Whipped Cream Difficulties

Last week, the AFC. This week, the NFC.

I’d start out by discussing Monday’s TMQ Trailer, as I’ve been doing; oddly, though, there does not seem to have been a TMQ Trailer this week. (If there was one, it does not show on Page 2, or in the Easterbrook archives.)

Before I jump into the meat of Easterbrook’s column, I’d like to note two things about TMQ Watch:

1. TMQ Watch is not intended to be a substitute for reading TMQ. Easterbrook is a much better writer than I am, and I strongly encourage you to read his columns, not just my filtered summaries of them. The intent of TMQ Watch is to highlight recurring themes and tropes in TMQ, to call out things in TMQ that I believe are wrong or mistaken, and to provide a different point of view in places where I disagree with Easterbrook’s positions.
2. There does not appear to be any place on the web that currently hosts discussions of Easterbrook’s columns (the great Football Outsiders did for a while, but does not currently) so I welcome discussions and responses to TMQ, or TMQ Watch, here. Please note that comments are moderated, and will be approved as my time permits. Also, if someone wants to start a “TMQ Watch” Watch (like WikiLeakiLeaks) I promise you a link on my blogroll (as long as your blog isn’t a spam blog).

So let’s rumble.

Another TMQ trope is complaining about college football powerhouses scheduling weak opponents, such as UT vs. Rice  (Easterbrook calls these “cupcake” games). With the college season starting on Thursday, Easterbrook drags this one out of the closet like a Neru jacket and tries it on; behold, it still fits!

TMQ is in favor of dumping two preseason games, but opposed to an 18 game season;  Easterbrook believes that an 18 game season will “dilute the product”.  “Plus an 18-game season would mean either starting the NFL regular season before Labor Day or holding the Super Bowl after Valentine’s Day.” And that would be bad…because? Once again, he trots out the “there is no law of nature that says the NFL must remain so popular” trope.

Team by team breakdown:

• Arizona: Maybe they’ll develop a balanced attack and become less “pass whacky” (an Easterbrook coinage). And hey, TMQ may have been wrong about Matt Leinart. I’d love to laugh at TMQ’s admission about Leinart..but, well, I think a lot of other people were wrong, too, including me.
• Atlanta: “If the Saints can win the Super Bowl, why can’t the long-suffering Falcons, too?” Long-suffering Houston football fans are welcome to respond in the comments.
• Carolina: Once they dumped Delhomme, they went 4-1. Could they be even better in 2010?
• Easterbrook is now writing a regular column for Reuters. I’m not going to be blogging that, unless he says something noteworthy; I’m RUNNING OUT OF TIME! Seriously, I don’t have time to blog this column as well, but I’d love to see someone like Battleswarm take it on.
• Chicago: Easterbrook invokes another trope, exaggerated NFL deals, in the case of Julius Peppers. Peppers supposedly signed a “six year, $92 million” deal, but since the contract is heavily loaded on the back end, it is unlikely he’ll see the full $92 million; depending on who you talk to, he could get $20 million to $42 million. In any case, this makes him nearly as overpaid as Albert Haynesworth. And why isn’t Devin Hester returning kicks?
• We still haven’t given up on the Christmas Creep.
• Was it really worth the taxpayer money that was spent to investigate whether the governor of New York took free World Series tickets? Easterbrook says no; I’d argue that there’s something to be said for truth and honesty in government, even in seemingly small things like World Series tickets.
• Speaking of RUNNING OUT OF TIME, Easterbrook’s substitute for complaining about scientific implausibility in SF television shows this week is…complaining that people don’t react realistically to being shot in movies and television. (See, for example, Jack Bauer.)
  “Hollywood sells violence, violence, violence — and then with movie stars, people the public empathizes with, suggests: Hey, bullets don’t really do any harm, you’ll be fine 20 minutes later. So fire away!” Complaining about movie and television violence is another Easterbrook trope, and one that’s gotten him into trouble previously.
  He may be right about Cop Land; I missed that when it was in theatrical release, although I was curious about it. At some point, I’ll have to catch up with it on DVD.
• Dallas: December collapse, Wade Phillips is 1-5 in the post season, would you pay 1.8 billion dollars for the Cowboys?
• Another recurring trope: the wacky disclaimer (this time for Comcast’s file backup service) and the word count comparison to the United States Constitution. For the record, I come up with a word count of 8,761 words (which I believe includes some photo captions; this seems fair to me, as I think Easterbrook writes those as well) in this week’s column; this site gives a total word count for the US Constitution of 4,400 words. So Easterbrook nearly doubles the word count of the founding document of the United States to discuss one week of events in a sport that hasn’t even started yet. (Isn’t turnabout fun? For the record, this blog entry comes in at 1,380 words.)
• Detroit: Ndamukong Suh should have won the Heisman. The fact that he didn’t means “linemen simply are not eligible for the Heisman” and “the award should be renamed the Heisman Trophy for the Running Back or Quarterback Who Receives the Most Publicity.” (Yet another Easterbrook trope; linemen don’t get enough credit, especially at Heisman time.) “There’s a sense of optimism around the Lions.” I’d be optimistic too, if I had no place to go but up.
• More kickoff specialists, fewer punters, please.
• Green Bay: Aaron Rodgers is already a better deal for the Packers than keeping Brett Farve around would have been. That sound you heard was Peter King’s head exploding.
• Giants (aka Jersey/A in the TMQ World): Since they won the Super Bowl, the Giants have looked like just another football team. And people in New York can’t stand that. Not exactly a TMQ trope, but Easterbrook here sure sounds an awful lot like Mike the Musicologist (who did a several year bit in New York attending grad school, and speaks of it in the same terms Marines use for their time in ‘Nam).
• More creep.
• Vikings: Farve the Farve. Farve farve farve. Farve! (If you’ve never seen the original Malkovich Mediator, it’s here.)
• Saints: Doomed. Drew Brees is on the cover of Madden. Doomed. Also, stuff about taxes and the Saints getting a sweetheart deal from the state of Louisana. Corruption? In Louisana? Shocked, I am, shocked! I’m reminded of something Calvin Trillin quoted once: “The only important question about any public project in [Louisana] is: who’s writing the insurance?”
• Eagles: Listless and stale the past two seasons. Maybe the offseason purge will help. I’m surprised that Easterbrook didn’t invoke another of his tropes; that the Football Gods are punishing the team, in this case for signing Michael Vick.
• Rams: “Where is the players’ self-respect?”
• San Francisco: Lousy team in a very weak division. Easterbrook, to his praise, has some interesting stuff about why the team is moving to a new stadium in Santa Clara.
• Seattle: Pete Carroll is a cheater.
• Tampa: Good special teams, and that’s about it.
• Washington: Seven head coaches, eleven starting quarterbacks, and nine offensive coordinators in the eleven years “Chainsaw Dan Snyder” (trope!) has owned the team. Don’t look for McNabb to save them; his team in Philadelphia was much better than this one. “In his official photo, Shanahan looks like someone auditioning for a reality show about people who think they are Napoleon.” I was going to make fun of Easterbrook for this comment, but…damn, he’s right!
  Also, more Haynesworth bashing.
• Reader comments: Easterbrook is wrong when it comes to killing.

And thus we come to the end of this week’s TMQ Watch. Next week: season predictions in haiku. I haven’t made up my mind yet whether I’m going to give TMQ a hard time for not including seasonal references in his haiku. (No, I’m sorry, the fact that they’re all about football does not, in and of itself, constitute a seasonal reference.)

So what does the tastefully named Gregg Easterbrook have for us in this, the second week of our TMQ Watch?

Let’s start with Monday’s “TMQ Preview”, “NFL shouldn’t take fans for granted“, in which he shows off another common TMQ trope: “…there is no law of nature that says the NFL must always be so popular.” Easterbrook’s point (unlike food and shelter, the NFL is an optional commodity) is hard to argue with, since it’s so obvious. However, his discussion of the ticket sales problems the Jets and Giants are having is enlightening; also noteworthy is his report that naming rights to their new stadium remain unsold. I would be a lot happier, though, if Easterbrook would provide sources for these reports.

Moving on to today’s TMQ, Easterbrook’s AFC preview:

• Another Easterbrook trope is the increasing size of NFL linemen. This week, he argues that because linemen are getting increasingly larger, the running game is becoming less important. Easterbrook points out that the two best teams in the AFC last season (San Diego and Indy) were 31st and 32nd overall (respectively) in rushing, and that the Eagles offensive line starters this year average 342 pounds. (But what’s the mean? And the standard deviation?)
• Terrell Suggs and his $39 million guaranteed contract was as bigger, or bigger, a waste of money as Albert Haynesworth’s $32 million. And the Ravens “look stacked” this season.
• The Bills suffer from awful drafting and lousy coaches. Can Chan Gailey make the Bills better? Can Trent Edwards? TMQ seems cautiously optimistic about Chan Gailey, and pessimistic about Trent Edwards. WCD has no hope for either one.
• The Bengals – Jets game on Thanksgiving night could define the Bengals season. And Chad Ochocinco gives good Twitter.
• Gregg Easterbrook works so you don’t have to. Specifically, he added up the number of scantily clad women in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
• The Browns must have been smoking a very bad grade of crack to trade for Jake Delhomme and give him $7 million, guaranteed.
• Denver is in chaos, for the second season in a row. And the Broncos cheerleaders charge a $3,500 appearance fee (for five cheerleaders for two hours).
• Ah, Texans, my Texans. What does Gregg say? “…the Texans are not a mature winning team.” Can’t argue too much with that.
• Easterbrook uses the Colts (once again) to kick around (once again) the argument that teams that have clinched playoff berths should keep trying to win, even if the wins are meaningless overall.
• Jacksonville hasn’t got much return for the draft choices they’ve used on offensive and defensive linesmen.
• “When you lose at home in consecutive weeks to Buffalo and Cleveland, as the Flintstone did in 2009, you are an awful team.” Just in case the 4-12 finish in 2007, the 2-14 finish in 2008, and the 4-12 finish in 2009 hadn’t clued you in on that already.
• Paraphrasing Easterbrook, if people have a problem with the Ground Zero mosque, why don’t they have a problem with the Pentagon mosque?
• The Jets recent drafts have placed an emphasis on “”skinny glory boys” over linesmen, probably so the Jets could sell personal seat licenses in the new stadium. How’s that working for them? Oh, yeah…
• The Dolphins need to try something other than the Wildcat.
• Easterbrook plugs Tim Layden’s Blood, Sweat, and Chalk, a history of football tactics. This is a little deeper into football than I like to go, but if it sounds possibly up your alley, click over and read Easterbrook’s review.
• Nope, he still hasn’t given up on the creep watch.
• New England is aging. And while they’ve traded for a lot of lower round draft picks, many of their choices haven’t worked out.
• The Raiders are still going to stink.
• “It’s likely that on opening day, only four Pittsburgh offensive starters will be the same players who started that Super Bowl — just 18 months ago.”
• Ah, I see Easterbrook has taken note of The Last Train To Hiroshima. This has been covered by some other folks, too, way back when.
• Why do the Chargers fold in the playoffs? Could it be the San Diego lifestyle? A lack of mental toughness?
• The Titans have coaching stability. But they haven’t won a Super Bowl.
• Ah, good. Easterbrook’s running reader comments. Most of this week’s comments are examples of games where the result was overturned (or otherwise changed) due to gross officiating errors.
• Thank God for Easterbrook’s coverage of the Arena Football League! Otherwise I wouldn’t have known they were still playing! Seriously, I thought the AFL folded two years ago.

That’s it for this week, folks. Two weeks into this year’s columns, and Easterbrook hasn’t come up with anything I can argue with him about. The season is still young, though. Try the veal, and remember to tip your waitress.