The Crystal Ball 2013 Week 7 Thursday Night Special Plus

With the frequency of a swarm of cicadas, please welcome to another addition of The Crystal Ball Thursday Night Special. What prompted this surprise installment? Was it a must watch game, a hilarious concept or Roger Goodell blowing smoke up our ass and telling us its perfume? Unfortunately no. Thanks to, well, poor planning we missed Week 6, so an oversized Thursday special in anticipation of Sunday’s return seemed appropriate. And necessary. Man, take your eyes off the NFL for one minute and all heck breaks loose.

Opening Kickoff

After only one weekend of games, the NFL dropped its usage of pink referee flags due to confusion by officials and players. And by this weekend, players, coaches and other NFL personnel will have dropped almost every other piece of pink apparel. Although to be honest, that was the fastest annual shedding of pink accoutrements I’ve seen yet.

Only In Faux NFL Reality…

The Jacksonville Jaguar mascot had to pay off a bet recently, and got pelted with paintballs from a 10 yard distance. I hope all his future bets involve the Jaguars losing.

The NFL unveiled new Pro Bowl uniforms, replacing the ridiculous uniforms that looked like castoffs from the 1967 Pro Bowl with these beauties, that look like cast offs from the latest uniform design session for the Oregon Ducks.

Apparently, in the locker room immediately after he was injured, quarterback Mark Sanchez unloaded on the Jets general manager questioning why he was even in the game to risk injury that did occur. Mark, come now. It’s the only way Rex Ryan could get you out of the line up and save face. You have to know that by now, right?

A lifelong Bengals fan broke down in tears when his son presented him with tickets to his first ever Bengals game. I imagine that if he's a lifelong Bengals fan, he's probably used to breaking down in tears.

Mike Ditka for some oddball reason revealed he had the opportunity to run against Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate seat, and turned it down. Ditka feels he could have beaten the future president, and most likely radically changed the future political landscape of the country, and considers this his biggest regret. Don’t fret Iron Mike, there’s still time. After the last few weeks of Washington nonsense, I bet you could beat him now.

Deion Sanders was fired, and then re-hired the same day, from the Dallas-area charter school he helped form in the wake of Sanders allegedly assaulting the school’s chief financial officer. I wonder how much money it took that overhyped ass clown to shut everyone up and make this go away so fast…

Upon Further Review

Colts owner Jim Irsay has been all over the media this week and his main topic of conversation has been his former golden goose Peyton Manning. First Irsay gave extensive comments regarding how Manning urged the team to draft Andrew Luck. And from what we know of Manning, this seems like it could be a true comment. He would want to do what was best for the team and best to win. And for him, it would have been, and has been, best to leave and pursue one more ring elsewhere.

But then Irsay, who if you follow his Twitter feed is known to be a loose cannon, turn things up a notch. In an interview, Irsay said this about the direction his team took after the 2011 season:

“You make the playoffs 11 times, and you’re out in the first round seven out of 11 times. You love to have the Star Wars numbers from Peyton and Marvin (Harrison) and Reggie (Wayne). Mostly, you love this.”

This, at the end of that statement, is referring to Irsay's Super Bowl ring.

Now, it has been pointed out that Irsay was not specifically referring to Manning but more to the Colts post-Manning business model, or trying to denigrate him, or even saying something he hasn't said in the past. Irsay said a similar statement before the 2013 season began. And it has been supposed that Irsay is trying to get in Manning's head on the eve of a big game for both teams.

Whether Irsay was attempting gamesmanship or just awkwardly explaining his business position is a point of speculation. If he were blasting Manning, that would be pretty skeezy, especially considering he watches his Colts play in a fancy new dome thanks in no small part to the magic weaved by Manning, Harrison and Wayne. No matter the true intentions it stirred up a world of trouble.

Pretty much all of Denver exploded in righteous fury. Newly retired Colorado Rockie and Denver hero Todd Helton called Irsay an idiot. Apparently no one told Todd I'm the one who determines the idiots in the NFL. Broncos head coach John Fox called it, "a cheap shot". Headlines in Denver screamed in rage. Suddenly, there was bad blood brewing for this game.

And maybe it was inappropriate of Irsay to say such things considering all Manning has done for his organization through the years. And perhaps he did mean it innocently, and Irsay trying to explain why his team parted with its most beloved player got misconstrued. But let me ask you this. Is Irsay wrong?

Look at the facts. Manning has been in the NFL since 1998. After his first year, a rough 3-13 season, he has been steady, consistent and excellent, in the regular season. He has a good shot to surpass most significant quarterback records. He is perennially one of the best performers, most popular players and his work ethic, precision, perfectionism, and football acumen are legendary.

Yet, for all his wonderful talents, skill and drive, he chokes in the playoffs. We've all seen it. Right now Colts fans everywhere are nodding their heads in agreement. Bronco fans right now aren't sitting at home thinking, wow 6-0 is amazing, I hope he doesn't choke in the playoffs again. You know why they think that? Because they watched it happen for years in Indianapolis. They watched it happen on their own field against an over hyped Ravens team last season. Right now, Peyton Manning is Dan Marino who got lucky one season.

He has a playoff record of 9-11. 8 times he led a team to the playoffs, said team lost their only game. He made it to the Super Bowl twice, once losing to an inspired Saints team, insert your own bounty joke here, and winning once against a Bears team led by Rex Grossman. Plus, his record in weather below 40 degrees is awful, which does not bode well for January football.

While it's true Manning takes too much heat for his team's playoff failures, that's the unfortunate life of a quarterback. They get too much credit when times are good, and too much flack when things go sour. And be honest, you never see Peyton denying his accolades during his spectacular regular season successes.

And remember, Peyton has a tremendous amount of input into the offensive schemes his team runs, and they cater to his strengths. Those strengths are excellent at exploiting defenses during the regular season. But in the playoffs, the pressure ratchets up, the intensity increases and defenses key more on weaknesses. For the most part, Manning has not been able to adjust to these changes to achieve the same sustained success in the post season as he has enjoyed in the regular season.

Professional football is a team sport, but the position of quarterback increasingly transcends this belief. A team's quarterback is looked upon not merely as a leader and facilitator of the offense, but also as the face of the franchise, the ambassador of the team on and off the field, the lightning rod for his team, friend, mentor, disciplinarian and confidant to his teammates. It's more than just executing plays now, and that means being both the team's greatest weapon and it's number one scapegoat.

Peyton Manning is a special player who does amazing things on the football field. This season may be one of his all time best, which is saying something looking over his career. He is one of the best representatives the NFL could ever ask for and will be a first ballot Hall of Famer. I can guarantee that in 30 years, myself and the other old timers will weave tales to the young whippersnappers how they missed seeing one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time play. But in weaving those tales, we'll always add one caveat: If only he could have played better in the post season, he would have been the greatest of all time.

He Said He Said

“If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team, even if they’ve had a storied history, that was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think about changing it.” – President Barack Obama on the Washington Snyders

And If I were the President of the United States, and I knew the partisan bickering between political parties had brought upon a government shutdown that embarrassed the country and put people out of work, and said shutdown was merely a symptom of a much larger issue that includes no real government budget for several years, out of control spending and a new health care program that since its kickoff has been more buggy than a picnic in July, I'd think about focusing on the primary duties of my publicly elected job and not worry about the nicknames of privately owned professional sports teams.

“That is just tactless and tasteless. I was extremely heated at that. They have to go home and look at themselves in the mirror and if they were born to hurt a man, that’s fine. They can do what they do. The fans can get emotional. That is just not how I was brought up. That is not the kind of man I am. I’ve got to go home and raise a daughter, and teach her right from wrong. That is just not something you do. I don’t care how you feel about a man. You don’t kick him when he is down.” – Texans running back Arian Foster on fans cheering when quarterback Matt Schaub was injured

Increasingly, disturbingly, people show how callous, shallow, mean and ignorant they are more each day. This is merely the latest example. I fear where it may end.

“I want longevity in this field, and to have longevity, you can’t just be one of the rotating talking heads. Because if you are, when the next safety comes out with a good opinion, speaks well and has knowledge of the game, then you are out of there. Look at Mike Mayock. He grinded and worked his way into that position at the NFL Network to where he is basically irreplaceable.” – Steelers safety Ryan Clark in an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette detailing his future career in broadcasting. The article stated Clark DVRs everything he does and evaluates the performance later with his wife.

Good for Clark for thinking of the future, but it would be nice if he put this level of effort and focus into his current jobs as NFL SAFETY AND TEAM CAPTAIN.

“It is a results league and we're trying to stay away from that. Not that that's not important. It's very important to us, but we feel the quickest way to get there is our process." – Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley on working to achieve success with his in transition team

Yes a good process helps; better players do too.

“Exhilaratingly exasperating on defense. But the offense looks unstoppable.” – The MMQB’s Peter King on the Denver Peytons

Yeah, that formula usually peters out during the NFL Playoffs Divisional Round. Peyton should be familiar with the one and done scenario.

Idiot of Last Week

What, just because I missed a week I can’t back track to point out stupidity. How silly of you.

My Idiot of the Week, for last week, honors go out to Steeler safety, future broadcaster and all around me first guy Ryan Clark.

Clark is, for good and for ill, not known as a shy, introverted thinking man’s football player. That title is held by his backfield partner Troy Polamalu. Clark has, does, and will speak his mind, even if the thoughts are half baked.

First, Clark started in on his team’s post season future, stating the Steelers are not out of the post season, or division, hunt. Mind you, he stated this gem AFTER the team dropped to 0-4. Now, considering the state of the AFC North this season, Clark is not wrong. However, considering the level of play from Pittsburgh over those 4 games, the 4 preseason games before it and the last month of last season, it is, at minimum, a foolish statement to make.

Clark followed this up by dropping this bomb on ESPN during the bye week, where he was moonlighting for his future in broadcasting:

“You to have to protect Ben against Ben. Right now, we have to tone Ben down in a sense and say, ‘Hey, right now, we're not a good enough football team for you to try to extend plays, for us to take sacks, for us to have turnovers.”

Ignoring the fact that Clark, and his defense, at the time of these comments were giving up big plays at a prodigious rate, at that point in the season had not generated one single turnover and had made the likes of Jake Locker, Andy Dalton and Matt Cassel, who was just demoted to third string in Minnesota, look like world beaters. The last time I checked, Clark does not have the title of Quarterback Coach or Offensive Coordinator on his business cards.

Of course, Roethlisberger responded graciously stating he did need to work on turnovers and suspiciously did NOT say Clark and the defense needed generate a few of them. Although I think he should have called the blowhard pinhead out on the carpet.

Clark did receive backlash, and responded by saying basically, in the media you have to be brutally honest, even to the detriment your own team. Yes, this is true. You won’t go far without honesty, just ask Jerome Bettis.

But here’s the difference. None of the players on ESPN, NFL Network, NBC, CBS, Fox, Fox Sports or any other media outlet are currently playing in the NFL. It’s easy for them to be brutally honest about the state of their former team and teammates because they don’t have to walk into that locker room, look those guys in the eyes and ride with them on game day. That’s why players with an ounce of common sense, save that sort of commentary until after they have retired. Hell, even Merrill Hoge, one of the most objective and intelligent analysts in the game and one known not to play favorites, gives more credit to Roethlisberger. And its his JOB to evaluate players and teams. It felt more like Clark had an axe to grind against Roethlisberger than he was giving actual feedback.

This nonsense only created additional tension and friction in a locker room that’s already fractured due to a 4 game losing streak and ridiculous veterans only policy on playing locker room gaming tables that was established in part by Clark himself. Head coach Mike Tomlin eventually pulled the plug on all games, but not before this policy created a young players vs. veteran divide that provided who knows how much animosity still floating around the locker room.

And remember, Clark is doing all this wearing the C of team captain on his uniform. You can’t buy this level of leadership outside of a 99¢ Store.

And while it may seem that Clark exonerated himself by nabbing the team’s first interception of the season, and came darn close to hawking their third, that’s not how this works.

So for throwing your two time Super Bowl winning quarterback under the bus, putting your future ahead of your present, treating the future of your team like second class citizens and being removed from all reality, Ryan Clark you are an idiot.

On Tap Tonight

Well, let’s catch up and see if I can get my math right before Sunday. How’d I do last week….

Last week: 10-5

Season to Date: 59-33

Eh, not too shabby, and not to bad overall. Hovering right near the top, ready to strike. Just like Jacksonville’s draft hopes.

Thursday

Seattle (5-1) at Arizona (3-3)

What does it say about this Seattle team where they can go on the road, make numerous boneheaded blunders, play an offensively meh game and still overcome all of that to pull out a victory? Seattle barely beat Tennessee last week, yet the Seahawk defense pitched a shutout. That says everything, and Bruce Arians will find this out first hand tonight.

Seahawks over Cardinals