TMQ Watch: January 26, 2016.

Our apologies for the delay. We intended to work on this last night, but the standard Austin issue cold/allergies/creeping crud knocked us flat, and we ended up sleeping for roughly 12 hours instead. We’re somewhat better now, thanks to Claritin-D, naproxen sodium, and lots of water.

In other news, we have now reached the point in the season at which we don’t care any longer. All of our teams are out, and we’re already tired of hearing about Peyton Manning.

But formalities must be observed. Also, we only have (maybe) two more columns left after this one. So, after the jump, this week’s TMQ

A Retro Super Bowl, Putting Defense and Running First

And that’s pretty much the first 420 words of his column in brief. Oh, and “When offense meets defense in a football title game, defense holds the high card.”

Sweet: Carolina. “Sweet or Sour Play That Never Happened.” He’s kidding, right? TMQ is just yanking our chain here, right? (No: New England.) Sour: New England.

Stats.

Denver allowed 18.5 points per game in the regular season and has held true to form in the postseason, surrendering 16 to Pittsburgh and 18 to New England.

The top ranked defense allowed two and a half touchdowns per game? Apparently so. (You know who was in third place, behind Seattle? Houston. That’s kind of a kick in the head.)

Both Denver touchdown passes were to vagabond tight end Owen Daniels, who really should change his first name to Godfrey. (Announcer: “Godfrey Daniels a touchdown!”)

What?

Real quick, you can skip over most of this item.

About that famous Douglas MacArthur line “old soldiers never die, they just fade away”: It’s memorable — and makes no sense.

That’s funny. It makes sense to us. We think Doug was trying to say that soldiers who don’t die in battle, but who live to get old and eventually take their well-earned retirement, just sort of fade away into obscurity and the comfort of their memories, until one day you pick up the obituary page…anyway, kind of a variant on “better to burn out than to fade away“. Or perhaps better to die gloriously in battle than struggling with Alzheimer’s in a “memory care center”.

TMQ hates year-round football, and especially Nike/Marriott’s forthcoming 7-on-7 games. We wonder: why 7 on 7? There’s already a well established tradition of six man football.

Chicken-(salad) kicking: Arizona. Wealth is neither created or destroyed, only transformed. Maybe. We think that’s TMQ’s point, anyway.

Denver has both reinvented itself and done so by cleaning house from a coaching standpoint — Coach Gary Kubiak, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and offensive coordinator Rick Dennison are all in their first season.

Two out of three of those men were also head coaches of the Houston Texans. Just an observation.

Almost. More on Estonian birch. Cam Newton should prepare for “fresh scrutiny”.

All units, all units, be on the lookout for the Arizona Cardinals offense.

But we know where they are. They’ve finished their season and gone back to their homes, their offices, their lives…

(The whole “BOLO” thing is one of those silly TMQ tropes that we hope gets done away with next year. If there is a next year.)

(Hey, speaking of silly TMQ tropes, did you notice the 4th Down Bot doesn’t make an appearance in this week’s column?)

Also: blitzing. Defense trumps offense, again.

And that’s a wrap. Tune in next week for the single most boring week in sports, plus TMQ’s column. Maybe he’ll write about basketball. Or baseball. Or soccer.

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