Pro Bowl Wrap Up

Falcons to Hire Ghost of Red Grange

Pro Bowl Wrap Up

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Sort of like UPN and the WB, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback will be undergoing a bit of a reformatting. Unlike UPN and the WB, the Tuesday Morning Quarterback will continue to have high ratings. I enjoy writing about football, but I’m sure I can find other sports to write about…just think, we’ve got twelve more days of Olympic Curling left, yeah! Seriously though, I’d sooner write about the two-man Luge or Johnny Weir’s short program.
So I didn’t exactly get this written in the morning, but then again, I didn’t exactly watch the Pro Bowl either and I’m not going to let that stop me. The Pro Bowl didn’t disappoint on Sunday, it was pretty much exactly what everyone expected; a sloppy game played by men who obviously didn’t want to be there and it showed.
If the Super Bowl wasn’t enough, we had to deal with a week of Mike Holmgren complaining about the refereeing during the game. I know, the calls were pretty spotty, but the whole, “I knew it was going to be hard enough playing against the Steelers, I didn’t know we’d have to play against the guys in the striped shirts too,” comment. C’mon, the Seahawks pretty much played like shit for 4 quarters and were lucky enough to escape not getting blown out. And Seattle fans, don’t act like you’re upset; you’re the NFL equivalent of Marlins fans. Next year, when the Seahawks stink again and god knows, the Cardinals and bum-finger Warner are actually giving the NFC West a run for its money, don’t be surprised when Qwest Field has lower attendance than a Washington Mystics – New York Liberty game in August.
In the Pro Bowl, that thing that masquerades as an All Star game where the NFC beat the AFC 23 – 17, Peyton Manning picked up where he left off during the Divisional Round throwing seven interceptions…okay, he really had three but he was still pretty awful. The one “bright spot,” if that’s what you want to call it, for the AFC was Marvin Harrison catching 4 passes for 74 yards. Derrick Brooks’ interception to, “close the game out” for the NFC didn’t even come in the 4th quarter, but mid-way through the 3rd and before Neil Rackers kicked two field goals. Speaking of which, that win was the first time the NFC has knocked off the AFC in a Pro Bowl in the six of the last seven tries. Which considering the AFC has pretty much owned the NFC in the Super Bowl isn’t saying much, but I’m sure Holmgren and the rest of his crybaby buddies will take any little bit of solace they can get. Matt Hasselbeck had the quote of the weekend saying, “Coach Fox promised, by the end of the week, ‘We'll put a smile on your face.’ All the Seattle guys were smiling.” Yeah Matt, winning a meaningless game no one wants to play in, in the first place makes up for losing the Super Bowl.
In other news, the Jets are continuing their return to their illustrious New York Titans days. After Herm Edwards was replaced with a 35 year old; disgraced GM Terry Bradway stepped down and was replaced by Mike Tannenbaum, some guy who graduated from Wesleyan or someplace about six months ago. The one smart move they did make was asking the bust-o-rific Chad Pennington to take an $8 Million dollar pay cut. You can’t really blame them either; Pennington has missed 18 games the past two seasons and has looked Losmantacular in the few games he’s started. The Jets, who have always been straight shooters aren’t saying why they’re asking Chad to take a pay cut, but I guarantee that if you asked the 10 year old they’ve got running things he’d say that they needed free up money for when they draft Reggie Bush…like I said; straight shooters.

Random Observations:
The NFL is getting pretty lax on fining people who complain about the refs. They didn’t fine Jerry Porter when he went all Jim Mora after the Colts game, but that was because Tagliabue, Bettis and Dan Rooney had a pact with Satan; but what about Holmgren? He spent an entire week giving the refs worse treatment than reviewers gave PopoZão and nothing.
Speaking of complete train wrecks, West Texas A&M (who knew they even had a school?) has hired Ryan Leaf to be their quarterbacks coach…wow! I don’t even know where to begin…
The real highlight of the Pro Bowl? Suzy Kolber in that red sundress.
Don’t you get the feeling the Falcons hiring Vince Lombardi’s grandson is a bit like FOX duplicating every BBC and Channel 4 show they can get their hands on? So what if it’s crap, it’s got a good pedigree, right? Next up is “Loop” a blatant rip off of Mile High, but like most everything on FOX will probably last 4 episodes.
Not sure if I’m more appalled with Jillian Barberie for simply being Jillian Barberie or with Brett Favre for not immediately denouncing his title as “NFL’s sexiest man.”