One of my favorite sports columnist is The Kansas City Star’s and FoxSports.com’s Jason Whitlock. Every week during the NFL season he has his “10 Truths” columns on FoxSports.com with truth no. 2 almost always being unrelated to the NFL. Here’s my attempt at an ode to Whitlock; here is Some Dude’s Ten NFL Truths…
10. The Seattle Seahawks can never be taken seriously. Honestly, I drank the Seattle Kool-Aid leading up to the Packers game. Then… I realized that (and everyone annually forgets) that they play in the NFC West, which is essentially the Junior College circuit. Yes, the Seahawks play good at home but until they can win key games on the road never pick them on the road in the playoffs. Six of their games every year are against teams with glaring deficiencies.
9. Ditto for the Dallas Cowboys so long as Tony Romo and Jerry Jones are prominently involved. The combination of Romo looking more and more like a poor man’s Warren Moon and Jerry Jones’s ego will always create an environment of confusion and chaos in playoff games. Playoff games are by nature do-or-die and the Cowboys clearly look like a team that implodes in big time, pressure cooker situations.
8. The abandoning of the run game doomed the Colts. Joseph Addai is the best RB not named LaDanian Tomlinson and means more to the Colts than Peyton Manning or any of his apologists will ever admit to. The Colts by nature rely heavily on the play-action passing game and to abandon that for no reason (i.e.-they weren’t down by more than 10 points) is the main reason they lost.
7. The Chargers stand no chance of beating the Patriots. Put it this way: the only way the Pats lose is if Tom Brady gets hurt or they turn the ball over more than four times. New England is in San Diego’s head—remember, the Pats rammed a “F**k you!” touchdown on the Chargers earlier in the season at the end of the game. The Chargers will be hung up on that.
6. Even if it snows, the Giants do have a chance of beating the Packers. I’ve never been a believer of the Giants but they are playing some inspired ball. If the Giants can knock Favre down a few times they have a very good chance of winning even if Eli Manning reverts to his interception-prone ways.
5. The Jaguars are at a crossroads just like the Titans were a few years ago. After the Titans lost in the Super Bowl in 2000 they looked like a legitimate AFC force but they simply weren’t talented enough to compete with the upper echelon teams, losing to the Raiders and Patriots in consecutive playoff appearances. The Jaguars look like a powerhouse yet haven’t been able to beat the Colts in Indy and are still not in New England’s league. Free agency may kill the Jags in a couple years like it did to the Titans too.
4. Terrell Owens’ breakdown was all about self-realization. Despite what he may have said about Romo and everything, Owens is always one step ahead of everyone. What really stings Owens is that Randy Moss is going to win a ring and he’ll never be able to go to the Patriots after Moss leaves.
3. The Chargers-Colts game perfectly illustrates why sideline reporting is pointless. Philip Rivers, LaDanian Tomlinson, Marvin Harrison, Antonio Gates, Bob Sanders, Reggie Wayne and Joseph Addai all were either hurt coming in to the game, hurt during the game for extended periods of time, or had to sit out for a few plays or a series and yet I never heard anything of substance that explained any of it. Or, if information was reported, it didn’t matter because the game was so intriguing. Sideline reporters are grossly overpaid spectators (see: Siragusa, Tony). Imagine if Brett Favre were injured? We’d never hear the end of it. All of the aforementioned players get hurt and it doesn’t matter as much because the game is more important. Sideline reporting only takes center stage when almost nothing else is happening. Networks, please kill this “feature” of the game.
2. If you like the Dead and are looking for an excellent live show to listen to… Do yourself a favor and head over to deadnetstore.com and download Dick’s Picks, Volume 26. For $12 you can download the two show set–the first show from The Electric Theater in Chicago in 1969 is nothing short of awesome. If you like Live/Dead and Aoxomoxoa you will love that show.
1. Predicitons. New England 38, San Diego (aka. “a whale’s vagina”) 21 and New York 20, Green Bay 14. The only reason I’m picking the Giants is that everyone wants to see a Pats-Packers Super Bowl, which almost certainly means that it won’t happen…