November 2, 2004: NFL
Week 8 Commentary and Analysis
By Ahchie
"I wanna know the connection between the Nazis and the elves…"
Commentators
are always quick to note that tight ends Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez were
basketball stars in college, particularly whenever they score a touchdown
and celebrate by dunking the ball over the bottom bar of the uprights. The
question that comes to mind is if this basketball experience is unique to
these two top tight ends, or just indicative of their position. To find the
connection between the basketball and the tight end position, the BMTG conducted
extensive research of the position on all 32 of the teams in the NFL. Out
of 38 players surveyed, the BMTG found that 26 (or 68%) had starred in basketball
at either the high school or college level.
Tony
Gonzalez played for the California Bears and Antonio Gates played for the
Kent State Golden Flashes. Gates had not even played football for five years
when drafted by the San Diego Chargers. But they are not alone in their college
basketball background. Like Gates, Marcus Pollard, Indianapolis, did not play
college football, but instead played basketball and was a two-year starter
at Bradley after being a two-year starter for a junior college. Rickey Dudley,
Tampa Bay, lettered for three years in basketball at Ohio State. Buffalo rookie
Tim Euhus played two years on Oregon State’s basketball team. Todd Heap,
Baltimore, saw brief action with the 1999-2000 Arizona State basketball team.
The rest of the experience came at the high school level. Among them, L.J. Smith, Philadelphia, was a basketball prospect and drew interest from a number of teams, including Florida State. Boo Williams, New Orleans, was the MVP of his high school basketball team for three straight years. Both Daniel Graham, New England, and Doug Jolley, Oakland, lettered for three years in high school basketball, while Jay Riemersma, Pittsburgh, started for three years, twice earning all-conference, all-area, and all-state honors.
There are others, but the point has been made – basketball skills are common amongst tight ends, making the basketball experience of Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates a mere footnote.
Questionable
More
abuse of the “questionable” status – Brian Westbrook of
the Eagles has two cracked ribs, Brother Nature style. He was clearly not
expected to play last Sunday, and should not be playing next Sunday as well,
but was listed as “questionable” on Philadelphia’s injury
report. Sunday morning before the game, Westbrook’s status was changed
to “out”. Does Philadelphia think that they are fooling anyone?
This shady practice was started in Denver a few years ago by Mike Shanahan,
when he was reluctant to reveal players’ injury status during the week.
If the status listed on the report is consistently inaccurate, why even have
an injury report?
Counting in Espanol
Does
Bono think that “catorce” means “four”? In the commercial
promoting U2’s new album, Bono kicks things off with, “Uno, dos,
tres, catorce…”. Translated to English, that means, “One,
two, three, fourteen…”. While this intro will not generate the
amount of questioning that went into finding out what “Gunter glieben
glauchen globen” meant at the beginning of Def Leppard’s Rock
of Ages, it would be nice to know Bono’s true intention.
Is it Pre-season Again?
Was
Sunday night’s Chicago – San Francisco match actually a pre-season
game, or are these the actual rosters that these two teams intend to use for
the rest of the regular season? And where has the A-Train, Anthony Thomas,
been all year? Up until Sunday’s performance, Thomas had gained only
48 yards on 16 carries in all of Chicago’s previous games combined.
It didn’t seem like they were that great of a team to have that good
of a player sitting on the bench all year. Yes, he is a backup to the injured
Thomas Jones, but even understanding that, it would seem that Thomas would
be used a whole lot more, considering the fact that the Bears have so few
weapons. Maybe the A-Train should go to a team like the Jets who had two 100-yard
rushers against a supposedly good Miami defense in Monday night’s game.
Stop Playing So Good
Drew
Brees is spoiling the Chargers’ plans by playing the best football of
his career. The only reason Brees was the starting quarterback at the beginning
of the season was because Philip Rivers was a holdout. The plan by the Chargers
seemed to be that they would start Brees for a while, and then when he started
struggling, they would insert Rivers. Everything is twisted in San Diego.
It seems as though every step of the way, the Chargers have been desperately
trying to replace Brees, while Brees clearly wants to play for the Chargers.
Eli Manning refused to play for the Chargers, even if they drafted him with
the number one pick in the draft, which prompted the trade for Rivers. Rivers
seemed more interested in his contract instead of getting off to a good start
in his first year. Last year, San Diego went with Doug Flutie, even though
the season was lost and the games could have been good experience for Brees.
After all is said and done, Manning sits on the bench watching Kurt Warner,
who nobody else wanted, Rivers sits on the bench watching Brees, who’s
job was his for the taking, and Brees keeps playing, getting better and better
every week.
Hope for a Blackout
Oakland should play all of their games at home. That way their games would
be blacked out and we could see a different game in its place. If last Sunday’s
game was at home and not sold out as usual, the game would have been blacked
out and the New England – Pittsburgh game would have been on instead.
Chucky
Initial
thoughts on the “Seed of Chucky”: from the previews it looks like
the Chucky doll is too obviously computer animated. Instead of the unsettling
creepy original, we are now left with what looks like a cartoon gone bad.
Questions for Mike Martz
Mike Martz is becoming legendary for his tendency to make horrible calls.
Each week we will pose a new question to Martz. At the end of the season we
will compile his errors into an open letter.
This week's question:
The Rams were on a bye week this week, meaning that Martz is probably saving up a really good blunder for the next game. Therefore there will be no question this week.
Fantasy Notes
Priest
Holmes again had the top performance for a running back (591 points), topping
his own record from last week by 30 points as Kansas City continues to play
NFL Fever-style games while the rest of the league is playing on ESPN NFL
2K5.
Michael Vick continued his Jeckyl - Hyde season, this time breaking out with a huge game against Denver, good for 590 points.
Brother
Nature committed his second Egregious Error of the season with his horrible
bye week management. Heading into the St. Louis bye week, Brother Nature had
six players from the Rams. After using his four trade maximum, he settled
for zeroes from the kicker and team defense positions. To make matters worse,
Brother Nature did the exact same thing to team BMTG #2, who had New Orleans
on a bye week. Brother Nature traded four of the six Saints players and left
the kicker and team defense positions to get zeroes just as he did with his
own team.
Peyton Manning continued to roll for Throcksmorton in the NFL Fever Game of the Week between the Chiefs and the Colts. He probably wishes he held on to Reggie Wayne and Vinny Testeverde, who combined to total 720 points, while their replacements, Amani Toomer and Kurt Warner, managed only 196. This continues a season-long trend of trading for players and dropping players either a week early or a week late. These are not considered egregious errors, however, as there is valid reasoning behind the moves.