A Little More Football

Yes, Jennifer Miller told me that I write too much about football, but I wasn't put on this earth to make people happy (and I've lived down to that expectation). Besides it's the playoffs so expect another post with my picks for the next round soon. After the Super Bowl, I probably won't write that much about football. Except when I blog two entire days of the NFL Draft which is like a second Christmas to me.

Anyway, just a couple of more thoughts about the Tony Romo flub that killed the Cowboys' chances of winning. During the season it made big news when Bill Parcells cut kicker Mike Vanderjagt (basically because he just didn't like him) and brought in Martin Gramatica. Since then, I've been hoping the Cowboys would lose on a bad kick because it would make Parcells look bad which could create dissension on the team which would make them lose which would make me happy because I hate the Cowboys. Now, I didn't get that exactly the way I wanted (outside Dallas losing) because the kicking blunder was the botched hold of Tony "We-Haven't-Won-A-Game-Since-I-Made-The-Pro-Bowl" Romo. However, as the Gregg Easterbrook of Tuesday Morning Quarterback pointed out, having Vanderjagt instead of Gramatica might have changed things. You see, Romo tried to make a play after screwing up in front of God and country. Romo ran for the goal line with a good shot at a touchdown or at least a first down at the one. Except Seattle's Jordan Babineaux blew right by Gramatica's weak ass block attempt to run down Romo from behind and stop him a yard short (in all the talk about Romo's screwup, the fact that Babineaux made an incredible play to save the game has pretty much been sadly ignored). Easterbrook is convinced that Vanderjagt, who is "ill-tempered", would have done a much better job of stopping Babineaux. And he's right. Vanderjagt has a nasty disposition at times, plus he's a lot bigger than the midget from Argentina. Vanderjagt could have just stepped in front of Babineaux and certainly held him up long enough.

Damn (off subject alert), I have got this song stuck in my head from a movie I saw over the weekend. And it wasn't that good of a movie. At least to my expectations. In fact, I'm still pissed because it was a complete tease. Channel surfing gets me to a movie called D.E.B.S. which has a bunch of girls at some secret agent college. Except they dress like Catholic schoolgirls. And are hot. And one's got itchy britches for a female criminal mastermind who is equally hot. With this premise, how could I lose? Easy. It was PG-13. Bastards. Just setting me up for a disappointment. Except I got to the point in the movie where they played some song called A Little Respect which I cannot get out of my head. It's not a bad song, but not what I usually listen to. I'm debating whether to download the song and play it until I develop a blood clot or don't download it and repeatedly smash my head on my desk. I'm leaning towards desk.

Back to Cowboys' premature climax, another point Easterbrook made was why was Romo doing the holding anyway. Well, we know why. Teams rarely use their starting quarterbacks, but a lot use their backups and Romo started the season as a backup. Others use their punters. Louisville has used a wide receiver. The gist of all of them is that those players are used to handling a ball (Tom Brady his own, Jeff Garcia allegedly someone else's) and should be better at holding. I lean towards punters myself. I wouldn't use a backup quarterback because while quarterbacks handle the ball a lot, backups don't. I wouldn't use a starter because they handle a ball a lot, but in a different (and sometimes obscene) way. Go with a punter. They are used to taking a long snap and not really paying particular attention downfield. Besides, outside of an Oakland punter who may be needed about 10 times a game, most punters don't have enough to do.

I haven't had a chance to review all my bowl picks, but I do have a thought on Florida's win over Ohio State. To begin with, I was happy for Chris Leak, because the way Florida fans treated him during the year was a shame. As for the game, I wondering if the Big Ten will finally wise up and get rid of the rule that their teams have to quit playing the weekend before Thanksgiving. Ohio State had not played a game in almost two months. I'm not sure they would have beaten Florida anyway, because Florida saved their best game for last (and before they try to play the disrespect card, if the Gators had played with that kind of passion all year, or even a couple of regular season games, maybe we wouldn't have doubted them as they needed a blocked field goal to beat South Carolina at home). Still, Ohio State is not that bad, but laying off 50 days is ridiculous.