind approach to former players.

In what might be the oddest and definitely one of the most fascinating stories all week and perhaps all season, foxsports.com reported Sunday that Brett Favre called Lions coaches before their September 14th game against the Packers to give them information that could help them defeat Green Bay. Of course Favre issued the predictable denial, but there seems to be too much smoke around this one for there to be no fire. Really Brett, did Green Bay really treat you that poorly that you would go out of your way to try to sabotage them? Last year it was Spy Gate, this year, Favre Gate. I’m sure we’ll have more on this in the coming weeks, if for no reason than it involves the great BRETT FAVRE and goodness knows we cannot have enough coverage of him.

Anyone watch the Fox pregame show last week? Did you see Michael Strahan show off his oddly deformed pinky finger that became that way from years of playing football? Did anyone else wonder who has the worst deformed finger, Strahan or Brian Baldinger?

Speaking of Baldinger, was I high, drunk or both or did I really see Baldinger doing yoga on a segment during NFC Playbook? Good gravy I hope I was drunk because if I wasn't, that's gotta be one of the seven signs of the apolcalypse.

Stating the jersey costs involved, Chad Ocho Cinco will keep his old name, Chad Johnson, for the remainder of this season and go to Ocho Cinco on his jersey next season. Well, that seals it, the Bungles will go 0-16. Sorry you’ll be losing your job Marvin, but you should have listened to me when I said they’d never win a game until you give Chad his new jersey. FREE OCHO CINCO!


Upon Further Review

So, this week the buzz around Steeler Nation centered on Hines Ward and his physical play. The brouhaha stemmed from three things; Ward’s hit on Keith Rivers, Polamalu’s comments on the league fining players for unnecessary roughness and the Raven’s Terrell Suggs comments regarding a bounty on Steelers players.

The first, Ward’s hit on Keith Rivers, created it’s on nonsense as the NFL backed up what everyone already knew that the hit was clean. But the NFL also stated that the hit would be reviewed by the competition committee in the off season and next season that kind of hit might be deemed illegal in the NFL’s ongoing attempts to keep players safer. Ward took exception to this, saying that the NFL basically said that they think this hit might as well be illegal now. Ward is a tough player, very old school as he likes playing physical, and now the NFL is taking exception to that. If a player cannot hit another, what’s the point? The NFL sells its product based upon wicked hits. If it didn’t would we really have the ESPN segment Jacked Up? So this created tons of press.

Then based upon Polamalu’s previous comments calling the NFL a pansy league, the NFL sent two vice presidents to Pittsburgh to meet with head coach Mike Tomlin, the team captains and Polamalu himself regarding the increasing fines for unnecessary roughness on plays that are not flagged or penalized and excessive play. Obviously the NFL realized quickly that these comments, and the hypocrisy they point out, could turn into a severe PR nightmare and they dispatched personnel to quell the growing unrest. Ray Anderson, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations who met with the team, stated what they talked about with Troy.

“We wanted him to understand that our interests and emphasis on player safety was genuine, was sincere and it wasn't driven by money or the economics. It wasn't driven by just trying to protect the star players. It was legitimately about player safety.”

Now, I know the NFL has been giving lip service and a media push to ending the carnage that has become the norm in during the NFL season, stating they want to stem the tide of serious injuries to marquee players. Considering they cannot pimp Tom Brady until next season, you figure they might be serious. But I maintain it is nothing more than a load of bull meant to placate those who bemoan the violence in the game today.

Yes, it is a serious issue of how many players become injured each week and each season, and the size and speed of players today has everything to do with it. When guys this strong and this fast start slamming into one another, bad things will happen. But if the NFL was really serious about stemming this disturbing trend, they would be doing much more than issuing meaningless fines. Come on, these guys are millionaires, fining them $10,000 for “unnecessary roughness” is like fining you or I $5.

If they really wanted to make a difference, this is what the NFL offices would really do. First they would make anti concussion helmets, like the Riddell Revolution, mandatory for all players. Second, they would make the penalties for their definition of unnecessary roughness real. They’d fine serious chunks of money, and tie that in to playing time. You play too rough, you sit on the bench. And third, and in my opinion most importantly, they would get some consistency with their policy and their on the field officiating. You really think helmet to helmet hits are too dangerous, then let’s see some penalties called. Every week in every game I see at LEAST one helmet to helmet hit that is never called as a penalty on the perpetrator. Typically it’s more like 3 to 4 a game that never get called. If the NFL is serious about this issue, how about having these infractions called, and the perpetrators tossed for the remainder of the game? How about actually calling penalties on and suspending players who blatantly go out of their way to hit quarterbacks after the throw? I know Shawn Rogers would be missing a few games and paychecks if this were the case. But I digress…

The third issue that ignited a firestorm in Pittsburgh was the comments by Baltimore’s Terrell Suggs. On a syndicated radio show, Suggs stated that the Ravens had a bounty out on Hines Ward and running back Rashard Mendenhall. Mendenhall was lost for the season in a game against Baltimore thanks to a hit from Ray “I’m still not sure how I’m not in prison” Lewis. As if this were not enough, Suggs went on to comment about Hines Ward, stating:

"Hines Ward is definitely a dirty player, a cheap shot artist."

Suggs also stated in his brilliant interview that:

"We definitely like to send our messages to rookie running backs who think they've made it. We did a good a job of sending a message."

Ok, one thing at a time. First let’s start with his Hines comment. Suggs, are you a moron? Wait, don’t answer that. How can you honestly state that Hines is a cheap shot artists when you and your fellow parolees are putting bounties on opposing players? The twisted logic that can differentiate between the two just boggles my mind.

So that brings us to the bounty comments. Knowing how this would fire up an already testy Steeler team, Anderson stated they would be investigating Suggs’ claims aggressively. After these comments, and Mendenhall’s current status, what is there really to investigate except for some serious fines and suspensions?

Suggs tried to clarify himself stating there never was an actual bounty. So, now he’s added liar to the list of adjectives you could use on Suggs. Let’s call that clarification what it is, a man trying to avoid disciplinary action from the NFL, a possible suspension and a fine. I’ll add backtracking coward to the list too.

While all this nonsense is a fun little exercise, and gives Steeler Nation that much more ammunition in which to use in their despising of the Ravens, is it worth the trouble? What will really change here? Suggs will probably pay a bit of scratch, and maybe sit a game or two. Mendenhall is still lost for the season. The league will still continue to be inconsistent and toothless in its efforts to curb the violence in the league and I’m sure at some point Ward and even Polamalu will find themselves on the business end of a fine for unnecessary roughness. In reality the best case scenario from this crap will be it gives Hines and Troy some serious fodder which to use to get fired up each week to go out and destroy opponents. Worst case it’s created a gigantic distraction that could affect them and the team leading up to their big showdown with the Giants this week.

Either way, nothing substantial will change until the NFL gets serious, and makes some serious steps toward changing the way the game is played to avoid serious injuries to all players. And if they succeed in doing that, will the fans still be interested and will the game survive? Is a fear of how the product will change what’s really holding Goodell back from making meaningful strides? Only time will tell.


Idiot of the week

Oh, did we ever have people just begging for this weeks award. Eric Mangini looked like an early winner, with horrible play calling in the Jets loss to Oakland. Eric, yes running Jones was working in overtime, but once the Raiders figured out what you were doing, they stacked the box and short circuited drives. Ever heard of play action, or an option play?

Larry Johnson? Oh, he definitely jumped into the running, but the title of idiot isn’t strong enough for that nimrod.

Perhaps Brett Favre and his antics will capture the prize? Perhaps, but no, his punishment will be being ostrazied from Packer Nation.

The real winner this week is Browns tight end Kellen Winslow. Winslow spent a few days the previous week in the Cleveland Clinic for what turned out to be a staph infection. It was not initially reported per the Browns request, big surprise there since all organizations love to take the Belichick route of underreporting injuries and illnesses.

Winslow however took exception to this and spilled his guts in his post game interview. He told the press he had his second staph infection since being with the team. He stated how he felt like nothing more than a piece of meat to the Browns and how he even considered requesting a trade from the team. Winslow went on to say that he went public because upper management did not inquire of his condition or recovery and that he felt unappreciated by the organization.

Look Kellen, I can understand you not feeling valued, and even questioning an organization that has had an inordinate amount of staph infections over the past few years. It makes me wonder if a hazmat crew is required in the Browns locker room. And yes perhaps you were looking out for the welfare of your teammates, but I doubt that. You’ve behaved in such a way in the past to show you only give a damn about yourself. I mean, going out of your way to say you did not want to be a distraction to the team while creating a huge distraction? Should I really believe you when you say you’re just looking out for your teammates with that kind of behavior? Kellen, in case no one ever told you actions speak louder than words.

And as for this nonsense about the organization looking at you as nothing more than a piece of meat and not appreciating you, give me a break. Are you honestly trying to convince us that you feel you’ve been treated unfairly by the same organization that stood beside you after you lost one season to a broken limb, and another to a motorcycle accident, when riding said motorcycle was prohibited by your contract under the provision of dangerous off the field activities? You feel treated unfairly by the same organization which was justified in asking for a return of bonus money paid you when you broke this contract provision, yet they never did? You feel treated unfairly by this organization which did everything it could to not only get you healthy, but also assist you in becoming a great player? Perhaps you’re right; perhaps you have been treated unfairly. If they treated you fairly, they would have thrown your petulant ass to the curb long ago and sued you for return of monies paid for services not rendered.

For his efforts, the Browns suspended Winslow for one game without pay, leaving the struggling Cleveland offense without a needed weapon. Yep, that’s really thinking of your teammates.

So for throwing an organization that has stood beside you under the bus, calling unneeded attention to your underproductive self, causing a gigantic distraction for your struggling team then bitching and fighting the punishment metted out to you by your team for your actions, Kellen you are an idiot.


Taking the Week Off

Bears – The team will revel in their superb offensive output, and try to get Brian Urlacher to grow a neck beard.

Broncos – Mike Shanahan will fret about Cutler’s hurt hand, and call the Denver Post’s classified department. Wanted: Defensive personnel for struggling NFL team. No experience necessary.

Packers – Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson will spend the whole weekend cutting Brett Favre out of all of their old pictures and pasting in Aaron Rodgers’ vestige.

Vikings – Brad Childress will give a team lecture on the periodic table in hopes of distracting them from the team’s massive underachievement and the fact that their offense is in the hands of Gus Ferrotte.


On Tap This Week

I came close to being in the running for another week won, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Last week 10-4
Season to date 64-38

But with my DFS treated, perhaps that will bring me some luck…


Sunday

Oakland (2-4) at Baltimore (3-3)

Hey, it’s the Prison Bowl! Correctional institutions across the nation rejoice in watching their favorite players, and former and future cell mates, battle it out for the ultimate title of most reformed.

Ravens over Raiders


Arizona (4-2) at Carolina (5-2)

Ummm, I’m going with the west coast to east coast curse here.

Panthers over Cardinals


Tampa Bay (5-2) at Dallas (4-3)

Ok, it seems like a good idea to pick Dallas, as this would be the perfect statement game for them. But they just seem like too much of a mess, and Tampa is actually playing very solid football right now.

Buccaneers over Cowboys


Washington (5-2) at Detroit (0-6)

I’m not picking Detroit until Rod Marinelli has his Dennis Green moment.

Redskins over Lions


Buffalo (5-1) at Miami (2-4)

Did you know this is Buffalo’s first division game this season? Considering for the first time in quite a while, Buffalo has a team that can actually compete for the division title I’d call this delayed satisfaction.

Bills over Dolphins


St. Louis (2-4) at New England (4-2)

Yeah, St. Louis beat up on Dallas last week, but come on. Is that really a good indicator considering that the Cowboys are about two seconds and an eyelash away from being on an episode of Cops for a domestic dispute call?

Patriots over Rams


San Diego (3-4) at New Orleans (3-4)

London Baby! The NFL has trotted out this gimmick again. Yes, I say gimmick, since last season the game last year was nothing but a boring mud slogged slug fest. This is considered a home game for New Orleans, which seems mean considering how few actual home dates they’ve had over the past few years, but I don’t think that makes a difference. So as for who has an edge? You got me.

Chargers over Saints


Kansas City (1-5) at New York Jets (3-3)

Hmmm, the ultra crappy KC team or the totally underachieving Jets, that’s a tough one. I’ll go with the team with the better coach. Wait, they’re both crappy? Nuts.

Jets over Chiefs


Atlanta (4-2) at Philadelphia (3-3)

Atlanta’s on fire, and as everyone has stated Matt Ryan is Philly born and bred. But the Eagles did have a week off, and perhaps Jimmy Johnson will have a blitz scheme or two to throw the hot rookie off balance.

Eagles over Falcons


Cleveland (2-4) at Jacksonville (3-3)

Ok, Jacksonville is weaker this year than in previous years, but they’re still better than the Brownies. Sorry Drew, although I liked your orange tie this Friday on the Price Is Right.

Jaguars over Browns


Cincinnati (0-7) at Houston (2-4)

Any way we can get the power to short circuit on this one?

Texans over Bengals


New York Giants (5-1) at Pittsburgh (5-1)

I have heard plenty of talk and read more than a few articles that state this game could be a Super Bowl preview. Look, I love the fact that everyone recognizes how good the Steelers are despite their injuries and are touting them as a team to beat. But for Pete’s sake stop talking like that people! What are you trying to do, jinx us? Hearing that makes me want to go driving with Santonio Holmes. Oh, and by the way, I know our secondary is banged up, but before you doubters out there start thinking that could hurt Pittsburgh, remember this is the same Giants team that was humiliated in prime time by the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, that’s right the Browns.
Steelers over Giants


Seattle (1-5) at San Francisco (2-5)

I bet Madden wishes he took this week off. Congrats to Mike Singletary on his first NFL win. Yeah, I’m saying now he can beat Seneca Wallace.

49ers over Seahawks


Monday

Indianapolis (3-3) at Tennessee (6-0)

I want to believe in the magic of Peyton. I want to believe they can make some magic again. I want to be able to believe in the age old adage that the team with the better quarterback wins. But after last week, I just can’t.

Titans over Colts