Whipped Cream Difficulties

So. It has come to this. The last TMQ of the 2023 season, and the last TMQ Watch.

After the jump, this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which you won’t be able to read in its entirety unless you subscribe to “All Predictions Wrong”, which is the actual title of Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack)…

Patrick Mahomes rules.

424 words down. We think TMQ fails to consider the possibility that KC’s success isn’t driven just by Patrick Mahomes, but by a solid line of people – coaches, offensive line players, defensive line players, and even admin staff – backing him up. Would Mahomes rule if he was playing for the Washington Commanders? We rest our case.

The NFL saved the best for last. Sounds like it was a good game. We guess any Superb Owl that comes down to overtime is probably a good one. As for us, we did not watch even one second of the game: we even sought out a restaurant for dinner that has no TV sets.

In sports history news, who are Mitch Trubisky, Solomon Thomas, Corey Davis and John Ross?

Who are four people who have never been in my kitchen, Alex Gregg?

Travis Kelce. Andy Reid. “America the Beautiful” has more than one verse.

As noted, this is the last Tuesday Morning Quarterback of the season. Except Easterbrook promises TMQs before and after the draft. And takes the opportunity to offer “some larger-picture thinking regarding athletics”.

* “Sports teaches valuable life lessons.”
* “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Ice cream supplies instant gratification. Everything else requires effort.” Uh, ever turned an ice cream churn, Gregg? (Yes, you can get your instant gratification by going down to the store and buying a pint. But you can do that with a lot of other things at the store, too.)
* “The one thing you can control is yourself.”
* Don’t watch the ball.
* Don’t give up.
* Practice good sportsmanship.
* Don’t cheat.
* “Be home between midnight and dawn.” Or, as we’ve heard other people say, “Nothing good happens at 2 AM.”
* Tomorrow is promised to nobody.

None of this is “bad” advice, but it seems like the generic sort of thing the older generation tells the younger one.

Stats. Sweet: the KC game winning touchdown. Sour: KC’s fourth and one conversion in OT. (Sour for SF.) Mixed: KC’s third quarter touchdown.

More filler words (or, if you prefer, “verbal tics”) that annoy Easterbrook: “humans” (and Gregg, if the Klingons want to go to space, they can start their own program), “layperson”. (Bonus: Michael Mann bashing. The climate scientist, not the guy who directed “Heat”.)

Scouting notes. Hidden play: the SF field goal in overtime. Is is just us, or is “Brock Purdy” another one of those insufferable Preppy quarterback names? At best, Travis Kelce is the boyfriend of about 50.5% of America, plus somewhere between 2% and 10% depending on which set of figures you believe.

Everybody knew the preppy quarterback was good, but nobody drafted him. Perhaps because nobody wants a quarterback named “Brock”? Or could it be the influence of “odious billionaire David Tepper”?

Another 424 words on how ridiculous “LaBrea” is. We didn’t know “LaBrea” was still on. Another 401 words on why time travel is impossible, with bonus “Travelers” bashing.

Suppose you had a time machine (requires four AA batteries, not included) and wanted to travel to, say, March 23, 1953. In order for there to be a place to travel to, there would need to be an entire universe of 100 billion galaxies eternally existing in March 23, 1953.

Roger Goodell moved the press conference and TMQ is upset because only the hardcore sports press was there. But if the non-hardcore international and national press wanted to be there on Monday, they could have been. There wasn’t anything stopping them, except network budgets…

(Also, Gregg, that whole lemming thing has been thoroughly debunked. Much like that whole 1972 Miami Dolphins thing.)

Gambling! Won’t someone think of the families? 430 words down.

The NFL has placed itself at the bottom of the barrel. And Goodell wants to blame everyone but himself – a coward’s excuse that would have disgusted his father Charles Goodell (1926-1987), a member of Congress who fought tirelessly for the common person.

And we remain disgusted that Easterbrook continues to invoke the memory of a dead father to bash someone he disagrees with. This is low, mean, cowardly behavior, Gregg Easterbrook, and you should feel shame for it.

Did SF make the right choice in the overtime coin toss? Good question. Reply hazy, ask again later.

What are the Bills going to do about their Stefon Diggs problem? Which is really a salary cap problem.

TMQ will have a new running item called UbtheGM, plus a new item called BOLO of the Week, as in, “All units, all units, be on the lookout for…”

Actually, “BOLO” is an old item from previous TMQ incarnations, and it wasn’t funny then, either.

Preview of “UbtheGM”: what should da Bears do with their first round draft pick?

Fulminating against the subsidized glorification of Simpson will be a running TMQ theme next season, because a new publicly funded Bills stadium is under construction.

We are so excited to hear this. And a reminder to our readers: the worthless Buffalo Bills, a team TMQ holds in high regard, also glorify O.J. Simpson.

And the world famous yadda yadda should be enlarged so even more players can get in.

Quoted for WTF value:

Adventures in Officiating. Kansas City was correctly flagged for horse-collaring. So how come this is okay when you do it to a horse?

Because a horse is a horse, of course, of course, while the NFL is a football league?

Tony Romo is, perhaps, not a good announcer.

TMQ has thoughts on the Saylor Twift plane-tracking situation.

…letting the wackos know exactly where Swift is seems an avoidable risk.

Now replace “Swift” with “Musk” and see if TMQ still agrees with that statement. Our memory isn’t that great, but we remember not that long ago when people were making fun of Elon being upset that some kid on Twitter was tracking his plane. Now, a third-rate pop star gets upset that people are tracking her plane, and it’s a serious national problem…

(She could fly commercial, you know. Or fly on one of those fractional jets: while the plane itself can be tracked, we’re pretty sure there’s nothing associating the tail number of a fractional jet with the passengers onboard.)

If the rich don’t want the unwashed to know where their private jets are, let them pay a fair price for that privilege.

“ADS-B Privacy” from FAA.gov. We’ve been unable to determine what the cost of a third-party callsign is: the information is hidden on the sites we checked.

“Single Worst Play of the Super Bowl”: Kyle Shanahan choosing to kick a field goal in overtime.

I will use the offseason to journey alone to a distant mountaintop – okay, a distant parking lot – and beseech the football gods to reveal unto me why NFL officials still can’t figure out what a catch is.

Because the NFL doesn’t want to decide what a catch is, Gregg. Now get out of the parking lot and spend some time with your family.

And that’s a wrap for TMQ for this season. What of TMQ Watch?

Seriously, TMQ Watch does depend on the support of viewers like you. We don’t plan to cover the draft columns, or to do TMQ Watch next NFL season, unless someone gifts us a month of “All Predictions Wrong” again. If someone does make such a generous gift, whether they remain anonymous or monogamous, then we’ll pick up the gauntlet once more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 at 7:05 pm and is filed under NFL, Planes, Sports, TMQ watch, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.