NFL -- Wildcard Weekend Picks

In a very strange twist of events, for the first time in as long as I can remember, it looks like all four of the lower-seeded teams in this weekend's Wilcard Round games in the NFL have a good argument that they are actually the better team in their respective matchups. I mean, obviously the defending Superbowl champion Saints are far better than the embarrassing 7-9 Seahawks, who will host the Saints on Saturday due to the NFL's playoff seeding system that puts all division winners ahead of all wildcard teams right off the bat. That same system also has the 11-5 Jets travelling to the 10-6 Colts on Saturday afternoon, although that is at least a much closer matchup where you could easily see either team finding a way to win. And in the Sunday games, it's the 12-4 Ravens visiting the 10-6 Chiefs in the early game in another matchup of a far better record travelling to a far worse record team due to the NFL's divisional structure. And then Sunday's late game is what most are viewing as the best game of the weekend, a matchup of the 10-6 Packers visiting the 10-6 Eagles, but when the two teams played heads-up in Week 1, the Packers bested the Eagles in Philadelphia, albeit with Kevin Kolb at quarterback in what seems like it was about 10,000 years ago. I'm not sure I can ever recall a situation where all four of the road teams have a good argument to actually be the superior teams, and in particular where three of the four matchups feature a team with a better record on the season going on the road to play at a team with a worse seasonal record, doubly in particular in this case with two of the matchups being a road team visiting a home team with at least two fewer wins on the year.

All that said, the Vegas lines on these games are adjusted accordingly to take into account all of the above, and the end result is four games which are all pretty much hard to pick. With that in mind, I'm going to deviate from what I did during the regular season and just force myself to make picks for all four games, and see what happens. Whether I will really bet these lines in real life remains to be seen, but unlike my regular season predictions where I pretty much only posted picks on the games I had good confidence in, I'm planning to go ahead and just make my guess for each playoff game from here on out and see how I do.

For starters, I like the Saints over the Seahawks, even giving the 11 points Vegas has come up with for the line between one of the league's hottest teams and defending league champion and a truly bad sub-.500 divisional winner. In looking at Seattle's schedule, if you throw out Carolina and Arizona -- perhaps the league's two worst overall teams -- Seattle's total scores over its last 8 games have been, in order of most recent to least recent: 16, 15, 18, 21, 24, 19, 7, 3. The 21 and 24 both came in blowout losses as it is, and included a fair amount of trash time late in the game where those last points were not defended by the opponents with nearly the ferocity that the Seahawks are sure to run into this weekend in the Saints who are defending their Superbowl title. And, the 'Hawks are either looking at Charlie Whitehurst again at qb this weekend, or a beat-up Matt Hasselbeck at something like 70%. Basically, I'm thinking the Seahawks are going to score mid-teens in this one (unless the Saints run up 40), and the Saints should be able to pile on some serious points with their offense. New Orleans already scored 34 points at home against the Seahawks when they played in mid-season, and the Saints have put at least 30 on the board in 6 of their last 8 games to boot. This one looks to me to be a low-30s to mid-teens affair, which means the 11 points is not likely to be enough to cover the massive chasm in skill between these two squads. Especially with Seattle's average margin of defeat this season sitting at over 21 points, I'll take the champs and lay the points here, albeit a huge line for a road favorite in the playoffs.

In the second game on Saturday, it's the Colts favored by 3 points at home against the Jets, which is also a rematch of last year's AFC Championship. Only, this year, both teams seem a little worse than they were last year, and it seems to me that whoever wins this game is going down hardcore next week, regardless of which team wins and which team they play in the conference semis. That said, something tells me that Rex Ryan and the Jets will find a way to defend well enough against the Colts' incredibly one-dimensional offense, as Indy is the #1 passing team in the league but the #29 rushing squad. They're going to be an easy game plan in relative terms for what is still a strong defense in New York, and even the return of Joseph Addai a few weeks ago is likely to do a whole lot to remedy this big imbalance. In addition, the Jets' Mark Sanchez has had an inconsistent year, having particular trouble against aggressive, talented defenses, but the Colts just don't have one. They are 13th against the pass on the season, and 25th against the run. This means the pressure will likely be off of Sanchise to make things happen with his arm, and when he needs to make a play, the Colts have just not had a great time this year coming up with the big stops on any kind of a consistent basis. In all, I think this is a close game, but with the Jets getting 3 points on top of a favorable matchup, I think New York is where the value lies for this one.

Moving to the early game on Sunday, the AFC West champion Chiefs are getting three points at home against the Ravens, and even though I have been behind the Ravens as a dark horse Superbowl candidate all season long, I think this one could be a tougher matchup for Baltimore than most people seem to think. Yes the Chiefs haven't been good for several years before this one, but this is a deceptively good team, with the NFL's #1 rushing attack, a wideout with 1170 yards and 15 touchdowns, and a quarterback who threw 27 touchdowns to just 7 interceptions on the season. Although the Chiefs' defense is pretty much average at best, the Ravens don't exactly feature the type of offensive onslaught that is likely to give KC trouble, and the Chiefs have perhaps the single best home-field advantage in the NFL, losing in KC only in the last game of the season this year after the Chiefs had already clinched their first divisional crown since early in the last decade. Although I have a definite worry that the Chiefs faced only two playoff teams in 16 games all season long (one of them being 7-9 Seattle!), the Ravens no longer have the incredible team defense that they did a decade ago. I could see the Ravens squeaking one out in KC for sure, but on balance with the Chiefs having a lot going for them in this game and that incredible home field advantage, I think taking KC plus 3 points is the value pick here.

And then we come to the toughest game of the weekend to pick, both from a spread standpoint and for me from a personal standpoint as well, being a lifelong Philly fan. The Eagles are favored by 3 points at home against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, who sneaked into the playoffs with a Week 17 win over the Bears to knock the Giants and Bucanneers out of postseason contention. In the Packers' favor, Aaron Rodgers is pretty much the class of the NFC as far as quarterbacks go, and the team has a solid defense as well to boot. Andy Reid's amazing postseason ineptitude is another big plus that simply cannot be overlooked from Green Bay's perspective, as his in-game management is basically as bad as any coach in the league today. On the Eagles' side of the ledger, though: the game is in Philly, and the Packers were just 3-5 on the road this season, with one of those road wins over the Kevin Kolb-led Eagles way back in Week 1 -- a totally different team -- and another against the hapless Vikings back in Week 11. This is simply not a good road team, who managed to lose during the season at the likes of Washington and Detroit in the second half. The Packers are also another of these totally one-dimensional teams like the Colts, with the Pack ranking as the league's 5th-most prolific passing team but just the 24th-best running squad. And let's not forget that Packers' head coach Mike McCarthy is almost equally poor at game management as Andy Reid, so it's not like there should be a big advantage either way there. This one is so hard to pick, because the Pack's total give-up on the running game is going to make things much easier to game-plan for Andy Reid, and Reid does know how to win a game in the early rounds of the playoffs, and in this case he's facing a team that has not played well at all on the road overall on the year. But the Packers should benefit from the general beat-up nature of Mike Vick at this point in the season, and the game plan that the Giants twice put together as well as the Vikings most recently in showing how to take Vick out of his comfort zone pretty easily. I could go back and forth on this one all day, so in the end I think you have to take the points and go with the Packers, who could easily win the game outright, but could even lose a close one and still get you the winning pick for the game.

So in all, I'm laying the big points on the road in the one totally lopsided matchup on Saturday, but otherwise I am taking the points and the road team in the close matchups at Indy and at Philly, and am again taking the dog and the points at home with the Chiefs. Other than the Saints - Seahawks, this may be the best set of Wildcard Round matchups in recent memory in the NFL.

Winning One-Against-Three

With all the (massive) problems the NFL has with its referees insisting on taking over the games of the biggest, best sport on the earth today, there is just something so satisfying about the Eagles going on national television on Sunday night and beating not just the Giants, but also beating the referees as well as NBC's color guy Chris Collinsworth.

Sure, the Eagles went out and did what they had to do on Sunday to beat their hated division rivals, taking the game 27-17 to nab a 7-3 record and sole possession of first place in the NFC East, which had been held almost the entire season previously by the Eli Manning and the Giants. One week after erupting for four passing touchdowns at another key divisional rival in the Redskins, Mike Vick did not throw a td pass on the day this weekend, but he ran for a crucial one and helped pace the team with 258 yards passing and, as usual, zero interceptions. Meanwhile, the Eagles defense was utterly stifling, as Eli Manning chipped in with a key fumble as well as three more interceptions, bringing his league-leading total to 17 picks on the year, if you throw out Brett Favre and his 886 interceptions so far in 2010, leaving the Giants for the most part completely unable to move the ball or do anything of any value offensively. At least until the refs stepped in, anyways.

With the Eagles leading the game 16-3 late in the third quarter and heading into the 4th, the game was such that it was clear that the Giants wouldn't find their way into the end zone no matter how much time they had to play on the day. The Eagles just shut the Giants' down, plain and simple, and every single time the Eagles needed a big play or a big stop on defense, they got it. The Eagles did what they've done a lot recently to the Giants -- won a huge game fairly late in the season, behind the power of multiple takeaways as they forced the Giants to make poor decision after poor decision in their undying quest to get at least somewhere near the end zone. And so the referees decided, in typical NFL fashion, to become the story of the game once again instead of just calling the game. They quickly awarded the Giants the ball back after overturning a pretty obvious fumble that would have effectively ended the game -- with Collinsworth all the while commenting on how genius it was of Tom Coughlin to challenge that play that every little league coach in the country would have challenged given the situation -- and then they reversed a call to give the Giants the ball after an Eagles player committed a dubious-at-best fumble, using their amazing powers of replay to get most calls wrong even on the slow-mo. What a joke. The Giants punched it in from the 10 two plays later, and then not four minutes later in gametime, there were the refs again, calling a pass interference call at the 1-yard line to bail out Eli Manning who had made a laughable heave down the field to avoid getting his head knocked off on a crucial third down play that -- once again -- would have and should have effectively ended the game. But those pesky refs were having none of it, and they did whatever they had to do over a 5-minute span or so to not just keep the New York team in it, but to quickly give them the fucking lead in a game that was a blowout to a degree that only someone who watched the entire game could understand.

But I think the most satisfying part of all for Eagles fans with the game on Sunday night had to be once again beating down Chris Collinsworth, unquestionably one of the biggest assheads in all of sports announcing. I've written about him before, because it is very difficult to measure whether his bias is greater than his stupidity, or vice versa, and Sunday night's performance out of Chrissy C. has got to rank right up there with his all-time bests. I mean, repeatedly pointing out that so many of Eli's interceptions this season have been on tips? Come on, Chris! You may want to suck Eli's wang, but the guy leads all under-40 quarterbacks in the NFL in interceptions this year! That doesn't happen because of tipped passes, even if you hate Philadelphia and would say anything good about their opponent in any game, even if it makes you look like a complete chucklehead. A real announcer of course would note that Eli is simply having an uncharacteristically sloppy year at the helm of his offense, as any monkey with half a brain who's actually watched the Giants' games this year would know, despite a few tips earlier in the season that probably could have been caught. But when Eli throws a ball two feet behind his receiver on a crossing route, and the guy spins around, leans back and gets a finger on the ball before it gets intercepted, that's not a great play by the quarterback that his receiver screwed him on. It's the opposite, Chrissy, which any non-ape in the booth with any modicum of impartiality already knows. Oh, and by the way, Chrissy, what about your unthinkable assertion during the timeout while Eagles' special teams man Ellis Hobbs was being tended to after a vicious helmet-to-helmet direct hit from Giants' dirty fuck Dave Tollefson, that the play was fully legal. Fully legal? You assyshit!! Hobbs is lucky as hell that he had movement in his extremities shortly after the injury caused by Tollefson -- the same dirty fuck who already knocked out at least one other quarterback already earlier in the season -- and Tollefson might as well crack out the checkbook now, cuz he'll be writing a nice $50k (at least) check within the next few days most likely. But it was a fully legal hit, right Chrissy? You heartless, thoughtless piece of shit.

Collinsworth, I know your head is already about 5 times taller than it is wide, and you're already one of the ugliest, stupidest bitches on television today in any capacity. But when I watch you, I and thousands of other intelligent viewers across the country literally mute the tv every time you open your big, fat, worthless yapper. If I could, I'd love to put your head in a vice like I assume your parents did when you were little to make you look like that and just squeeze it tighter and tighter and tighter until the air whooses right out of your ears. Lucky for you NBC is so clueless about football that they allow your stupid ass to be a part of the broadcast, along with other stellar commentators in the studio like Tony Dungy, Dan Patrick and Rodney Harrison. And even among those three fucking loser rejects, you're still far and away the bottom of the heap. Congratulations. Oh, and sorry about your team's loss of first place last night, too.

Too Stupid to be Believed

As a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan, Monday was a super fun day.

For starters, Mike Vick is hands down the best quarterback in the NFL. Nobody can even argue it, and even though the guy had six touchdowns yesterday and a passer rating of roughly infinity, he was already the league's best before yesterday's game. Vick came into the Eagles' Monday night romp over the Deadskins with a 125.4 passer rating, the highest in the league, and he's the closest thing to literally unstoppable of any player in the league today. And then he threw four touchdown passes in DC on Monday night. In like five minutes. And he ran for two more, in addition to countless first downs. Basically every time Vick touches the ball, he does whatever the hell he wants. And as I've written here before many times, Vick is for my money the single best feel-good story of the year in the NFL in 2010. Yes what he did to those dogs is truly sick and nothing will ever change that, but Mike Vick is the ultimate example of a guy who in my view more than paid his debt to society, he missed more games than anyone else has ever missed for committing lesser crimes than his, and ultimately the guy who never hurt another human being paid an incredible price compared to what other rich and famous dudes who actually hurt other actual people have paid. And now he's back, and the amazing thing is he is much better right now than he ever was even before being incarcerated for two years. Just incredible.

Secondly, I heard the Eagles just scored another touchdown this morning. I mean, 59 points? Really, Redskins? Really, Mike Shanahan? Any time we can beat the Mehskins, it's a good day, and when you do it in their house it is all the better. And when you run up a 28-0 lead in the first quarter, that's the best of all. For those not well-versed with the intricacies of the NFC East, over my lifetime, it's been the Redskins more than anyone else who have given the Eagles the most trouble. Even when the Eagles were so great under Buddy Ryan in the 1980s, and all through the '90s and the 2000s, we've had comparatively little trouble with the Giants, even as that franchise has had three superbowl winning teams in the past 20 years or so. Despite all that, we've fared well over time against the Giants, but the Redskins have always given us fits. I have more horrible memories of Skins games than any other team for sure, and to come out and roll this team that badly, there are no words to describe how good that feels as a longtime fan of the real Gang Green.

But lastly, by far the most highlarious and enjoyable for me part of Monday wasn't watching Mike Vick's coronation, and it wasn't seeing the Eagles destroy our hated franchise competitor. It was the news that came out just before the game that the Foreskins had signed former Eagles qb Donovan McNabb to a 5-year, $88 million extension, on the heels of far and away his worst season since his rookie year in 1999. I mean, Daniel Snyder, are you trying to embarrass yourself? Are you deliberately attempting to further your image of the spoiled rich kid who throws money at any old fool who somebody once thought might be good at this game? When I first saw this headline, I thought no big deal, this is the NFL, they can put whatever number they want on the contract like $88 million and in the end, as soon as McNabb continues sucking, they'll just cut him. I mean, it's not like they're guaranteeing him a lot of this money, obviously -- not literally less than one game after Mike Shanahan benched his ass heading into the 2-minute drill in a crucial game with his team down by 5 points and needing a touchdown to win, right? Right?

Wrong! $40 million is guaranteed to McNabb under this new contract. So let's see. Last year the team paid $100 million to sign Albert Haynesworth, who has started exactly zero games this season and who isn't even any longer in the team's starting defensive package since he "is just not good enough to play the 4-3 defense". Now this year, their division rivals obviously duped them in landing two draft picks in exchange for trading them an aged Donovan McNabb, while all along they had not one but two qb's on the staff who were already far and away better players at this point in their careers, including one who is hands down the best quarterback in the league, and McNabb is following through with the worst full season of his career, so bad that he needed to get benched for the crucial final drive of the game in the Skins' last outing. And then they guarantee McNabb $40 million over the next five years? This can't be serious, can it? I keep waiting for Daniel Snyder or Mike Shanahan to come out and yell "April Fools!" or something, and yet with every passing minute it just seems more and more likely that the Dreadskins are actually going to be paying this guy $40 million guaranteed, plus as much as another $43 million on top over the next five years, to keep throwing the ball into the ground, throwing more interceptions than touchdowns like this season, and giving his team no chance like he did on Monday after three more turnovers including two pick-6s to help the Eagles on their march towards 60 points on the night.

Could Monday have gone any better for Eagles fans, I ask you?

NFL Week 3 -- Picks

Boy, just like that it is Friday again, and time for some more NFL picks. I don't know what it was, but I looked at the page last week and those games just jumped right out at me. I ended up going 4-1, but once again even in my one loss (Denver +6 vs Indy), I was basically spot-on in how I thought that game would go, including that Denver kept it close all the way to the end. It wasn't until late midway through the 4th quarter that Indy caused a turnover and went up by more than a touchdown, but Denver played 'em tough just like I thought they would. I'm not trying to take credit for being "mostly right" when I was really wrong, but I'm just making the same point after Week 3 that I made after I went 1-3-1 in Week 2: I'm feeling pretty on top of the teams in the league this year here in the earlygoing, just like I was last year. 5-4-1 over two weeks, but I am just a ball hitting the ground on a replay here, and an extra inch of a step closer to the sideline there, from being a heck of a lot more in the black already for the young season.

So let's try to keep it going this week, shall we? As always, in no particular order, here are the Week 3 NFL picks:

1. Denver Broncos +7 at Tennessee Titans. I don't know what it is about this game -- you guys know I'm a big Vince Young and Jeff Fisher fan if you've been reading these picks for a while now -- but that line just seems awfully big for a Titans team that doesn't always pour on the points. Denver's defense will be stingy as always, and the Titans focus on ball control with Chris Johnson in the backfield such that they tend to cut down on the number of total offensive drives they have in a game. I think the thing that puts this line over the edge for me is Denver quarterback Kyle Orton, who remains one of the most efficient and most productive quarterbacks in the NFL so far in 2010 despite getting very little pub for it. I'll take the points here and expect a close game, probably won by the Titans late.

2. Baltimore Ravens +1 at Pittsburgh Steelers. A week after starting off with two road favorites (both of which won), I'm right back at you this week with two road dogs, in this case with the Ravens who I not only think but expect will win this game outright. Not saying we're going to get a blowout here -- the Steelers remain probably the single best defense in the NFL with Hair Polamalu in there and healthy, and we all saw what the Ravens defense did to Mark Sanchez -- who otherwise has looked pretty darn good this season -- in Week 1. So this is going to be a low-scoring affair, but in the end I have to give the nod to the Ravens' matchup with Charlie Batch, who has had exactly one NFL start since 2006 and has no idea what he is in for this week in Pittsburgh. The Steelers already made their point, they went 3-0 in the first three games of Ben Roethlisberger's four-game suspension, but this week they are going to lose a tight one to the division-rival Ravens. Easy pick, plus a point just to make it feel even better.

3. Indianapolis Colts -9 at Jacksonville Jaguars. Last week I picked my Eagles to run up the score at a very bad Jacksonville's stadium, and we were treated to a quarterback showcase by Mike Vick en route to a 28-3 shellacking of the home team. Peyton Manning is coming to town this week and the line is only 9 points. Yes, it's a big line. But it's going to win. That's another damn easy pick right there.

4. Philadelphia Eagles -6 vs Washington Redskins. Yeah, I had to pick this one, didn't I? I'm not necessarily ready yet to put money on the Eagles to win this year against McNabb in Washington, but this game in Philly, which will be televised almost entirely around the country I think should be a fairly easy win for the Eagles. Mike Vick is on a high right now, he is playing much better football than his counterpart Donovan McNabb in Washington, and most of all, the Redskins look an awful lot like they just kinda sorta might suck balls again this year. Mike Shanahan or not, the Redskins look like the same team Dan Snyder has stared in the face of for as long as most people can remember at this point, and although it's a little too early in the season to be sure of that just yet, the matchup with the Eagles, in Philadelphia, with McNabb returning to the Linc for the first time as an opposing player, and with the reaction the fans in Philadelphia are starting to have to Vick who is in my book the early leader for NFL MVP, it just bodes I think for a solid win out of the Iggles this weekend.

5. San Diego Chargers -9 vs Arizona Cardinals. Don't ask me why I'm picking a team that's had as much trouble scoring the ball as the Chargers have so far in 2010, but at home Phillip Rivers et al are a much stronger force than on the road, and the Cardinals have looked equally worse on the road than they themselves have at home. Hard to put my finger on it, but something about this game smells like a two-touchdown victory to me with the Chargers somewhere around the mid-30s by the final whistle.

Best of luck to every who's playing the games this week. And while McNabb will surely be cheered when he first appears on the field in Philly, I'll be glued to the tv set on Sunday at 4pm with my Redskin-loving brother in law, laughing while McNabb tosses ball after ball hopelessly into the ground in front of his receivers. Finally, after a decade of suffering, I'll get to guffaw at those throws smacking the turf in Philly instead of grimacing at them.

Sports Musings

1. Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball. Year after year after year. The Twins have won what, 6 of the last 9 division titles in the AL Central? And with a clearly small-market team with a generally smaller-market payroll, a team that was discussed for contraction within the past half a decade or so. And they lost Mauer for most of last season and much of this season. Justin Morneau has been gone for much of two straight years as well. Joe Nathan blew out his arm and had Tommy John surgery like two days into the season this year. And yet here they are again, playing it out for the best record in all of baseball. What can you say? Tony LaRussa? Bobby Cox? Lou Piniella? Give me a break -- I'll take Ron Gardenhire any day of the week.

2. What can I say about the Phillies? I mean, obviously all those players read my blog, I've suspected that for a long time, but when I called those guys out right here in this post, apparently I really hit a chord with the team, and I downright motivated the shit out of them. Maybe I should be in coaching. I mean, I read these guys the riot act about not really caring about winning this year on the morning of August 27, and all they've done since that very date is go 22-5 and moved from 2 games back in the NL East to 6 games up and about to clinch their fourth straight NL East title, something that has only been done in the NL East by one other team since expansion in 1969, the Atlanta Braves squad that amazingly won 11 straight divisional titles between 1995 and 2005. One thing is for sure this year with the Phillies -- there have never, even in this franchise's history been higher expectations for the team to obviously walk into the World Series. Not only is Philly the two-time defending NL champions, but we have easily the best starting rotation in the NL if not in all of baseball, and seemingly the best offense in the league as well with everyone starting to hit the ball finally in the last third or quarter of the regular season. Nobody is even seriously considering the possibility of anyone other than the Fightin Phils back in the World Series in a month or two out of the National League, and the big story on this half of the bracket will be how the Phillies handle those expectations of returning to the Series that are higher than any team I can remember in my lifetime.

3. Michael Vick clearly gives the Eagles the best possible chance of winning games this year, seemingly far and away better than the team's chances with Kevin Kolb at the helm. In that sense the switch to Vick is the clear "right" decision. But, the whole story is a tremendous embarrassment to the entire Eagles franchise, from the GM and team president all the way down to the coach. To trade away Donovan McNabb in the offseason and publicly proclaim how the Kevin Kolb era is beginning, and then make a switch after seeing less than one half of Kolb's play this year before switching to someone else? That is just plain laughable, even for Philadelphia sports. That's the kind of thing the Philly fans would do but no one in management is supposed to blatantly embarrass the franchise with such silliness.

4. On the topic of Vick, I the feeling I am left with after watching him sling another 3 touchdown passes and run in a fourth this weekend on the road, is one of happiness. I am actually happy for the guy. I mean, what he did was illegal, and more than that, it was disgusting. But let's not forget, he served a year and a half in jail, suffered a more than two-year suspension from the NFL, and at the end of the day Mike Vick got all this after never hurting another human being. Not excusing his actions, but to my sensibility this is building week by week by week into one of the feel-good stories in the NFL in years, and a great story of comeback and of redemption for a guy who clearly deserves a second chance. When you've got Donte Stallworth killing an actual human being driving drunk and then back on the field 30 days later -- and I could go on and on about examples of guys in the league who have drove drunk, hurt or abused their wives or other friends or family, etc. -- the people who are still on their high horse about what Mike Vick did given the debt he paid just boggle the mind.

5. Memo to the Washington Redskins: How you feelin' now about that McNabb trade? Is McNabb still the man, after last week in overtime and now this week's depressing showing? This was without a doubt the first time in at least three or four seasons this weekend where it was actually clear that the Rams were destroying some other team. Yes the Shanahan-led Redskins clearly suck, but this is the very first sign we've seen that Steve Spagnuolo might actually have a future with this team and in head coaching in general in this league. And cue the bright lights, because Week 4 brings McNabb back "home" to Philadelphia for his return to his old team in the first faceoff between the Skins and Eagles of the 2010 regular season, in what should be this year's version of last year's return of Brett Favre to the confines of Lambeau Field.

Catchup

Whoa. A week sure flew by in a hurry. I meant to say something about this in advance, but I have been pretty much out of pocket and not even online much for the past couple of weeks. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the biggest one pretty much includes Hammer Wife and I having another baby a couple of days ago. So I haven't really been working, and I really haven't even been on the grid at all for the most part.

But I've still been keeping in touch with what's going on in the world, and frankly I would've probably had a ton to write about if this had been a normal past week for me. So with that I will leave you today with some random thoughts on the things that have happened in the world of sports since last we spoke. As always, in no particular order.

For starters, Plaxico Burress has got to have the worst big-time lawyer in the world. This guy somehow managed to get two years in real-life prison, out in 20 months for good behavior (fat chance), simply for carrying a weapon into a New York nightclub without it having been registered in New York. Now, the gun was registered in the state Plax purchased it in, mind you, and he had been through the interview process and answered all the questions associated with registration of such a gun, but the law in New York says that all concealed handguns must be registered in the State of New York in order to be possessed in the state.

Now don't get me wrong -- what Plaxico did was bad, and more importantly, it was clearly a crime under the laws of the State of New York. All that law requires is possession of a gun, and that gun not to be registered in New York, and you are guilty of violating the law. Period. And Plax clearly satisfied both elements of this relatively clear crime. Yet Plax's "lawyer to the stars", Ben Brathman, first decided to take the unusual step of Plax testifying as part of the grand jury hearing to determine whether or not Plaxico would be indicted for illegal possession of a handgun. Normally a defendant is not at all involved in the grand jury process, but I guess Ben Brathman thought he might be able to win some leniency from the grand jury in some form by presenting the mitigating circumstances of Plaxico's situation. Unfortunately, all the mitigation in the world doesn't change the fact that Plax carried a gun not registered in New York into a nightclub in New York, and the grand jury quickly voted to indict as seemed obvious to everyone but Plax's big-money lawyer. Brathman's follow-up strategy of talking tough on beating the charges and in plea negotiations with the Manhattan DA also totally failed, as Brathman again tried to deny the fact that violation of New York's unregistered gun law carries a mandatory statutory prison term of 3 1/2 years. So why is the DA going to agree to Plax doing no jail time when it is clear as a bell that Plax violated a state law, and that law clearly stipulates a 3 1/2 year minimum jail term for any violation?

In the end, Plax will serve two years in NY state prison. All because he bought a gun, registered it in the state of purchase, and then carried it with him into a nightclub in New York City one night. He never intended to use the gun and certainly had not intent to harm or injure anyone in any way, and again he had registered the gun he was charged for. And yet he's getting two years in jail.

I certainly hope he didn't pay Benjamin Brathman too much up front for his "expertise". If I'm rich and famous and I'm charged with a crime in the future, I wouldn't even consider talking to Brathman about my case.

Staying in the NFL for a minute, there's always Brett Favre. What can you even say at this point? I mean, clearly he is a selfish, self-centered individual who cannot see what others can see about him. Favre hasn't been a good quarterback for years, literally, and the havoc he has caused for three or four different NFL teams over the past several seasons with his complete unwillingness to decide on his future by any deadlines he or potential suitor teams have set is nearing legendary levels at this point. But you know what? At this point I am through being pissed about Favre and his magical ego tour. I'm actually interested and excited to watch how he plays this year, especially on a team that I consider to be pretty mediocre overall in Minnesota. They're not bad by any means, but Favre has really made his bed at this point, and now the whole country is going to be watching him weekly, with most of them probably rooting for him to fall flat on his pretty face.

And speaking of people who fans will love to hate this year, my Eagles' acquisition of Mike Vick is still in the forefront of my mind. In the end, I think I have a similar feeling to the Vick situation as I do about the whole Favre debacle -- as I have discussed previously, what Vick did is reprehensible to be sure. And I'm still embarrassed as all getout that it's going to be my team -- my Eagles -- who Vick will be suiting up for all through this season. But as I wrote about previously, I don't really have any problem with Vick getting signed by somebody, and in my heart I know Vick deserves the second chance after 23 months in prison and 32+ games suspended if an NFL team is willing to put up with all the shit that will surely go along with employing him. And, as with the Favre situation, at this point I am more excited than anything else about seeing just what the crazy mind of Andy Reid comes up with as far as where and how to play someone of Mike Vick's athletic caliber. Will McNabb and Vick both line up behind the line and make defenders guess who will get the snap from center? Will Vick line up as a wide receiver or tight end as has been rumored of late? Will Vick even have set plays run for him to come out of the backfield with the potential to bust through some holes? There are just a whole lot of ways Vick can be integrated into this offense, and I can foresee people tuning in just to see what the Eagles do next with him on the roster.

Before I go today, I would be remiss if I did not mention Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies, who have continued trucking along and at this moment sit at a season-high 22 games over .500, thanks in no small part to what has become at this point an indisputably strong starting pitching rotation. The first nice surprise has been Pedro Martinez, although if you've followed P-Mart's career along then I suppose his performance thus far for the Champs hasn't been that out of character. Basically, just as I've been saying here for over a month now, P-Mart has become a decently solid 5- or 6-inning starter. He will probably never sniff the 7th inning again in his major league pitching career, but he's usually good for 5 or 6 innings, getting himself into trouble maybe twice and giving up 2-4 earned runs. But he seems to have sufficient stuff to avoid the big meltdown innings and getting rocked early most of the time, which has been helpful for the Phillies at the bottom of the rotation and hopefully will continue to do so.

But the real story with the Phillies success this year, and in particular in the second half, lies in two other pitchers, both of whom were tangentially involved in the possible trade talks for Roy Halladay just before the trading deadline. First, you've got J.A. Happ, the 26-year-old phenom making his first attempt at being a starter in this, the third season where he made at least one appearance for the major league club. Happ is you recall was required by the Blue Jays as part of any trade for their ace Roy Halladay, and Phillies' GM Ruben Amaro had even offered up Happ as part of a 4-player proposal, which Blue Jays' GM J.P. Ricciardi rejected because it did not also include #1 Phillies pitching prospect Kyle Drabek. Well, the rest is GM legend history as Amaro then opted to keep both Drabek and Happ, and to trade a few other lesser prospects for Indians' starter Cliff Lee instead. More on Lee in a minute, but Happ has continued on being just tremendous since narrowly missing being traded thanks to the Jays' GM being outmaneuvered by Amaro. Since the Phillies kept Happ and acquired Cliff Lee on July 29, J. Happ is 4-0 for the Phils, three of those wins on the road including wins at wildcard-fighting Atlanta and Chicago plus a 7-0 shutout win at home against the wildcard-leading Rockies. In those four starts, Happ has pitched 29.2 innings, or well into the 8th inning on average per start. And in those 29.2 innings? Just one home run and four total runs allowed, for an awesome 1.26 ERA this month. Simply put, the guy has been a total pimp for us and this is why myself and so many other Phillies fans were thrilled with Amaro's move keeping Happ and not giving in to the Blue Jays' ludicrous demands for Halladay instead.

Meanwhile, Cliff Lee's performance since he came to Philly instead of Roy Halladay on July 29 makes J. Happ seem like Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams in the 1993 World Series. If there was any doubt about Ruben Amaro's genius in this, just his first year as a General Manager of a major league baseball team, after letting Pat Burrell and his 12 home runs so far in 2009 go to the Rays and picking up Raul Ibanez in the offseason, picking up an effective Pedro Martinez for peanuts a couple of months back, and then managing to keep both J. Happ and Kyle Drabek in making a big trade before the trading deadline, then what Cliff Lee has done in Philly has got to ice it. Now in five starts for the World Champions, Cliff Lee is 5-0 with a 0.68 ERA. No that's not a typo. Lee has pitched 7, 7, 8, 9 and 9 innings in his five starts so far for the Phils, giving up a total of 26 hits in those 40 innings -- none of them home runs -- and a grand total of three earned runs. In 40 innings. He's also pitched 39 strikeouts compared to just six walks during that time period, so this is a guy with the total package of impeccable control and awesome power across the board. And you know what the best part is? During this same time period (since July 29), Roy Hallday has gone 2-4 with an ERA of 4.40, giving up 8 home runs and allowing opposing batters to hit .324 against him. I knew this whole thing was going to blow up in Ricciardi's face, toying with his ace's emotions like he did by publicly broadcasting his desire to trade the starter to a contender, and then turning down some very powerful offers including top prospects plus guys like J. Happ and leaving Halladay high and dry with a losing team for the second half of the season, but it's good to see someone's ineptitude come home to roost once in a while. But hey I'm not complaining -- Ricciardi's big gaffe was Ruben Amaro's gain, and I have to admit as a Philly sports fan it feels good for once in a long while to be the team that took advantage of someone else's ineptitude instead of the team getting taken advantage of.

OK that's all for now. I may have some more this week but next week on Monday I should be back and better than ever on my regular posting schedule as things begin to return a little bit back to normal in my home and in my life.

Vick Returns

Michael Vick, back in the NFL.

With the Eagles.

I'm still trying to figure this one out and I imagine it will be a good long while before I finally have all of my thoughts in order on this one. All I have on this today is a couple of quick hits:

1. I've already made my feelings known here about the Vick situation generally. Everyone deserves a second chance, certainly Vick in my view given what he did, and I believe that two years and a 32-game suspension (and counting) is more that sufficient punishment for his disgusting behavior. That said, I am still having a hard time accepting that he will be playing for my lifelong team, the Eagles. But hey, at least he won't have to deal with those rabid Philly fans as hostiles on the road at the Linc!

2. Although Vick's salary is $1.6 million for the 2009 season, the Eagles have an option for 2010 as well. At a much loftier $5.2 million. That is a lot of money, especially for a guy who hasn't stepped foot on a football field or even in an NFL workout or practice facility in over two years. There's just no way you pay that kind of money to someone who you aren't even thinking about being your quarterback.

3. There are probably lots of ways to use a guy of Vick's athleticism other than as purely an every-down starting quarterback. He could be the QB on 3rd-and-long and other special situations. He could play in the increasingly popular wildcat formation, should the Eagles elect to start running plays from that setup. More intriguing to me, I could see Vick playing a more "slash" type of role, where he can line up at times as a runningback, or even a wide receiver. If Vick shows even half the raw athleticism that he did years ago as the Falcons' quarterback, he should be able to contribute very meaningfully in that role.

4. According to Andy Reid, Tony Dungy, Mike Vick and even Eagles QB Donovan McNabb himself, McNabb played a significant role in helping this decision to happen. I still cannot get my head around that. I mean, of all the quarterbacks in the entire NFL, D-Mac might very possibly be the most insecure, most emotionally fragile, of all of them. The guy barfs during the superbowl, he cries weekly about TO, and he gets really pissy every time the fans clamor for him to go to the bench after he sucks it up royally for a few weeks. And now this guy is affirmatively approaching his coach and arguing to bring in one of the few guys in the league who plays McNabb's same position and who is arguably even more athletic than McNabb himself? For almost $7 million over two years?

I swear, something does not quite add up here.

Woe is Vick

God, between the Mets, Michael Vick and of course the ongoing saga of the trade talks between the Blue Jays and Your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies for pitching ace Roy Halladay, it is a real struggle to pick just one thing to focus on today, just in the world of sports. My sense is that there could be more today on the latest situation with the Mets, their GM and the fired Director of Player Personnel, and at this point I am expecting there to be much more in the way of trade talks about Roy Halladay this week, so let me just give my thoughts today on the Michael Vick situation.

For those who don't know, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday "conditionally reinstated" Michael Vick to the NFL, allowing Vick to take part in team functions if he is signed anywhere, including in the final two preseason games of the summer, and said he will consider Vick for full reinstatement to play in regular season games, essentially sometime during or before Week 6 of the NFL season. Privately, it is said that some in Vick's camp are less than satisfied with the Commish's lack of clarity regarding the timetable for Mike Vick to be allowed back into NFL games. Even Buffalo Bills receiver and brilliant sports historian TO lashed out on Monday about the way Vick's return to the league is being handled. And you know what?

Terrell Owens is right.

There's something I bet you never thought you'd read me saying here, isn't it? But it's true. Mike Vick was suspended indefinitely back on August 24, 2007 for his role and direct involvement in his now-famous dog fighting business. Now, here we are two years later -- 32 NFL games, plus a bunch of preseason and potential playoff games to go along with it -- and Vick still hasn't sniffed the NFL. He sat in federal prison for nearly two years, serving his time after pleading guilty to the charges brought against him. That was two years of his life -- more or less right smack in the middle of his prime -- that he's never getting back. And while Vick sat in a jail cell for 23 months, the rest of the NFL sure didn't wait for him. We had two great NFL seasons sans the best-running quarterback in the league bar none, first with the Cheatriots going 17-1 and losing the superbowl to the Giants, and then the Steelers edging out Kurt Warner and the upstart Cardinals this past February. All while Vick sat in jail, not playing the game he loves and not making any money in the best earning years of his life, while also spending most of the money he had acquired prior to the charges on his defense.

Don't get me wrong here. What Mike Vick did was despicable to say the least, and some of the details are so gruesome that I literally cannot even conceive of them. I'm not saying he should have been allowed to leave his jail cell on Sundays to play in NFL games. But let's be fair here guys. Vick has already been suspended from the NFL for two years for his crime. Giving him an additional suspension now is totally ridiculous. He sat for two years already, directly because of the dogfighting stuff. Again, that's 32 games. Think of the other suspensions you've seen coming out of the NFL. Four games for substance abuse. Four games for steroids. Two games for drinking and driving. And here is Vick, who was suspended from August 2007 until July 2009, and now people are clamoring for four (or more) games to be tacked on to the end now? And the Commissioner won't even be straight with him as to the timetable for Vick to get back into actual NFL games?

Of course If Roger Goodell doesn't mind being a wimp, he can heap all the additional suspensions he wants on to Mike Vick at this point. It's the pussy way out because Goodell knows the public thinks what Vick did is detestable and many probably want nothing to do with him ever again, so there is little chance of any public outburst against Goodell or the NFL if he keeps Vick on the sidelines right now. But just because it's easy don't make it right. How about instead of doing the safe thing, Roger Goodell do what's right instead. Leonard Little got drunk, drove home from a party and killed a woman -- an actual human being -- back in 1998 and he served an 8-game suspension before being allowed to play in the NFL. Mike Vick kills a bunch of dogs -- albeit in disgusting, mind-numbingly twisted ways -- and a 32-game suspension is not enough?

Everybody deserves a second chance. This guy has sat in jail for two years and 32 NFL games. Let him back on the damn field already.

If any team will even have him, that is.