Deja' vu

The air hangs a little heavy at my house this morning, there's a general malaise that's nearly palpable. And it doesn't have anything to do with those godawful Super Bowl commercials.

About 10 pm last night my 11-year old son was on the edge of his seat hoping against all common sense that, somehow, his beloved New England Patriots could pull a last-second victory out of the jaws of crummy defeat. I tried talking his expectations down during the game, offer him a little adult perspective..."No one's going to catch the ball, pal, there's no chance" or "Brady's played a decent but not great game, son, and the Giants have just been a little better today, it happens, someone has to lose." He wasn't having any of it.

Brady heaves the ball and there's a jump in the end-zone and a chance - a fluttering, spiralling chance - but no, the ball hits the turf, game over.

So I try again with the practical, realistic approach, "hey, there's always next year" and "it's OK, they were the 2nd best team." All very reasonable, of course. But he's unsuccessfully holding off tears and the redness in his face shows he's nowhere near as calm and collected as he wants to appear to be. He's upset because he doesn't want to go to school on Monday and get teased, he doesn't want to face the mocking chatter that is sure to be heaped upon him, he doesn't want to hear that he backed the losing side.

What to do? How could I help him? There's nothing, I'm as impotent as can be. There's no condolence I could possibly offer him, or pragmatic advice, and nothing I say - regardless of how correct I might be - is going to help ease his pain.

But, this is the "fun" part of sports, even in defeat. If you're a longtime Patriot fan, you're accustomed to a red, white, and blue history of being pretty horrible. Oh, we have those 3 rings (that look more and more suspect with every passing Playoff defeat, eh?) and that was fun, but one's fandom is defined more by the losses than by the championships. I think this is because we feel the losses more distinctly than the vague sense of satisfaction that derives from watching your favorite team win it all. Or- for me- it's because the Patriots have always been my 2nd favorite team so that perhaps I'm simply not as invested (I'm not mentioning my favorite team on this blog again until....August) in their success.

As for the game, eh, it was pretty good. Both teams played well, the Patriots had a chance to close it down in the 4th quarter and didn't. Wes Welker is being a man and taking the blame but if you ask me Brady threw a tough pass to catch - and despite that he almost caught it. After that, the Giants managed to eke out a win, congrats. They won the game.

Are you like me? Have any of you wondered where our CHAMPIONS went? Over the past 12 to 13 seasons, the Super Bowl has been a tight game. That's a good thing, right? Or is it? In '99 the Rams clung to a win. In 2000 the Baltimore Ravens obliterated the Giants. In 2001, 2004, and 20o5 the Patriots squeaked out wins. In 2002 the Buccaneers demolished Oakland. The last big exclamation point victory was Indianapolis in 2007, when they paddled the Bears in the swampy Super Bowl in Miami. The trend is good in terms of making for an exciting game, but the teams that win haven't always seemed like Colossus bestride the Nile. Where are the Dallas Cowboys of 1992-93 and 1995? The 49ers of 1990 and 1994?

In short, where's the excellence?

My kid cares nothing for such navel-gazing, he simply wanted to see his team win. When it didn't happen it crushed him. I know how it feels, I suspect anyone reading this knows, too. The sane parental response is simply to let things pass, knowing that it'll all be forgotten in a few days. He's 11, that's how it works.

So, I give it the best I've got after breakfast:

"Oh, and why don't you just not wear your Brady jersey to school today."

It could happen

This time o' year, there's always a shot.

I'm on record - 100 times over - stating my love of the Redskins and to a lesser extent the Patriots. Pedantry is an art I've perfected. Call me Captain Obvious but if you didn't know, now ya do.

The Pats didn't really let me down too hard in 2008 when the perfect season ended imperfectly. I mean, Tyree made an amazing catch and Brady had those 3 rings- I figured they'd be back fast enough even with the loss.

Wow. I was wrong. The '08-'09 season saw Tommy Brady lost to injury. The '09-'10 season ended with a Raven butt-kicking in Foxboro. Last season with an ugly Jets-delivered whooping.

You only get so many shots, everyone knows it. Or you learn it pretty fast.

With that in mind, one has to assume that the Patriots are feeling the pressure in Sunday's game. They might not get a better shot. Brady's 34-years old, Belichick's defensive gameplanning looks weaker every year, and his draft classes haven't been huge. Baltimore? They have a couple great vets who might leave the game soon but they're on solid footing (sorry, Browns fans) and should be setting up for an extended run of greatness.....maybe. It's pretty clear that Flacco could be great or just serviceable, Ray Rice is smallish for his position....Raven fans hate Cam Cameron (a two-name guy, you can't trust the two-named folks).

The heat's on Brady, this is probably one of his last chances to tie Joe Montana with 4-Super Bowl title. Too bad the Pats defense isn't better. I've gotta believe that Baltimore wins this game, if just barely, proving the old maxim is still (a little) true: defense wins championships.

Playoffs are kinda sorta awesome

We were treated to a pretty great run of football games last weekend, right?

[are you like me? Are you absolutely sick to death of people punctuating their every utterance with the word "right?" "Milk is good for you, right?" "I know, right?"]

A season that started on a warm Thursday night and saw the Saints and Packers engage in a shootout is going to end with those two offensive juggernauts (look at the points scored and yardage, it's staggering) seated on their collective couches sipping.....whatever it is millionaires sip whilst watching football. Wow.

I figured that the Saints and Packers were the class of the final 8 teams. I judged Houston to be an also-ran who was lucky that the Colts were Manning-less this year. I also thought Denver had a shot to knock off a bad Patriot defense that couldn't stop the 1982 Redskins....in their present elderly condition.

[here's my confession: I watched about a half of each game. My kids had hockey, I had family in town, excuses excuses]

But I saw the best parts!

By the time I caught up to the goings-on in San Fran, I was surprised to see the Niners up by about 17. I was not surprised to see the Saints slug their way back into it. The last 2 minutes of that game were really something to see, I think the folks in the stands were as shocked as anyone - did we really just see Alex Smith hit Vernon Davis?? Did we win?

I love the Patriots but have hated watching their horrible defense fold, over and over again. No one will confuse the Broncos current offense with their 1998 team (Elway and Terrell Davis), but I figured they'd be competent. Luckily for New England fans like me, they weren't, this was not a great game to watch if you're the kind of person that doesn't like to watch their cat eating mice or chipmunks ("YEAH! Ya got him, Fluffy! Bite his head off! Eat his entrails!")

The Ravens could be the last juggernaut standing....but they aren't. Somehow they seem to suck despite having a great defense and supposedly great quarterback. I know they've tried to find receivers for Joe the Quarterback (maybe that's his problem? He's just "Joe"). For some reason I can't fathom, the Ravens have a pretty good runner named Rice that they won't give the ball to 30 times a game. It's like they're trying to outsmart even themselves. In another era, say...the 1980's and '90s....Rice would be in the middle of a HOF career. Instead, he's an afterthought. Houston made this a ballgame, I was shocked when I wandered up to the ice rink's TV and saw that it was a close game.

The better team won, and they're all blabbering about how a win is a win and yap yap yap. Stop. Just....stop. You're not Redskin fans, you're not permitted to indulge in illusions and/or delusions. Look, you bunch of purple eyesores...some melon-head guy named TJ Yates almost beat you. Put it this way: they play like they did yesterday against New England and they'll be sitting on the couch with.....

The Packers. Probably the biggest shocker of the weekend was the home loss and the disappearance of that guy Rodgers. The best QB in the league played a little like Rex Grossman. EXCEPT HE's NOT REX GROSSMAN. I kept waiting for him to single-handedly carry his team, but his receivers kept alligator-arming his passes or simply fumbling the ball away. Give credit to the (0-2 vs the Redskins) Giants, they punched the Pack in the mouth (a lot like they did with Brady and Co. a few years ago) and the Pack got weak in the knees. Shameful, for the defending champs.

I won't bother picking a winner. I'm pulling for the Patriots so I'm biased. Happy for the 49er fans.....see what happens Sunday.

Right?

wow

I did not get much time this weekend to watch the NFL's wild card playoff games, mostly because I have 2 kids playing the great sport of ice hockey. This time of year, that means we run like crazy each and every weekend, shuttling them to 4 games and a practice over what used to be our 48 hours of non-stop partying-till-we-puked boogies.

Well, actually, we never had wild and crazy weekends before kids, so.......I embellished that last part.

But hey, speaking of wild, how about that Denver-Pittsburgh finish last night? I figured that the Steelers D was going to ruin Mr. Tebow's playoff run with ease. On my way home from my daughter's hockey game, the magic of the iphone informed me that the Steelers were somehow losing the game, 20-6. I got home in time for the beginning of the 4th quarter to see the Steelers assert themselves, tie the game, and set themselves up for the inevitable win (the amount of non-calls in the 4th quarter of that game was atrocious, the Steeler D really got away with quite a few obvious penalties). At 23-23, like most of you, I expected the Steelers to pull the game out and roll into Foxboro ready to steamroll the Patriots.

And then....a bit of a miracle. I was actually stunned. That's the power of a good game, it can grab you - 2500 miles away - and have you sitting in your living room in silence thinking "did I just see what I think I saw?"

I don't get the Tebo hate. The kid's all of 24 and he's a vocal proponent of his religious beliefs. He's hardly alone in the NFL, unless you've missed the conversions of Deion Sanders or Michael Irvin, to name only two. Players routinely praise the Lord for their victories when presented with microphones and cameras.

I agree with those who say it's silly to think that God cares about what happens on a 100-yard patch of grass. Such thinking trivializes cosmic powers beyond our intellect. I don't think God cares who wins or loses, or what "message" is sent by yet another Yankees WS win. Sports, at their best, can inspire and unite....and mostly serve as a diversion from our more mundane talents (like writing bad blogs, just for example).

I don't know Tim Tebow or what he believes or even what he's gone on record yapping about (I didn't look it up). He's become known for affecting a position of prayer after scoring - something a couple of my hockey players have been doing after scoring goals, saying "Coach Bob, I'm Tebowing." Ok, so he's become a verb, now.

And....what's wrong with that? My opinion on it all is that if Mr. Tebow is using his star status to say "hey, I recognize I'm a lucky schmuck of a QB to be playing well enough to win these games, I know I'm not the best QB or the smartest ....I'm not Brady or Manning....but thank you for this, it's fun." An athlete recognizing his good fortune is a good thing, better than the "look at me" crap we're all used to.

Of course, what if Tebow's using his celebrity to simply affect the same "look at me, I'm Super-Christian, Captain Jesus of the Christ Brigade"? Well, in that case, he's no better than Stevie Johnson, and might as well shoot himself in the leg.

Oh, that's been done.

He seems like a good guy, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt - he's a kid after all. And that was one hell....I mean heck...of a finish last night.

the doggie dance

"I saw the creature fall, into the swamp from which he spawned,

I heard them laugh and say, "we never liked him anyway..."

-Mastodon

Well, it's been a while. This isn't so much a blog anymore. Instead, it's some sporadically-updated waste of Internet space. The holidays came and went, and were fun, thanks. Happy New Year. Those of you who see me on FB can see I've decided to use my kid-free time to reclaim my legal career, and I have to thank the good folks at Blackford & Flohr for that - it's a flexible job that helps fill in the gaps yet still permits me a good deal of freedom from day-to-day.

Oh, and for the sports enthusiasts out there? Redskins bad, Patriots deceptively good but really bad. Hasta luego.

Newt, my friend, they just don't love you. They love to lead you on and let you think that they love you just to watch you cavort and caper and do your doggie-dance on the living room floor so that the guests can get an easy laugh at your expense....but they're just pranking you, dude. They're truly waiting for meltdowns...like calling people liars and other verbal grenades (as you never fail to do). It's entertainment masking as politics.

And you didn't disappoint.

The sad thing about Newt is that he's clearly the boldest person in the 3-ring circus. He's got BIG IDEAS, not that I agree with them at all, but he's got the guts to tackle larger issues and is facile enough of mind that he can (at times) make sense. He's clearly a person with whom you could have an intellectual discussion with - or at the very least he'd make me (for example) feel very stupid when it comes to my understanding of certain policy issues with which I'm not well-versed in (like, say, most of them).

Who else in the Republican stable has that? Not the twin Ken dolls, Mitt R. and Rick P. (Mitt is "Ken" and Rick P. is "ruggedly dumb Ken"). Santorum is a bit wacky, like Bachman but not as appealing to the eye. Go ahead and vote for stodgy Jon Huntsman, Lord knows he needs a pick-me-up. Or roll the dice with Ron Paul, if you happen to enjoy his brand of "everything sucks."

Iowa was yesterday, and they flirted with ya, Newt, and left you outside to crap on the lawn so you wouldn't defile the carpet again. Forget 'em. Say it with me..."third party......" Do it. They'll love you for it. This time, they really will.

Where ya been?

I get this question all the time..."hey, I love your blog it's so great but why don't you write it more often." My reply is always a sheepish, "aw shucks."

Then I wake up.

It's OK, no one really cares. I suppose they would if: a) they were well-written; and b) had focus and a point; and c) I was a celebrity, or close to one.

Insert the song, I promise I'll sing along: "la la la, whatever...la, la la, doesn't matter....."

Life gets in the way. I work part-time, coach two hockey teams, drive a kid to marching band practices and competitions, somehow raise all 4 of them. I see 'em off to school every morning and am usually there waiting when they get home every evening. In the space between I try to work or exercise or clean or run errands. Last week I completed over 10 hours of online hockey coach training. This was as fun as watching paint dry. Come to think of it, I have to put some paint up in my basement. And wash some clothes. Oh, and here come the holidays.

Jeee-zus. I think I sound like I need an apron. Take my word for it, though, I wouldn't look good in one.

Toss in the occassional men's league hockey games at 10:45 pm, for good measure. I might as well complain about everything, yes? Depending upon which relative you're talking to, I either do too much or not enough. Either way, I'm screwing up. Well, some things never change.

Leaves. I've been raking up lots and lots of leaves. My job will be ramping up later this week and I've been racing to get as much yard work done as I can before that happens (how Horatio Alger is that? I'm working hard for the reward of ....working more hard). I'm complaining, I know, but I admit that the work beats sitting around watching game shows.

Come by and chop down your own Xmas tree, I'll be around to take your cash....isn't that what the holiday's about?

NFL Logjams, Liars, and Hell to Pay

My segues will suck today, per usual. But hell, I watched Antonio Pierce on Sportscenter this morning attempting to segue out of the Penn State story and into the week's NFL action and he looked very uncomfortable doing it.

At least you can't see me squirm.

Now's about the time that an NFL season gets really interesting. The season's half-way over and you can see the playoff seedings begin to gel while also knowing that there is still a lot of football left for those current frontrunners to fall off. There could be a Dark Horse that bursts into the playoff party and ruins your team's fun.....it's the possibilities that make things fun.

Any question about Green Bay? At 8-0 they're sitting pretty atop the NFC North with the 6-2 Lions nipping (somewhat) at their heels. Who's gonna beat them? Probably not Detroit. Other than Detroit, the NY Giants are the only other team on the schedule that could give the Packers trouble.

Those Giants are sitting atop the NFC East at 6-2, two games up on the Cowboys and (most likely) the Eagles. Yesterday's win against my Pats was pretty big, but I'm thinking that Philly will continue to rise out of their early season malaise and take the division. Forget about Dallas, too self-destructive. The Redskins? Grossman is no soothsayer or Oracle, G'night guys.

They keep telling us that the NFC South is a good division, and maybe the Saints and Falcons are good teams - we have the remaining season to discern that. Tampa's 2010 season was a surprise and this 2011 season has got to be a disappointment, they aren't making the playoffs this year. Carolina's QB is the goods, but forget this year. Go with New Orleans to take the division.

The NFC West is a joke, at 7-1 the easy money's on San Francisco. No other team comes close, at 2-6 Seattle and Arizona aren't picking up 5 games on the 49ers.

Alternatively, the AFC has some real logjams, and obviously all of the teams involved aren't making it to January.

In the AFC East there's the Jets, Patriots, and Bills are knotted at 5-3 with the Pats-Jets game next weekend looming large. The Patriots cannot defend against a high-school squad. The Jets? They're pretty good on D and have the talent to field a good offensive team yet somehow don't. I think Buffalo's a bit of a fluke, their early season success won't continue into January. I'm afraid that the Jets are gonna take this division.

Similarly, the AFC North is the home of badass football, with Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cincy all sitting at 6-2. The upcoming schedule will sort things out, and no one knows if Cincy's for real. I hear that their defense is good, and see on highlight shows that Andy Dalton is the kids the Redskins should've drafted this year, but ya gotta be skeptical about those Bengals. I'd love to pick the Ravens but they've laid a few eggs (pun intended) the past few weeks. The Steelers are the best choice out of the 3 teams knotted up, but Baltimore's fully capable of de-throning the reigning AFC champs.

There's some division called the AFC South that used to include the Colts. Apparently the Houston Texans are sitting at 6-3 and most likely to win this division unless 4-4 Tennessee goes on a tear.

Nah. Texans.

What is it about the West? The NFC West is awful save for the 49ers and the AFC West is wildly inconsistent. KC, San Diego, and Oakland are 4-4 and Denver is 3-5 and maybe heating up. KC got clobbered by Miami yesterday - nope. San Diego seems to sleep through half of every game (too much beach time?). Oakland might be the best choice here, especially if Palmer gets comfy in the Bay Area.

It's one of those seasons where I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a re-match of the Packers-Steelers Super Bowl. I can't imagine any other NFC team pushing the Pack out of the picture, unless it's Philadelphia. The AFC is the more interesting conference, it's not a stretch to see Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or the Jets making it to the Big Game.

We'll see.

_________________________

I was about 10 or 11 when I fell in love with football, all thanks to the Redskins being a good team and my grandfather's ardent support of them. I had it planned out. I was gonna play ball locally and in high school then play for Penn State and get drafted by the Skins. It was all figured out.

Well, except that I wasn't good at football.

The Penn State thing? I guess that came from them being pretty good at the time, I can't recall. The luster wore off and that was that.

This weekend, the luster wore off in Happy Valley and their sainted Coach Joe. Mike Wise at the Washington Post wrote a decent opinion piece about this story in today's paper. More interesting, and sad, was the actual Grand Jury indictment of Paterno, Penn State's AD, and pretty much everyone involved in the cover-up of the alleged child sexual abuse of D-coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

In law school, they teach you that "you can indict a ham sandwich." It means that a grand jury hears testimony that is not obstructed by the rules of evidence. There's no defense counsel present to object to anything. So, the allegations are just that....allegations.

Of course, common sense thinking will make the average person say "where there's smoke, there's fire." Usually, I can put on my lawyer hat and intellectualize a case.

......but when there's kids involved, I really can't.

The word is evil. That's the one that comes to mind when you read the Indictment of Mr. Sandusky. You give a person a little bit of power and some of those empowered people will abuse it. He was a respected part of the Happy Valley institution. I'm willing to be that there are encomiums that have been heaped upon his name during some of his teams stirring victories. And, oh by the way, he was so great with the kids.

No, perhaps, we know why.

Paterno and the AD are going to deny direct knowledge even though the indictment indicates that they had knowledge of.....something. I'll never understand how a man in Paterno's position could pass the information he'd been given "up the chain" of command and then believe in his heart that he'd done all he could.

This is so much worse than Ohio State or Miami - that was about money, greed. Whatever crimes were committed weren't anything like the alleged abuse of the young boys at Penn State. If any of this - if even a part- is true......the storied Penn State football program may (perhaps should) become a distant memory.

'cause there'd be hell to pay