-Before I start my discussion tonight…I have a few quick things. No, Justin’s house is not on fire! It may seem that way because he’s writing down those Madden tips I gave out the other day so furiously that the friction between the pencil and paper is causing spontaneous fires to start. 911 has been notified not to respond for a while…no worries. Also…whenever you tape a game (I know, who the hell uses VHS anymore. Well I do folks, so bare the f*** with me here.) make sure that you tape it in EP or Extended Play mode. My tape machine is set for that, but since I just took it out of the box for the first time since I was at school, I never reset it to the proper settings. I missed the entire 4th quarter of the Packers/Giants game because of this mistake. And if you’re wondering where I was at, I went to my buddy Aaron’s concert. He plays in a band called Innerfall, and I saw the 3rd quarter of the game at the bar, but they started when the 4th quarter began. One final though before I move on. The Roy Jones Jr. beatdown of Felix Trinidad was entertaining, but not nearly as fun as Andrew Golata (sp?) beating down Mike Mollo in the last fight on the undercard. Golata won by unanimous decision, and he couldn’t see out of his left eye for the final five rounds. Simply a gutty performance.
-Quite often, the AFC/NFC Champioship games prove to be more entertaining than their mainstage counterpart, The Super Bowl. 2008 might turn out to be the same way depending on which Tom Brady and which Eli Manning (my God, is he really in the effin Super Bowl?) decide to make the trip to Phoenix. But honestly…were the championship games that good this year? I’m a faithful listener/watcher of Mike and Mike in the morning on ESPN radio and ESPN2, and they agreed that the Packers/Giants game was one of the best championship games they’ve seen in an awful long time. Was it really? I mean, wasn’t it filled with fumbles, two interceptions, two missed field goals, and overall sloppy play? If this game took place in Week 8, as opposed to Week 19, would we be saying the same thing? Of course we would. But just because the game took place two weeks before the Super Bowl doesn’t automatically make it a “better game.” Frankly, Brett Favre played poorly, Lawrence Tynes was dangerously close to becoming a former-NFL kicker, and Giants’ receivers dropped some easy throws. The game was sloppy – simple as that. Please don’t call it one of the best games all year.
-Great move by the Chargers in holding out LaDainian Tomlinson after that first series. It was obvious if you watched those first few plays closely that LDT wasn’t there 100%, and with backups like Michael Turner and Darren Sproles, it would’ve been foolish to run a player out there that wasn’t fully ready to play. Now, Phil Rivers played hurt, but the differences between him and backup Billy Volek are a bit more defined and obvious. The Chargers played it right in this game. And don’t give me any BS that if LDT was in there, they would’ve punched it into the endzone once out of their 3 trips. The Pats D came up with some big stops…and it wouldn’t have mattered who the running back was at the time.
I’ll keep things short tonight to allow Justin to catch up. He claims “lack of caffeine” and “excessive exercise” as his excuse for slacking last week. C’mon J, is that really all you got? I mean, I’ve heard better excuses when getting shot down for a date before.
-CR
