Atonement For $100 Million

Wait a minute, did Dan Snyder just do something, uh... right?

No one questions Snyder's passion. Just the big spending ways and overbearing ownership of the Redskins franchise he deeply loves.

Snyder bought the Redskins out of love. He made his fortune due to a charasmatic, tenacious, and aggressive demeanor. He’s a man deeply and personally intertwined in his ventures, singular in nature and personality. Snyder succeeds at business because he believes deeply in the bullshit you and I cannot muster any response to save a defeated sigh.

Where tenacity in the business world translates into dollar signs, in the world of pro sports tenacity from the top becomes meddling and equates to a divisive front office.

Business makes sports professional. But business doesn’t make professional sports profitable.

Pro sports operate in a rich world of values all its own. The most successful owners in the NFL stand in the background, nurturing continuity and consistency, allowing their football people, the coaches, GMs, and VPs, to take care of football decisions.

The success of any sports team is dependent on a combination of on-field and off-field factors, a concoction without measurable formula. Much of pro success depends on something as delicate and abstract as psychology, somewhere found in the balance between talent, teamwork, payroll, and trust.

Not that football people are masters of subtlety, but subtleties abound. Especially for the precarious position of the owner. In charge but not in charge. Aloof but not entirely distant.

Snyder is not a man of subtlety. And his actions especially in free agency have put him in the center of the Redskins struggles at the edge of the NFC playoff picture year in and year out. Struggles undoubtedly that wound Snyder deeply.

To salve those wounds he’s repeatedly gone to the checkbook. A cycle vicious, ongoing.

But with one humongous payday to one humongous defensive tackle, has Snyder perhaps finally gotten the big spender thing right? Is Albert Haynesworth and his 6’6” 320 lbs frame of football fury worth $100 million?

As my man Zac at Throwing Into Traffic states, Prince Albert to the Redskins makes sense by simple offseason math.

The Redskins were terrible at creating pressure last year. Haynesworth’s disruption of the pocket’s fleshy underbelly not only nets the big man an impressive sack total for a defensive tackle but creates opportunities for his teammates.

Tennessee ranked fifth in the league last year in sack total with 44 overall. Noting that only one player approached Haynesworth’s 8.5 sacks, the production was mainly spread around the defensive line, specifically 30.5 sacks by eight of Haynesworth’s fellow defensive linemen.

That number alone crushes the 24 sacks the entire Redskins defense netted last season. And much of the credit for that distributed total can go to the play of Haynesworth demanding double and triple teams (while often beating those double and triple teams for those 8.5 sacks, 22 hurries, and 7 tackles for loss).

So Haynesworth should shore up an awful pass rush and raise the level of play of his teammates around him.

But such simple offseason math usually doesn’t work out with such simplicity in reality.

Remember Shaun Rogers and Corey Williams to Cleveland last year? The Browns great Achilles heel in 2007 was an underperforming front seven, especially along the line. Despite a fine season from Rogers and a decent one from Williams, the Browns broke down just about everywhere else on the offense and defense. Injuries, regressions, poor adjustments, atrocious depth… 2008 was a debacle for Cleveland.

Haynesworth was central to a complex enigma of a team crafted by Jeff Fisher in Tennessee. A terrifying pressure defense that rarely blitzed their linebackers. A turf-churning ground offense that thumbed their noses at conventional field position wisdom. Daring and gambling, yet old school in values like building monstrous lines on both sides of the ball.

Prince Albert is bevy of complex moves and weight-room sculpted power as well as old school hustle. He's the face-stomping hood and the shocking maturity resulting from real remorse.

What Haynesworth will mean to a Redskins defense, or rather team, is of course as yet unclear. Washington is no backwater, playing second fiddle to the college game in its own humid backyard like the Titans do. The Beltway is always buzzing with overblown expectations. His teammates will no longer be the pick-up drivers like Kyle Vanden Bosch and Keith Bulluck. Instead, he'll take his locker room seat next to luminaries like London Fletcher-Baker and Clinton Portis.

One of the major differences in this signing for Snyder and for the Redskins is that no one can quibble that a defensive tackle deserves it more than Haynesworth. When Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle El pulled down their huge Washington paydays, more accomplished and, yes, better receivers toiled in points such as Cincinnati and Arizona for remarkably lesser dollars. No one, however, has played the defensive tackle position quite like Prince Albert has for the last two-three seasons.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. At the same moment Snyder signs perhaps one of the best defensive free agents of the past few years, he hands another overlarge check to corner DeAngelo Hall.

In one morning, Snyder perhaps atones for the sins of free agency contracts past by maybe – just maybe – paying the right player the right ridiculous number, then turns around and throws cash at a greatly overvalued corner who flamed out the last time large guaranteed money was dumped in his lap.

It’s been awhile since Washington “won” the offseason Super Bowl. The jokes lingered the past couple seasons even as Snyder and the Redskins uncharacteristically stalked the sidelines during free agency’s big money early days. Something didn't feel right when the Jets and not Washington dropped money on damaged goods with a potential great payoff.

So here Washington is, front horse in the offseason race again. The weirdest part may be that when it comes to Haynesworth they may have gotten it right.

This Isn't What Ghost Called Hazy Paradise

For the better part of three days I’ve layed on my side and hoped I wouldn’t cough again. No such luck really. The mild fever, the nose turning on and off like a tap, the spacey logic, all of that is okay by me… this cough is killing me however.

So apologies. Even though time I’ve had in spades, my inclinations haven’t bent toward the myriad offseason pursuits of NFL 2009.

I do see multiple if not ironies then paradoxes in these early days of the non-football wasteland. Teams expelling hard campaigners like Deuce McAllister, Fred Taylor, Jeff Garcia, Chris McAllister right before the Scouting Combine.

“Out with the old, in the with the new” doesn’t quite cover it. While some of the veteran cap casualities might be facing the hard truth of retirement, several will stick somewhere.

I’m not against the youth movement. I’m not overly sentimental. Sentimental, yes, but not overly so. Fred Taylor of last season didn’t look like Fred Taylor of even the prior two-three seasons. Taylor always ran with that weird line through his body, slightly forward, making his cuts through hips down to his knees leaving his chest swiveling forward like the compass point to due north (or due endzone).

Last year, Taylor looked almost bent over, crumpled before he hit the line outside a few breaking runs. Of course, the only consistency in Jacksonville was the offensive line’s consistently atrocious play.

And Deuce played on a couple busted knees when he did play. And Chris McAllister has played in only 14 games in the last two years. And Garcia’s not started a full season since 2002 (though perhaps he could have in 2006 with Philly).

Yeah, these guys are damaged goods. And they’ve lost millions because of it, sent packing before roster bonuses could take effect. (Making Nnamdi Asomugha’s contract with all the guarantees all the more amazing.)

But compare the known factors for these veterans against their relatively few unknowns. The legitimate questions surround their health over a full season. But teams know what they’re getting when these players suit up.

Then think about the Scouting Combine wrapping up today.

The Combine exists to provide another small measure of how these players will stack up in the pros, once money is involved… and consequently it gets real.

Andre Smith loses millions for going AWOL. Debate is around whether one of the best players in college football who played through injury should be downgraded because of that injury. Michael Crabtree this time… but do you remember when we had this debate about Adrian Peterson? Anonymous receivers from places like Abilene Christian are jumping up boards with 4.3 forty times.

And the craziest part? That all this “underwear football” as Brad Childress calls it isn’t lunacy. Last year’s ROY candidate Chris Johnson separated himself at the Combine after playing at mid-major East Carolina. For every Lions wide receiver that nailed their top 10 spot in Indianapolis only to subsequently flame out, there are legitimate players who treat the Combine as part of what it takes to earn their spot in the NFL, then go out and earn their role on an NFL team.

While the combine provides more information for teams to make their decisions come draft day, there's simply no formula for projecting success in the pros. And for battle scarred veterans, there's no guarantees to provide against further injury and further deterioration of skills.

Five days in Indianapolis or five million on a two year show-me contract aren't a solution to either problem.

Banned From the Roxy

In case you missed it, this is your new defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans:


Jim Schwartz may have taken on the NFL's uphill battle of the young century: namely, make Detroit relevant for the first time since George Plimpton's book Paper Lion.

But Schwartz did leave his own pair of shoes to fill at Tennessee.

Working closely with a defensive minded head coach in Jeff Fisher, Schwartz constructed a ferocious defense that evolved from the Gregg Williams's blitzing style 4-3 of the late 90s Oilers/Titans into a 4-3 that rarely blitzes but was just as brutally effective.

Schwartz did it first of all with great players. Having Albert Haynesworth, Keith Bulluck, and Jevon Kearse in his prime would makes any defensive coordinator's job that much easier.

But Schwatz also did it with advanced statistics that attacked the why's and how's of the game by first looking at what worked then working backwards, establishing trends on paths conventional football logic might never tread.

It took awhile for the ethos to take hold in Tennessee. A couple playoff runs early in the decade sapped the roster, led to a short spate of rebuilding... but the Titans of the last couple years gleefully threw conventional logic by the wayside and embraced a loose approach to the game. Whether calling an onside kick while clinging to a close lead or adjusting their fourth down decision making to include field position as well as distance, the Titans chased victories attacking all phases of the game.

A lot of Tennessee's recent success is directly due to their dominant defense. With Fisher, the longest tenured head coach in the league, there will always be an emphasis on dominant defense. But each coach under Fisher has put their stamp on Titans.

And now Chuck Cecil, once one of the most feared defenders in the league, gets to put his stamp on the next edition of the Titans defense.

Chuck Cecil was one of my first home team heroes. The Green Bay Packers of my childhood were anything but scary for opponents in the 80s – outside of Charles Martin’s disgusting hit list. And the team certainly wasn’t successful.

But as apathy with the Packers’ contemporary conundrum crested high, Cecil arrived onto the scene to return a relevance however minor to Green Bay.

Drafted in the fourth round, Cecil made his mark early with a series of vicious hits, first in training camp then on the football field, plunging ever forward with his head, repeatedly cracking open the bridge of his nose like a pomegranate, little beads of blood trickling out garishly for our amusement.

Even in Green Bay’s surprise 10-6 1989 campaign, Cecil was a dose of brutal reality in an otherwise unreal year. Don Majkowski maybe have been the Majik Man – what I wouldn’t give to find that t-shirt – leading improbable fourth quarter comeback after comeback. But it was Chuck’s busted honker more than Tim Harris’s sack celebrating six shooters that underscored the price tallied of this miracle success however brief.

Unfortunately, the head-first assassin spearing tackles also exacted a price of their own. Repeated concussions robbed Cecil of years off his violent career.

Cecil’s on-field antics got him notice, got him fines, got him a cover article in Sports Illustrated.

The dangerous hits also got Cecil a big-at-the-time contract with Arizona after the 1992 season. My young self was outraged when the Packers didn’t pay up for their biggest defense star (that outrage was soon mollified after Green Bay signed Reggie White to a monster contract).

But after one year, Cecil was out of a football for a year, the toll taken on his brain and neck. He came back for a season with the Houston Oilers amidst the quickly crumbling relationship between the franchise and the city.

As time went by and the uncritical passion of my youth evolved into complicated love/hate relationship I have with the game today, I began to see Cecil’s brief career in a different light, one out of the halcyon glow of youth, one more attuned to the harsher hues of the game and the toll it takes on the body. There's a delicate balance between playing the game with requisite violence and pushing that violence too far. Sometimes things just happen on the football field, sometimes they happen for a reason.

It’s not that Cecil should be vilified. He played the game hard and with a commendable physicality. But he pushed the line on what was acceptable, taking a step further into turning his protective gear into weapons. If he wouldn’t have done it, someone else would have. Indeed, there were those before him, Jack Tatum for example, and he had plenty of contemporaries… some might even consider Roy Williams and the horse collar tackle a spiritual successor in the unbroken line of vicious safety play of which Cecil can claim descent.

Cecil was merely the poster boy. During Cecil’s day, he was at the center of a legitimate debate about how to play the game. He was playing it the only way he knew how, smartly and violently, to overcome lack of size and speed.

Size and speed were taking over the game. The NFL was in flux. Defenders, especially backs, were still working around the restricted contact initiated at the end of the previous decade and how to deal with the West Coast Offense which thrived on underneath timing routes made possible by the limited contact. Ferocity in the middle of the field was an almost necessity to disrupt the careful ballet of a timing offense. It’s a legitimate goal, how it’s achieved, though, required delineations, delineations which would come over the course of the Cecil controversy.

I’m not saying Chuck Cecil will instruct his Titans defense to tackle with the crown of their helmets and incur a rash of neck injuries and concussions amongst his players and their opponents.

I’m not saying that the Titans defense will play dirty under Cecil.

Since his playing days Cecil’s been a successful coach of the Titans secondary for much of this decade. No doubt he’s matured, taken a longer look at the game and how to play it.

While I don't expect the Titans to replicate Cecil's now clearly illegal hits on the football field, they may take on some of the desperation with which he played the game. Under Gregg Williams, there was a firebrand quality to the Titans defense fitting its coaches personality. Under Schwartz, they were physical, precise, and inspirationally simple in part a reflection of their coordinator.

What qualities the Titans defense takes under and from Cecil remains to be seen. His job will be much more difficult if Tennessee can't re-sign its best player in Haynesworth. But whether Prince Albert re-signs or not, I can't imagine the Titans flagging in ferocity.

The Manifold Combinations

The Combine starts tomorrow. Weigh-ins, interviews, long jumps, vertical leaps, bench presses, sprints, drills, drills, drills.

It's the beginning of a circus of poking and prodding that continues until the tense weeks before the draft. Maybe circus is the right description for the atmosphere, but it's really more akin to judging cattle at the state fair.

For all the workout warriors and can't miss prospects that miss terribly, it's easy to say that the Combine is manifestation of the NFL's collective madness. Strident yet sometimes horribly wrong proclamations. Otherworldly lines of questioning. Flagging focus amidst intensity. Presumptions of self-absorbed universes.

But for every Mike Mamula (whose pro career wasn't actually that horrible) there's an Antonio Cromartie who truly separates himself with elite numbers that translate to the football field.

And I would imagine in this day and age with the glut of NFL caliber talent nurtured in small schools, the Combine is even more important to provide objective measure where there cannot be one on the football field.

We know Michael Crabtree isn't going to run the 40. And while it hasn't really been said yet, once the scouts assemble, the whispers will start, the speculation will run rampant. Unless Crabtree, one of the best players in all of college football the last two years, runs well at his pro day, the talk won't die down.

More to the point, the scouts from each NFL team aren't comfortable with the idea of a player who doesn't hustle through the Combine's events with deadly seriousness. It is after all an extended job interview. The primadonna act, at least it's perceived, will only get a player so far...

I'm no scout. I don't pour over college game tape half of every day. But of the college football I've watched, a handful of players on the 2009 Combine's invite list have stuck out on game day. I'll be interested to see how they test, how they measure up.

I worry about Pat White. In a weak quarterback class, White might get more consideration at his college position than he would have, say, last year when Matt Ryan, Brian Brohm, Joe Flacco, and Chad Henne were vying for early round consideration.

And what this greater consideration means, I can't say. White was a hell of a college quarterback. But he is also the sum of all that doesn’t translate into a successful pro quarterback. He’s the NCAA all time leading rusher at quarterback. He excelled in a run first spread offense. He’s undersized and slight of frame. No one can question his toughness. But they’ll question his arm strength.

The last thing I want is for White to simply be a Mountaineer for life and nothing more. Not that such noteriety is so bad. But ridiculous talent like his must have some place on Sundays.

Obviously tomorrow will go a ways toward shaking out just players who have dominated during the season will fare on draft day. Of course, we all interested to see how guys with name recognition fare under the Combine’s bright lights. Peria Jerry, the stellar Ole Miss defensive tackle, or Malcolm Jenkins, the touted corner from Ohio State, will command attention. Even guys like Louie Sakoda, the kicker from Utah who played a central role in the Utes BCS busting run last season, will be picked apart.

Here’s some players I’m really interested in tracking as they post numbers over the next several days.

Hakeem Nicks, WR UNC, and his ability to catch the ball behind his back.

Stephen Hodge, SS TCU, the Horned Frogs’ seek-and-destroy robot.

DJ Moore, CB Vanderbilt, sole playmaker on Commodores’ bowl winning team.

Jonathan Casillas, LB Wisconsin, sped through the Badgers mediocrity week in and week out.

Anthony Parker, G Tennessee, run blocking on the move a thing of large beauty.

Sammie Stroughter, WR Oregon State, guy making the tough sometimes unheralded catches.

Whether these guys make the cut or not, they've played some great football up until now. How far they can go might just be coded somewhere between their bench presses and agility drills.

Tag, You're It

Football is an ever forward projection. Coaches don't sell backslides or regressions to their players or to the public.

Sure, some teams and players do get worse. "Rebuilding" is a dirty word. But in the hyper competitive NFL, stasis is nigh on untenable.

Progress, improvement, turning the corner - call it what you will. The company line is always about getting better.

In the league, there's three basic ways, right? Free agency, the draft, and player maturation. Other less easy to identify factors loom large in a team's fortunes: leadership, stable lineups, good communication. But those are issues to be ironed out in training camps, or, if not ironed out, at least confronted.

Free agency is less than two weeks away. And the combine kicks off this week Wednesday. These two events are interrelated. In the heavily compartmentalized NFL, we tend to think of the draft and free agency as separate. But their impact on teams will be closer to one.

Some sportswriters will caution against the free agency spending spree. Remember the Redskins! Beware the cap hell! Others will applaud the opening of pocketbooks while making ridiculous designations like "winners" in free agency before a down of football is played.

But it's important to remember that free agency isn't truly free. And the draft isn't really a blank check shopping spree at the supermarket.

The draft order and the resulting slights of hand, in trades, in feints of interest, will culminate in its own drama during the last weekend in April. It's an on-paper series of pirouettes and dagger plunges. There's a surrealism to it because none of the prospects fought over are real NFL players yet. These players are pure potential, pure vessels of hope.

A chance to make good on real NFL production, free agency is for the players... or rather some of the players. Very few of the best make it to market. Enter the franchise tag.

Sorry, Nnamdi Asomugha, your destiny is more toil in Oakland at least another season, perhaps forever. Perhaps the best corner of his generation is taking a Zen-like approach to his situation. At least he'll make another heap of cash, but without a long-term deal, won't get the guaranteed money he richly deserves. Al Davis loves aggressive shutdown corners. And even if he didn't, doubtless he wouldn't let his team's best player walk.

Matt Cassel's already been tagged (best treated by Throwing Into Traffic). Some assume him traded. Some assume him starting. I find it's best not to make rigid proclamations about what Bill Belichick and the Patriots will do. They excel at going against common logic and finding better sense in more universal, if less obvious, truths.

There's some other big names that might make it to market. TJ Houshmandzadeh, Ray Lewis, Bart Scott, Jeff Saturday. Perhaps presumptuous because one never knows the status of these talks, but I can't imagine DeMarcus Ware, Antonio Bryant, Jahri Evans, Karlos Dansby, Brian Dawkins, and OJ Atogwe returning with anyone but their respective teams.

Perhaps most intriguing this year in the franchise tag drama surrounds two elite defensive linemen: Albert Haynesworth and Julius Peppers.

Prince Albert can't be tagged this year. The modified franchise agreement between Haynesworth and the Titans last year included incentives for certain achievements, preeminently unimpeded free agency upon making the Pro Bowl.

Haynesworth has played the defensive tackle position the last few years like few players have in the history of the sport. Disruptive in the run game, nearly unstoppable on passing downs. He represents perhaps the most complete and accomplished player set to hit the free market. He won't reach 30 for another couple years.

He could succeed where others have failed, resurrecting terrible franchises like Detroit. He could resign with Tennessee to continue their run at a championship through dominant defense.

But perhaps most importantly to Haynesworth's fellow players is his example of lifting the tag, his bondage, through his play on field. Seattle tackle Walter Jones faced the tag year after year until he was finally given a long term contract. Haynesworth used what little leverage he had at his avail to deftly give himself a shot at free agency. He quietly made what threats were necessary to work around the tag agreement for the future. Then he went out on the field and proved it in his play.

Contrast that with the situation in Carolina. The Panthers are facing an important decision between two of their best players. Tackle Jordan Gross and defensive end Julius Peppers are scheduled for free agency. Peppers wants out of a confusing Carolina situation.

A top team last year that faltered in the playoffs is usually not the kind of place players want to leave. In perhaps the strangest logic of this young offseason, Peppers wants to go to a team that plays the 3-4 alignment.

An interesting request. Especially since there are fewer 3-4 defenses in the league than 4-3's. But that's not what makes Peppers's request a head scratcher.

No, he wants to play outside linebacker in a 3-4. He wants to be James Harrison, a DeMarcus Ware, a Shawne Merriman.

I guess a worthy goal in some abstract sense because those guys, playing hands-up rush backer, net a lot of sacks in their respective defenses.

Consider, however, that Peppers is 6'7" and 285 lbs. His athleticism and frame is so rare that he's a born end. He could pack another 10-15 lbs on his frame and make a great 3-4 end.

While, Peppers coming off the edge as a straight ahead rusher is a scary proposition, it doesn't make a lot of sense. I can't imagine the defensive coordinator who wouldn't put him at end in any scheme. It's like Steve Smith asking to be tight end or fullback because he loves to hit people. It's all well and good as an idea. But the body type is just all wrong.

Stranger than Peppers's request is that he's telling anyone who will listen about it. I haven't a clue if he's felt out some of the 3-4 teams about this to gauge interest before going public with his demands. And I haven't a clue who put this idea in Peppers's head or if it simply came to him in a burst of inspiration.

Regardless, it doesn't seem too wise to air the grievance itself in public. To threaten going public, yes, that's a tactic. Threaten causing a distraction for team and training camp. But I just can't see how this difficult situation can play out well for both parties as a bargaining chip is compromised for both sides who need an outsider to play ball with if they hope to make everybody happy.

It's a strange play by a strange player. Peppers should be the most dominant of his generation, but like Kris Jenkins before him, he's let the malaise of Carolina affect a couple key years in his career, being an intermittent but not truly unstoppable force these past two seasons.

The franchise tag rankles many of these top players who are seeking the security of guaranteed dollars. If they want to play their way out of it, or at least give themselves a shot to, perhaps it's better to follow Prince Albert's example than replicate Orange Julius's frustrations.

The Quiet Afternoons Of Ray And Brett

They say Brett Favre has retired. Even as a lifelong Packers fan, I'll play along. At least, I'll play along as far as Ray Lewis getting paid is concerned.

I'm sure sports blogfrica just like mainstream media is rife with leery-eyed doubt around Favre's retirement. And who could blame them? Certainly, not me.

For the the past couple years, I figured the man needed his time. He earned it to a certain degree... maybe not as much as he was alloted or believed he deserved. But contemplating throwing a body into another sixteen week grinder when that body is a late 30's edition, well, that's a temple buster.

The story now is about the damage to his throwing arm, one that caused his passes late in the season to take strange detours in the swirling Meadowlands winds. As many ugly Brett Favre interceptions as I've seen in my life – and, good Lord, there have been many – Favre's late season collapse this year did look particularly inept.

Sure balls were forced into coverage, that's a given. But there was a distinct lack of drama, maybe a theater of confusion, around his nine picks in the final five games. The confusion in this late season breakdown appeared from an outsider’s perspective to stem at least in part from a systematic miscommunication between Favre and the rest of the Jets. Laveranues Coles would never be Donald Driver-Antonio Freeman-Robert Brooks-Sterling Sharpe.

But now the bitter end is blamed on a bum throwing shoulder. On the surface, a surprisingly mundane reason for the exiting of a legend… never mind Achilles felled by an arrow shot behind cowardly fortifications landing not in his heart or between the eyes, rather his exposed heel.

Criticisms of Favre are career long and ever evolving (and not without merit). Perhaps initially they sprung from jealous opponents befuddled at his charmed play. Eventually when his reputation outpaced his onfield accomplishments, the claims of detractors gained more traction. He threw too many picks. He didn’t win enough championships. And, perhaps, worst, he put himself above the team.

Favre was folksy enough even in his primadonna vacillations. A reveller in his own mythology, that folksiness transmuted into folk heroism, as much as football with its ever replaceable cogs can support a folk hero. When football wasn’t enough, a stunning string of personal tragedy wrote the remaining tale.

For the critical fan of the game, the mythology bordering on hagiography could rightly chafe and disgust. There’s something romantic about clinging desperately to the spotlight, being peeled off the field as Matt Birk once said. Something romantic in the idea, something ugly in its operation.

Even as he leaves a wake of destruction in his off stage shuffling path, he’s given credit for loving the game. And I don’t doubt that he does. But we as fans were always buying his play on the field, not necessarily his leadership qualities, leadership that was called into question late this season by teammates Thomas Jones and Kerry Rhodes.

In last year’s tense standoff between Favre and the Packers, few were lacking for an opinion. The greatest icon of a franchise (if not exactly its greatest player) and his itch versus a young team’s future. Two camps, more or less, arrayed on either side and hurled pointed words at each other until Favre was finally shipped off to New York, safely sheltered from Minnesota or Chicago.

Compare and contrast this with Ray Lewis’s situation in Baltimore. Lewis is the Baltimore Ravens even if he is no longer its greatest player. And he might be facing the end of the his time with the franchise that gave him his first shot and stuck by him through the considerable, and occassionally frightening, drama of his career.

Beyond their outsized love for the game, the comparisons between Favre and Lewis stop there. For Lewis, there is no question about his fire to play. There is no exhaustion followed by itching regret. There is no question about Lewis’s leadership. You can hear it in Ed Reed’s voice when he talks about Lewis and his total absorption into the game.

That absorption makes his leadership undeniable, perhaps even a little overbearing at times as he stumbles upon teammates playing cards in the lockerroom and ruining the banter with his need to talk blitz schemes or coverage technique.

But that leadership is essential nonetheless.

Ray’s situation this year is also contrastingly free from outsized drama. Despite coming up through the 90s and being essentially a star of yesterday on a downward trend, exactly like Favre, the play between Baltimore and Lewis simply boils down to money. While there must be deeper feelings, both sides acknowledge the business side of the game. It’s all professionalism.

So here’s Baltimore contemplating life without its signature star. With a player that has something left in the tank. A player who if is his body keeps changing as it has over the course of his career might end up looking like a defensive tackle. Body aside, Lewis is always a middle linebacker.

Another contrasting point between Favre and Lewis, I'm not so sure a record has ever been sacred to Ray Lewis. He's been injured, missed large chunks of seasons. Plus, he’s also rested for playoffs push, not caring about how his team wins, just that his team wins. Favre can say he doesn’t do it for the records, but there’s a showmanship to it. It feeds his bumpkin routine. The records, well I didn’t mean to break it, sir, honestly…

I'm not going to tell the Baltimore front office what to do. General Manager Ozzie Newsome has constructed a consistent winner, not to mention the league’s most fearsome defenses perennially, by knowing when to pay up and when to let walk. Adalius Thomas? A nice player. But nowhere near the terror at New England he was in Baltimore.

I don’t know how it will play out between the Ravens and Ray. I don’t know if Lewis is serious about not taking a hometown discount. I don’t know if Baltimore is honestly considering not making a serious run at the team’s signature player.

I just know it will feel a little weird to see Ray in anything but the gaudy purple and black doing his ritualistic pregame haka.

While we all imagine the quiet afternoons of retired Brett spent toiling on his tractor, we cannot imagine Ray ever anything but arm’s length from a football. If there’s ever a star at his twilight that deserves a king’s ransom, it’s Lewis.

NFL 2008 In Haiku

No more whiskey soaked Sundays surrounded by blaring HDTVs and raucous alternating delight or agony.

No more consolation prize Monday nights to lubricate the week's lurching start. No more bargaining with a God I only believe in during football season for Green Bay victory.

No more Fitzgerald twists mid-air. No more Chris Harris battleship sinking hits. No more Purple Jesus on the loose or McNabb on the leash. No Haynesworth triple teamed or DeMarcus double barreled.

No roughness, necessary or unnecessary. No turf world turned upside if briefly. No bounties denied, no fingertip touchdowns.

No more pro football.

At least not until September. Fuck, that's a long time from now.

Before we jump ahead though, let's put the final nail in 2008's coffin. So far, my favorite comments on the season past come from Zac at Throwing Into Traffic, specifically through the prism of Super Bowl 43 (read it now).

Instead of reflecting back through 43, I prefer starting with 2008 from the beginning. To add a little challenge, I'm recapping the season in haiku form. And in the spirit of football's starting 11 players, 11 syllable haiku, 3-5-3 style.

So here's the 2008 NFL season in haiku.

Brady broke –
Chad grows Fins, East goes
Miami.

Look! It's Ed
Hochuli dressed in
orange and blue.

Pass rushers
fall, more keep coming,
Giants roll.

Mario,
world not enough, much
less Houston.

Garrard hit
from behind, story of
Jaguars' year.

Wildcat, you
look like something I
forgot once.

Vince Young's head,
a landscape in foam.
Call Kerry.

Chargers charge
slow but bolt to post-
season field.

Goodbye Matt!
Fords won't validate
your parking.

Neckbeard! You
give Chicago hope
yet crush it.

Keep throwing
the bomb, Campbell, thing
of beauty.

Cleveland, what
happened? Horse Balls shrunk
sinks the Browns.

Seattle:
where wide receivers
go to die.

The South is
rising, but this time
NFC.

Flacco and
Ryan, surpass where others
struggle – rooks!

The Cowboys
implosion set for
post bye week.

Buffaloes
roam into the cross-
hairs of East.

Pacman back
both playing, fighting
drunken brawl.

Prince Albert
and Chris Johnson, win
streak Titans.

The pinky
of Romo, digit
too famous.

He got a
broken face, doesn't
stop Anquan.

Can't wait for
end of season, must
fire right now!

London lit
by young Rivers but
Drew's on fire.

Matt Cassel!
You found Randy, it's
not so bad.

Detroit freed,
Roy Williams times two
in Dallas.

Thanksgiving –
tryptophan nap or
Lions loss?

Greg Jennings
cannot pass rush, the
Packers sunk.

Portis blocks
crush like the Redskins
playoff hopes.

Six face ban,
supplement to blame,
pee in cup.

New York talks
subway Super Bowl,
Favre falters.

Plaxico
takes revenge on leg
in sweatpants.

Fitzpatrick
versus Dorsey: a
regression.

Tampa Bay,
swarming defense now
tired, napping.

Cutler's guns
cool, Broncos' gallop
slows to trot.

Brees closes
on record, Saints on
parity.

Lions make
history, just not
victory.

Shanahan,
ultimate leader,
without troops.

Pats sit home
as Chargers into
playoffs sneak.

A trophy
isn't always victory,
right, Peyton?

Adrian
on sidelines for Vikes'
biggest drive.

Giants or
Titans, matters not,
fall the same.

McNabb short
reviving Chunky
Soup career.

Fitzgerald,
Larry, now you know,
USA.

Field strewn with
bodies, yes, Ravens
v Steelers.

Harrison
on a quarter tank,
putters home.

Holmes's toes
rob Larry's hands of
MVP.

Terrible
towels wave at the
season's end.

The Notebook, Pro Bowl

Didn't watch it.

Who won? Did anyone really?

I posed to myself the annual question: to watch the Pro Bowl or not? Who knows, it might be a fine game this year. Maybe some of the 4th quarter electricity from the Super Bowl could carry across the Great Plains and Pacific Ocean currents to Hawaii.

But like every year, I opted to return a week early to my life, my life outside of football that is. Sunday was a fine day on the East Coast. The Spurs traveled to Boston to face the Celtics. It seemed a shame not to take a long walk and spend some time on other projects postponed during the height of football’s frenzied playoffs.

What I did realize, though, during this year’s internal debate, I can’t remember ever watching a single Pro Bowl during the course of my life.

Even as a football obsessed young boy, when my blind allegiance to the NFL and pro game crested at its height, I couldn’t muster the requisite intrigue in the league’s low key semi-spectacle. I who used to pray to a God I only truly believed in when the outcome of a Packers game was at stake, I would pray mid-Summer for Fall’s haste, despite the coming of school and the loss of Summer’s freedom.

Even that football-crazed child would choose burrowing tunnels through the excessive snow of the freezing Wisconsin Winter rather than peer into a lesser football paradise just one last time.

If my 10 year old self couldn’t bring himself to watch the Pro Bowl, certainly the same edition two decades on in experience and cynicism had no chance.

I've read that the game is for the players, not the fans. Indeed, those guys deserve a trip to Hawaii and a little extra bonus for a good season, especially the guys on rookie contracts. But I'd rather watch what happens when Larry Fitzgerald, Peyton Manning, and Jay Ratliff go to a beachside bar to play a game of Scrabble. That's pro players do right? Play boardgames?

I don't want to bitch and moan about it. It would be nice if the league could rectify this problem. The regular season is good, the playoff system is good. But baseball and basketball both knock the pants off of football in their all-star games. In all, the looming labor crisis is a much more important focus for the league and the players.

And the general fan isn't really complaining with the send-off the NFL gave us this year with one Super Bowl final quarter for the vault. Because when it comes down to it, no one will remember the outcome of this Pro Bowl unlike, say, last year's MLB All-Star game... and that might be comment enough on it.

Hasten the Slow Decay

Ah, the offseason is upon us.

Fear not! Fuhbaw plans to attack this (not so) long national nightmare with a vengeance... much like last year.

Free agency, the draft, the looming labor crisis... training camp will be here before you know it.

I'm coming to think football is a cyclical thing, not in the year-to-year sense, the waxing and waning of dynasties, the balance between the conferences... I'm not talking about that.

Rather the season's intensity is underscored by its long absence. The harsh reality of football is over. Now is the necessary renewal of hope.

Yes, hope even for Lions fans. Chris at Smart Football is offering words of cautious optimism about Jim Schwartz, which if you read Smart Football regularly words of cautious optimism equate roughly to a teenage girl hopping up and down, screaming "Oh My God!" over and over again.

Players will heal their wounds, rest tired bodies. Coaches will tear apart game plans, re-fashion systems and teachings. General managers will poke and prod fresh-faced kids like cattle, run a weary eye over crusty veterans. Owners will fret over gates, squeeze what they can.

And, we the fans, will begin to believe again that our team can win it all... maybe not this year, fans of Chiefs or Lions will say. But that far flung hope persists.

Never mind that 16 weeks of nagging injuries, last-second heartache, muddy uniforms, myopic playcalling, etc, etc should tell us different (well, unless you're a Steelers fan). In some compacted version of the American dream, at some point, we will all feel like our team has a chance. (And like the American dream, some will never attain it.)

So as you long for football in the thawing late Winter or warming Spring, tell yourself that the game wouldn't be nearly as good without this long goodbye. Tell yourself we'd have futbol, not fuhbaw. Tell yourself college basketball and Wimbledon will do. Tell yourself... Yeah, I'm not buying it either.

Super Bowl Pity Party

I'm still skeptical of this greatest Super Bowl ever talk.

Yes, 43 was a damn exciting game. But both teams were perceived as having reasonable shots at winning. The league's most exciting offense against its best defense. This was no paradigm shifting upset like Super Bowl 3.

Also, much of the first three quarters was marred by numerous penalties, sloppy play, and questionable playcalling. James Harrison's return for touchdown amazed, but little else outside of Ben Roethlisberger's ugly scrambles proved worthy of the NFL Films vault before the hectic fourth quarter. This was no seesaw game of memorable plays like Super Bowl 32.

This was no perfect game plan executed near flawlessly like Super Bowl 42.

Make no mistake, this was a great game. Exciting when it mattered most, played passionately if not exactly beautifully.

The coming weeks are for the Steelers to bask in victory, to set up terms of their reign. But before we hurtle forward into that new future, let's commence the pity party for Arizona Cardinals, so close in loss, so deserving of their Super Bowl ticket.

Cardinals 23 Steelers 27. Ian Leslie at Cardinals Gab says:

After being so solid all game, the Cardinals let Santonio Holmes torch them for 73 yards and a score on the Steelers game winning drive. The Cardinals didn’t give up, as they had 35 seconds to get a touchdown, but Warner was stripped by Lamar Woodley with five seconds remaining, and Pittsburgh recovered it. I thought it was very strange how they didn’t review the play, though, as it looked like Warner’s arm was moving forward, and the Cards could have had at least one more shot for a ‘Hail Mary,’ but it just wasn’t meant to be. Overall this season cannot be judged as a failure from this one game, but the Cardinals do have a very interesting offseason ahead of them, with many question marks.

Hawkwind at Revenge of the Birds says:

On a play that ends one teams season and crowns a champion, why did the officials not take a second look at a very close play? With :15 seconds on the clock and the Cardinals out of timeouts, Warner drops to pass and immediately feels pressure. He shuffles in the pocket and loads up for a deep pass, but LaMarr Woodley gets his hand on the Warner's arm and knocks the ball loose. The play was ruled a fumble and the Steelers took possession with just a few second left on the clock. I don't know if the play would have been overturned, but there's no doubt in my mind that if that play was outside of two minutes, Ken Whisenhunt would have challenged the call. If a play is that close in a game of this magnitude, why not take a second look?

Before I get blasted by Steelers fans, I'm not blaming the officiating for the outcome of the game or saying that they're the reason the Cardinals lost. I'm simply saying that in a game that was obviously called very tight, they missed some huge calls as well.

Scott Allen at Raising Zona says:

You could argue that Warner’s turnover at the end of the first half was a difference maker. Sure, you take that play away, things might have turned out differently. However it could have also changed the complexity of the second half and how each team approached their game plan on the offensive side of the ball. Plus, even after that play, the Cardinals still were able to stay in the game.

Don’t blame the referees. Don’t blame the turnovers. Don’t blame the pro Pittsburgh crowd. In fact, don’t even blame replay booth at the end of the game in which it was ruled Warner fumbled on the final play of the game. That play was too close to overturn and the referees, no matter how one-sided the calls may have been, made the right call there.

Sure I also just placed some blame on the defense. Let’s give credit where credit is due though. Pittsburgh is a great team. They were able to overcome the comeback. They never lost composure, which the Cardinals may have a little in the third quarter.

And finally Will Leitch at Deadspin says:

The thing is, you, I and everyone else on earth thought this game was over midway through the third quarter, and, all told, probably at halftime. That would have been much worse than this, I think. If the Buzzsaw's one Super Bowl appearance had ended in irrelevance, and pointlessness, and obvious inferiority, it would have justified what everyone else had said. The Charles Pierces of the world would have been right. We shouldn't have been here in the first place. We were just some dumb fluke that everyone could forget about. We were not like you, like your pain. Like everybody's pain.

See, in a way, losing this way — in the most soul-crushing, sweet-God-what-a-game-holy-frack-where's-something-tall-to-jump-off? fashion possible — justifies it all. The Buzzsaw were not going to lose a Super Bowl the way the Falcons did, or the Chargers. That would be pedestrian. That would be dumb. That would make the whole thing seem silly.

No, losing like this makes it all worthwhile. This was not a 27-7 shellacking, the Steelers simply piddling out the clock as everyone prepares for work tomorrow. Losing like this, after a shocking comeback, after a Yes This Team Is What We Had Hoped For And Dreamed About After All fourth quarter, lends gravitas to it. Now, the Buzzsaw is not the obvious doormat of the professional sports industrial complex. We now have some tragedy. We now have some pain. Real pain.

The Notebook, Super Bowl

America got Faith Hill and Jennifer Hudson on pre-recorded tracks. America got Bruce Springsteen’s crotch in their collective faces.

America got General David Petreaus flipping the coin and an Air Force flyover to ruminate on Pat Tillman’s memory, that confusing intersection of America’s sport, our ideals, and the histories we write.

We waded through a bevy of depressing commericals – CareerBuilder.com and Conan excepted – and we slogged through human interest story after human interest story in the several hour lead-up to kickoff. (Ben Graham, honestly?)

But none of the spectacle – save perhaps Hudson’s touching performance, artiface be damned – was nearly as messy or contentious as the game itself. Super Bowl 43 wasn’t overwhelmed by its trappings or upstaged at its own party.

A great Super Bowl? Maybe.

For three quarters the game was a sloppy mess of questionable calls, tepid play, missed opportunities, and confusing football. Before the electric fourth quarter, I couldn’t help thinking the game had all of the appeal of a make-out session with someone’s grandmother.

Football isn’t required to be sexy. But there was a disturbing lack of artistry… to the Cardinals passing attack, the Steelers zone blitz, the Cardinals pass coverage, and the Steelers running game. All the necessary components were there but they were operating in strange ways.

The chess match that begun two weeks ago almost threatened to sink the contest before it started. Certainly, Ken Whisenhunt and Todd Haley looked like they out-thought themselves by the Cardinals poor early performance on offense. Larry Fitzgerald almost didn’t make a reception throughout the entire first half. Only on the Cardinals final drive of the half was Larry finally targeted: one incomplete and one stick moving 12 yard reception.

Even as the Steelers marched up and down the field, they repeatedly faltered at the precipice of early domination. When the field condensed and Pittsburgh’s physicality should have cleared repeated touchdown paths, the Arizona defense outhit and outhustled the Steelers, holding the offense to a mere 10 points.

With so many of the game’s storylines veering sharply off script, James Harrison’s brilliant read-and-react interception return touchdown became all the more crucial. While I’ll not deny Santonio Holmes’s well deserved MVP trophy, the voters could just have easily split the award between Harrison and fellow outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley who both carried the game through its indecisive moments.


On the flipside, had Arizona completed the comeback, Larry Fitzgerald’s astounding fourth quarter resuscitation would certainly have merited consideration for the best performance. As amazing as the 64 yard catch and run was, the one yard twisting touchdown pluck spoke more to Fitzgerald’s vintage.

But, undeniably, the Cardinals near comeback was kicked off by Darnell Dockett. He nearly singlehandedly killed Pittsburgh’s first and second drives of the fourth quarter. Even the impressive five tackle, two sack stat line doesn’t do justice to the havoc Dockett caused throughout. Had the Cardinals hung on for the win or perhaps found Fitzgerald outleaping a gang of black-and-gold defenders for the winning score as time expired, Dockett still might have been my MVP.

If anything, however, the Super Bowl isn’t about possibilities, it’s not about what might have been. A play here and a play there might have crowned the Dallas Cowboys the dynasty of the 70s, not these same victorious Steelers.

I cringe at throwing out phrases like clutch, but there was an undeniable aspect in the on-field relationship between Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes that came into full flower on the Steelers final substantive drive.


Roethlisberger continues to be the insanely athletic quarterback who instead of making it look easy, insists on making it look as hard as possible. Luckily for him Santonio Holmes displayed enough grace and speed to counterbalance Big Ben’s bizarre aesthetic for the highlight reels.

I was lucky enough to be staring right at Holmes’s shoes during the game winner. Out of assembled company, shouts of disbelief rang loud. But it was clear, I just shook my head in amazement.

Among coworkers this morning, we wondered if Roethlisberger was simply too stupid to know how to lose. It’s not of course to call Roethlisberger a moron, rather to note that the game is often played better when it isn’t overthought, or thought through at all.

I can imagine a scenario where there wasn’t a single play called on the game winning drive. A pure kind of football that beguiles the game’s tendencies toward meticulously planning and rote drills. Just get open, I’ll find you.

We might have witnessed Larry’s playoffs, but this was Santonio’s game. James Harrison’s game. Heath Miller’s game. LaMarr Woodley’s game. And, yes, finally Ben Roethlisberger’s game.

Unfortunately, the game was Terry McAuley’s too.

I received a text from harDCore reading, “The fix is in,” after the bullshit roughing the passer call on Dockett. Sitting next to DJ Noid, a Seahawks fan still smarting from Super Bowl 40, I heard the notes of disgust as the Steelers continued to receive the benefit of the doubt seemingly again and again from the officiating crew.

Officiating professional football is a ridiculously difficult task. Still, one hopes in the big games that it doesn’t become a storyline. Not the case with 43.

In a game so physical, the coach’s might argue that the repeated unnecessary roughness calls were in fact very necessary… to intimidate, to put force behind words.

And for most coaches there’s always a certain situations where they’ll take the penalty. But there was something noticeably excessive in the tilt towards Pittsburgh. Perhaps the fact that both challenges thrown by Whisenhunt he won clearly says something.

And the fact that 43’s last substantive play, the Woodley strip sack of Kurt Warner, wasn’t reviewed by the booth calls into question the quality of the game’s officiating.

Perhaps it would have been simply a hollow exercise as Mike Pereira, the NFL’s head of officiating suggests, but sadly it might take something away from a very exciting and earned Steelers championship.

And maybe that’s where I’ll leave it. Pittsburgh earned this one. Arizona was exciting. They were merchants of hope, gleeful anarchists stumbling upon the king’s treasure room.

But the Steelers reaffirm the difficult road traveled. We know how they’ll wear the crown, relatively classy and with a strong deference to past accomplishments. I still don't know if it's a great Super Bowl. But I've got no problems with our champions.