Let The Craziness Begin

EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS

This was the perfect off-season for the NFL. Attention focused on whether egomaniacal receivers could send 140-character messages to fans during games, if an egomaniacal owner had turned punts into backyard touch football, whether an egomaniacal quarterback would return from his second retirement to satisfy an adoring media’s need to praise him and whether a country filled with highly-flawed people will offer a second chance to a highly-flawed quarterback.

In other words: Plenty of drama, nothing about football.

Tonight, mercifully, that changes – at least somewhat. We’ll still be subjected to the weekly malarkey involving locker room disputes and various other theatrical episodes (the prediction here is that Chad Ochocinco dictates his Twitter postings to a friend in the stands, thereby circumventing the league’s anti-Tweeting rule and forcing an emergency amendment), simply because networks have decided fans don’t care about why the Bills can’t run the football. Mostly, we’ll be able to focus on the on-field action, which is just fine.

Then again, the craziness is kind of fun. So, here is a look at the season ahead, which no doubt will continue to push the NFL beyond the WWE as the nation’s top sports entertainment concern.

Billsh**: It’s a good thing Dick LeBeau has a shot at the Hall of Fame to think about, because if he spends too much time pondering his team, he might ask the bartender for a Red-Bull-and-arsenic. LeBeau had to suffer through a training camp that included Terrell Owens’ injured toe (just the fact that T.O. was there had to be stressful for a throwback like LeBeau) and an offense that was so impotent that Pfizer refused an entreaty to help it. Things were so bad that LeBeau fired offensive coordinator Turk Schonert, triggering a spate of OC beheadings. A season that had promise in the spring now looks like a disaster movie in pre-production. Buffalo opens Monday night in Foxboro and may close more quickly than a crappy Broadway musical.

Mental Health Issues: Back when Al Davis was stalking the Raiders hallways in his trademark white sweatsuit and delighting contrarians by flipping off NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, he was a maverick and good for a stodgy league. These days, he’s a cartoon character. Worse, his franchise is so poorly run and inept that the UFL would probably deny it entrance. The problem is Davis, who remains wedded to his antediluvian “vertical passing game” and has established new standards for paranoia. It’s time for commissioner Roger Goodell to round up original AFL “Foolish Club” members Ralph Wilson, Barron Hilton and Bud Adams and stage an intervention to remove Davis from the Raiders or risk irreparable (if things haven’t already gone that far) damage to one of the league’s signature franchises.

Disposable Parts: Rodney Harrison is retired. So is Tedy Bruschi. Richard Seymour has been exiled to Oakland (whom did he anger?), and new faces are all over the roster. If you want a true example of how business is conducted successfully in the NFL, look no further than New England, where Bill Belichick discards players when they can no longer serve him. All three players had big roles on the Patriots’ Super Bowl teams, but all are beyond their primes, or in Seymour’s case nearing that point and in the final year of a contract. It might seem cruel, but Belichick is showing how to win by building through the Draft and with key free-agent acquisitions. The Patriots are favored to win the AFC East this year and might take it all, and they’ll do it with a team that hardly resembles its last championship outfit. Seymour isn’t happy to be property of the Al Davis Traveling Circus (he still hasn’t reported for duty), but he has to respect Belichick’s business model, because if Mr. Bundchen stays healthy, the Pats will be darn good again.

QB Follies: It sure was a wild off-season for the NFL’s most important position. Forget about Cowboy Quarterback’s Narcissus imitation and take a look at what went on around the rest of the league. Chicago discovered offense for the first time in decades by trading for petulant Jay Cutler, who pouted his way out of Denver when new coach Josh McDaniel tried to acquire Matt Cassel. Detroit and the Jets gave their starting jobs to a pair of rookies, hoping Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford can replicate the ’08 performances of Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco and lead their teams to the playoffs. Or, in the case of the Lions, win a game. Cleveland coach Eric Mangini staged a months-long, super-secret battle for the starting job between Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson (Quinn won – shhhhh!). San Francisco chose Shaun Hill over Alex Smith and Nuclear Waste, Oakland decided JaMarcus Russell’s tender psyche couldn’t handle having hyperkinetic Jeff Garcia around to provide competition and try to run onto the field every time Russell got hit, and Michael Vick returned from the joint to run the wishbone in Philly.

New Sheriff In Town: There are new coaches in New York, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Detroit, Cleveland, Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome and Gstaad. In other words, forget about the thorny-crested whippoorwill. The most endangered species in America is the NFL coach. Some of the new guys are brash, like Buddy Ryan’s spawn, Rex. Others are low-key, like Indy’s Jim Caldwell. No matter what their personalities, each has one thing in common: Either win in three years or start looking for a coordinator’s job somewhere else.

How It Shakes Out: When forecasting the NFL, it’s best to expect the unexpected. In other words, all but the Lions and Raiders are in play when it comes to the playoff picture. So, here goes. NFC East – Giants; NFC North – Packers; NFC South – Falcons; NFC West – Seahawks; NFC Wild Cards – Vikings, Eagles. AFC East – Patriots; AFC North – Steelers; AFC South – Colts; AFC West – Chargers; AFC Wild Cards – Ravens, Titans.

Wild Card Playoffs, NFC: Eagles over Packers; Seahawks over Vikings; AFC: Ravens over Colts; Steelers over Titans. Divisional Playoffs, NFC: Falcons over Eagles; Giants over Seahawks; AFC: Patriots over Titans; Chargers over Ravens. Conference Championship, NFC: Giants over Falcons; AFC: Chargers over Patriots.

Super Bowl: Chargers over Giants.

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EL HOMBRE SEZ: It’s one thing to provide support for someone else. It’s another to become a buffoon. Ohio State QB Terrell Pryor’s explanation of why he is on Michael Vick’s side in the QB’s return to the NFL was buffoonery at its lowest. To wit: “Not everyone is the perfect person in the world. Everyone does – kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me. I just feel that people need to give him a chance.” Sounds like the Ethics Department at OSU should be trying to get Pryor as a teaching assistant. What a bonehead…Allen Iverson says “God chose Memphis” as the team for him this year. Of course, the Almighty had some help from the other 29 teams, none of whom would touch the aging, ball-hogging gunner with Marcin Gortat (a seven-foot Pole)…Let’s hear it for Kaleb Eulls, who disarmed a girl who was waving a gun on a school bus last week, saving 22 students from a possible tragedy. Eulls, who has committed to play football at Mississippi State next year, deserves the kind of hero-worship usually reserved for on-field success. His tackle of the girl was the most important takedown of the season…Alabama will reportedly pay football coach Nick Saban $4.7 million a year over the next nine years, as part of an agreement reached earlier this week. Funds will be raised for the contract extension by selling common sense to those who think this is a good idea.

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YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Phillies manager Charlie Manuel practically cried after Wednesday night’s win over the Nationals while describing how tough it was for him to remove Brad Lidge from the game when the human kerosene can loaded the bases with one out in the ninth and the Phils holding a 5-3 lead. Perhaps Manuel’s sadness came from the realization that he should have done this a month earlier. Whether Lidge’s problem is physical, psychological or karmic doesn’t matter. What matters is that by continuing to put him on the mound, the manager was hurting the team. It’s bad enough the Phillies have the world’s least disciplined lineup and a horrible bench. (Why is Matt Stairs still allowed to hit?) Do they have to keep trotting out an ineffective closer? It looks like Ryan Madson will get the job for the time being, but he should be a caretaker for the next week while Brett Myers gets comfortable again. Then, Myers pitches the ninth. Madson’s head can’t handle the responsibility, and Myers has proven he can do it. It may not result in playoff success, but there’s no way Lidge can do it anymore.

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AND ANOTHER THING: El Hombre doesn’t pretend to know all of the facts in the case against former Pleasure Ridge Park HS football coach Jason Stinson, who is accused of wanton endangerment and reckless homicide in the death of Max Gilpin. With the temperature 94 degrees, Stinson had his players run nearly 30 wind sprints after an already grueling practice. Yesterday, Charles Sweat told the court that he and another player lifted Gilpin – who had been vomiting and stumbling as his body temperature rose to 107 degrees – off the ground to help him finish the sprints. Plenty of other coaches have pushed their players beyond reasonable limits in the stifling heat, but Stinson is one of the few to be prosecuted because of it. Even if he is acquitted, let’s hope the case causes other coaches to back off when conditions become unfit for extreme physical activity and that trainers and other medical staff will establish guidelines that have teeth to prevent the deaths of any other youngsters like Gilpin.

-EH-