October
26, 2005: NFL Commentary, Week 7
By White Russian
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Still Perfect
Winless Houston stayed with undefeated Indianapolis for the first half of
their game against each other, and then reality hit and Indianapolis ran away
with the game in the second half, preserving each team’s respective
dream of perfection. With their bye week coming up, Indianapolis is guaranteed
to maintain their undefeated status. Houston, however, will have a challenge
staying winless as they face a very beatable Cleveland team.
Friday Night Football
Why
in the world was Friday’s Hurricane Wilma game between Kansas City and
Miami not televised? This would have been the perfect week for Friday Night
Football, considering that there was no Sunday night game due to the World
Series. It would have been perfectly fine to have to sit through Joe Theismann’s
analysis if that is what it took to get the game televised nationally. By
not sending the Sunday Night crew to Miami we were denied the chance of seeing
Ricky Williams run backwards (6 carries for minus 1 yard).
And with the number one pick in the 2006 Draft, the Houston Texans
select, from Sacramento State…
It took a Washington – San Francisco blowout to bust out a
totally meaningless, but fairly interesting graphic. The last five number
one draft picks were all quarterbacks and their uniform numbers have gone
in sequence as follows:
| Player | Year |
Uniform # |
| Michael Vick | 2001 |
7 |
| David Carr | 2002 |
8 |
| Carson Palmer | 2003 |
9 |
| Eli Manning | 2004 |
10 |
| Alex Smith | 2005 |
11 |
This
means that, even though he is not a quarterback, #12 defensive back Brandon
Smith, a senior from Sacramento State, has more of a chance to go number one
in 2006 than USC’s Matt Leinart (#11). On October 6th Brandon Smith
was named as a semifinalist for the 2005 Draddy Trophy. The Draddy Trophy
is awarded by the National Football Foundation and is known as the “Academic”
Heisman. According to the NFF, “The Draddy Trophy continues to be one
of college footballs most sought after and competitive awards, recognizing
an individual as the absolute best in the country for his combined academic
success, football performance and exemplary community leadership.”
If
the team drafting first insists on going with a quarterback in lieu of defensive
help, #12 Chris Leak of Florida may be the choice over Leinart, who could
try to find a way to play yet another year for USC. Other #12 quarterback
possibilities are: Brian Brohm (Louisville), John Beck (BYU), Matt Ryan (Boston
College), Brodie Croyle (Alabama), Kole McKamey (New Mexico), Paul Smith (Tulsa),
Michael Robinson (Penn State), Blake Mitchell (South Carolina), and Brandon
Cox (Auburn).
Red Ribbon Week
School kids across the country this week are wearing red ribbons on their
wrist to remind themselves not to smoke or do drugs. The intention is nice
and if it stops even one child from going down the road to drug use then it
is worth it, but it is sad that first and second graders need this type of
reminder to not smoke. At least our nation’s children are safe, if only
for this one week. Hopefully, by the time the ribbons come off next week,
we won’t have a mob of fidgeting, paranoid six-year olds going through
withdrawal symptoms. Speaking of the children in school today, they are not
allowed to say “Christmas,” as in “Merry Christmas,”
or “Halloween,” as in “Happy Halloween,” but they
can say “breast,” as in “breast cancer.”
Another Tainted Statistic
Todd
Weiner, offensive lineman for the Atlanta Falcons, nursing a right arm injury,
extended his regular season consecutive game streak to 49. Weiner started
the game and came out after the first play and did not return. The only reason
he played that one play was to preserve his “streak.” Simply put,
he should not be in there if he is injured. This may be a nice way for the
coach to be a good guy to his players, but ultimately it cheapens the integrity
of the statistics when the numbers are manipulated in such a way. Tainted
records are not new to the game. For example, Brett
Favre gave his buddy Michael Strahan the single season sacks record, and
Minnie Minoso has a forced record in baseball. Not
matter what the justification behind it, it doesn't make it right.
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World Series Notes
Fox kept showing an old lady with a sign “I’ve waited
92 years for this.” She also had the phrase on her hat. The last time
the White Sox won the Series was 88 years ago. Seems to me she has been waiting
88 years for this. If you want to be really technical, then her wait should
be based on when she first started waiting for the White Sox to win the Series.
If she only started paying attention to the Sox when she was 8 years old,
then in reality she has been waiting for 84 years. If she had truly been waiting
since the day she was born, then her first wait would have been four years,
and the current wait would be 88 years.
During game 2, how many shots of Andy Pettitte’s “look” should we have to endure? It seemed like before every single pitch the camera would zoom in on Pettitte’s dark side of the force look.
There was a Mitsubishi commercial that seemed to leave a hidden message in the dust cloud that swirled around when the big bad Mitsubishi sped away after intimidating the lesser truck to the point that it wet itself. The hidden message was in the form of two Japanese letters that made up the dust cloud. It is suspected that the message was either something nasty or a political message bashing George W. Bush.
In game 3, when Roy Oswalt gave up five runs in one inning, he hit the 10th batter of the inning, Joe Crede. This also happened to be the batter who led off the inning with a home run. This prompted Crede to scowl at Oswalt and a dugout shouting match ensued between Carl Everett of the White Sox and Astros manager Phil Garner. Does anyone actually believe that the batter was intentionally hit? It was a 5 to 4 ballgame and all Oswalt wanted to do was to get out of the endless inning.
Mike Martz Revisited
Last season the BMTG chronicled the week to week coaching by Mike Martz of
the St. Louis Rams in order to determine if the excessive criticism typically
leveled at him was actually justified. After following his moves the whole
season, the BMTG concluded that there was enough evidence to declare that
the criticism is warranted. Despite his continued incompetence, Martz is still
the head coach of the Rams and the BMTG is following up one year later to
see if he has improved after receiving the BMTG’s open
letter. This week's analysis:
Martz may not be on the sidelines, but he is still making news. This week he was barred from speaking by telephone to any of the coaching staff during the game. He had been allowed to do this the previous week, but was not allowed this time. In the end it turns out that what we have here is a clash between Martz and the team’s second-highest ranking official, Jay Zygmunt.
Return of the Meaningless Injury Report?
The injury report has long been useless, as teams do not accurately report
injuries and the only people even looking at the report are people in fantasy
leagues. The BMTG will attempt to examine the actual usefulness of the injury
report by looking at the report released on Wednesday and comparing it to
what actually happens in the games. A doubtful status means that a player
has a 75% chance of sitting out, questionable is supposed to be 50%, and probable
is 25%.
Here is this week's breakdown:
| Probable |
Questionable |
Doubtful |
Out |
|
| # of Players Listed | 61 |
90 |
14 |
29 |
| # of Players who did not play | 9 |
43 |
11 |
29 |
| % of Players who did not play | 15% |
48% |
79% |
100% |
| % of Players expected to not play | 25% |
50% |
75% |
100% |
And the total so far on this season...
| Probable |
Questionable |
Doubtful |
Out |
|
| # of Players Listed | 351 |
470 |
67 |
148 |
| # of Players who did not play | 40 |
214 |
58 |
147 |
| % of Players who did not play | 11% |
46% |
87% |
99% |
| % of Players expected to not play | 25% |
50% |
75% |
100% |
Fantasy Notes
Steamboy collected two more Egregious Errors and must take a spin
on the Sanction Wheel.
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