CHILDRESS OUT, PERLMAN-PELINI PROBLEMS & IS LARRY FITZGERALD OUT IN ARIZONA?
I'd like to apologize for the piece I wrote & posted around 2 AM this morning. After finishing the Chiefs' article, I was contemplating slumber time, I was really tired. But decided to plow thru with the recap of NFL Sunday. As I was finishing the piece, I was literally nodding out in front of my PC. So not wanting to wake myself up, I passed on the spellcheck & proofreading the piece. I hit the publish button & headed upstairs to bed. My dear wife left an email this morning about the numerous grammatical, spelling & punctuation mistakes in the second piece. I think I have all of them corrected, there were way too many mistakes & for that I'm sorry.
I did correctly predict the firing of Minnesota head coach Brad Childress, which happened late this morning. His spot will be filled by defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier. Watching team owner Zygi Wilf squirm all afternoon in his box while his players & coaches argued on the sidelines, I figured Childress was on very thin ice. That ice broke thru this morning & now the bigger question surrounding the Vikings is how long do they stick with Brett Favre at quarterback? He won't be back next year, his level of play is erratic & that's being fair. He's no longer what he was, not even close & a large segment of the Vikings' fandom blame his return as a major ingredient in the team's demise. Hanging on for more stats, for 300-consecutive starts, further diminishes Favre's NFL legacy.
More facts have emerged in the Vince Young/Jeff Fisher blowup. Young said today he wanted to return to the game but didn't communicate that to Fisher & after the game he threw his jersey, shoulder pads, cleats, wrist bands & towel into the stands. A security guard retrieved the shoulder pads. While Fisher was delivering his postgame talk in the locker room, Young dressed & headed out the door. Fisher called out to Young, saying "you can't walk out on your teammates." Young response as he left was "I'm not walking out on my teammates, I'm walking out on you." Titan safety Michael Griffin, a Texas Longhorn teammate of Young's, chased him out into the tunnel & in front of members of the media said "you can't walk out on your team, don't do this." Young kept walking. His immaturity which rears it's ugly head from time to time is the reason the Titans need to cut their ties with Young. Your starting quarterback must have a reasonably good & respectful relationship with the head coach & he must be a team leader, someone your teammates respect. Young fails in both areas. He is too thin skinned, getting booed really upsets & rattles him. Sadly it comes with the job. I don't know of a place he can go without some sort of criticism aimed at him. I was a big Vince Young fan but it's time to grow up, time to become the leader & producer so many thought he was when he came out of Texas.
Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, we're lucky enough to have some of Linda's family travel here to spend part of their weekend with us. Besides the normal face-stuffing-food-orgy, Thanksgiving Day means traditional football games, 3 NFL & the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry. Sadly, the three pro contests matches three 7-3(or better) teams with three 3-7(or worse) teams. I expect Detroit to put up a fight, they got screwed by a completely bogus call yesterday in Dallas, but in the end, how do you pick against New England? The Dallas-New Orleans might end up being a good game since the Cowboys have played so much better since Jason Garrett took over for the fired Wade Phillips. The evening game of Cincinnati at the Jets shouldn't be much of a contest altho New York has had a bad history playing down to their competition. Overtime wins over Detroit & Cleveland followed by their win over Houston in the last 10-seconds yesterday prove that. The A&M-Texas game is always entertaining.
I told you about Nebraska coach Bo Pelini's sideline meltdown during the Cornhusker's game at Texas A&M Saturday night. The Huskers were flagged for 16 penalties & honestly, they deserved 14 of them. One, a pass interference call, was dubious at best but the roughing the passer call giving A&M a 1st down on their go-ahead field goal drive, was total crap. But it still doesn't excuse Pelini's outrageous behavior. Worse still is his assumption, along with some in the Nebraska media, that this is part of a major conspiracy hatched by the Big-12 as a send-off to the Cornhuskers. Bull. Pelini can look forward to a sit down with Chancellor Harvey Perlman & A.D. Tom Osborne for his actions. Perlman said yesterday he was disappointed with Pelini's actions, "it was embarrassing." Another focal point of the criticism leveled at Pelini stemmed from his "F" bomb barrage he leveled at his starting quarterback Taylor Martinez. He poked Martinez with his finger while screaming in his face for about 30-seconds, thanks to ABC, it was a lip-readers' dream. Pelini refused to answer questions regarding this episode but the word out of Nebraska is Martinez, who had his ankle stomped on by a lineman, went to the locker room for an X-ray. While in there he used his cell phone to communicate with his father & Pelini found out about it. What was said is really not known, there are numerous rumors but I'm not going to go there. Bottom line, can Perlman & Osborne get Pelini to stop some of the ridiculous behavior? For a time yes, but in the long run, the Pelini brothers are who they are.
Bo at LSU, same face, different cap.
One more immature hot head to talk about, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor. Ever since he was recruited the word "immature" was always a tag on his future. He was compared to Vince Young which was wrong. He's nowhere near the passer young was at Texas & Pryor isn't nearly as fast. But he is as immature as Young can be & that immaturity came to light Saturday after the Buckeyes defeated Iowa. On his Twitter account(when will they ever learn?) Pryor Tweeted "For all you haters you could not fit into my shoes with 10 socks on. Bums. Go Bucks." Then five minutes later he posted this beauty "Heard Kirk Herbstreidt was dogging us. He a fake Buckeye. Fake as hell." Herbstreidt was a quarterback at Ohio State back in the day & has made a great career for himself on ESPN. Altho he shades his comments toward Ohio State & the BIG TEN, for the most part, he's fair. I guess Pryor needs a class on fairness before he leaves Ohio State. For the NFL, Pryor carries a huge "Buyer Beware" sticker on him. Great physical skill set with a thin skinned exterior.
The Iron Bowl between Auburn & Alabama will kickoff Friday at 2:30. If Auburn should survive or even if they lose a close one, look for them to still be in the conversation for the BCS title game provided they beat South Carolina the following weekend in the SEC Championship game. I think Boise State, providing they beat Nevada by an acceptable margin, will be left out of the title game unless Auburn gets murdered Friday. By the way Craig James, what is "an acceptable margin?" This guy's an embarrassment to a good college football staff at ESPN. Anyway, where does this leave Boise State? How about a Rose Bowl bid to play Wisconsin?
Who said "I've tasted caviar now, so eating out of the garbage is not where I want to be?" After yesterday's 31-13 loss at Arrowhead, Cardinal wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said those words in the Arizona locker room. This cardinal QB situation is dismal to be kind, Unless they draft a QB early in next April's draft, the future for an all-pro wide receiver is equally dismal in the desert. If he were to be traded, he has huge trade value, where would he go? I have to believe Minnesota, his home town, where he was a Viking ball boy for years, would be a possibility. But what kind of QB situation do the Vikings have? How about Kansas City? Fitzgerald stated this week it was Todd Haley who told him "you're a great pass catcher, but that's all you are. You could become a great runner after the catch & you need to learn how to block." Fitzgerald took Haley's critique to heart & the pass catcher became the all-pro wide receiver. Other possibilities have to include Washington since Daniel Snyder always wants the chance to overpay for a player. The Rams would be a great place for Fitzgerald, but they're in the same division & that would make no sense whatsoever. There's always the possibility he will stay in Arizona, but as the losses pile up, I can see Fitzgerald taking his act to another city.
I did correctly predict the firing of Minnesota head coach Brad Childress, which happened late this morning. His spot will be filled by defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier. Watching team owner Zygi Wilf squirm all afternoon in his box while his players & coaches argued on the sidelines, I figured Childress was on very thin ice. That ice broke thru this morning & now the bigger question surrounding the Vikings is how long do they stick with Brett Favre at quarterback? He won't be back next year, his level of play is erratic & that's being fair. He's no longer what he was, not even close & a large segment of the Vikings' fandom blame his return as a major ingredient in the team's demise. Hanging on for more stats, for 300-consecutive starts, further diminishes Favre's NFL legacy.
More facts have emerged in the Vince Young/Jeff Fisher blowup. Young said today he wanted to return to the game but didn't communicate that to Fisher & after the game he threw his jersey, shoulder pads, cleats, wrist bands & towel into the stands. A security guard retrieved the shoulder pads. While Fisher was delivering his postgame talk in the locker room, Young dressed & headed out the door. Fisher called out to Young, saying "you can't walk out on your teammates." Young response as he left was "I'm not walking out on my teammates, I'm walking out on you." Titan safety Michael Griffin, a Texas Longhorn teammate of Young's, chased him out into the tunnel & in front of members of the media said "you can't walk out on your team, don't do this." Young kept walking. His immaturity which rears it's ugly head from time to time is the reason the Titans need to cut their ties with Young. Your starting quarterback must have a reasonably good & respectful relationship with the head coach & he must be a team leader, someone your teammates respect. Young fails in both areas. He is too thin skinned, getting booed really upsets & rattles him. Sadly it comes with the job. I don't know of a place he can go without some sort of criticism aimed at him. I was a big Vince Young fan but it's time to grow up, time to become the leader & producer so many thought he was when he came out of Texas.
Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, we're lucky enough to have some of Linda's family travel here to spend part of their weekend with us. Besides the normal face-stuffing-food-orgy, Thanksgiving Day means traditional football games, 3 NFL & the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry. Sadly, the three pro contests matches three 7-3(or better) teams with three 3-7(or worse) teams. I expect Detroit to put up a fight, they got screwed by a completely bogus call yesterday in Dallas, but in the end, how do you pick against New England? The Dallas-New Orleans might end up being a good game since the Cowboys have played so much better since Jason Garrett took over for the fired Wade Phillips. The evening game of Cincinnati at the Jets shouldn't be much of a contest altho New York has had a bad history playing down to their competition. Overtime wins over Detroit & Cleveland followed by their win over Houston in the last 10-seconds yesterday prove that. The A&M-Texas game is always entertaining.
I told you about Nebraska coach Bo Pelini's sideline meltdown during the Cornhusker's game at Texas A&M Saturday night. The Huskers were flagged for 16 penalties & honestly, they deserved 14 of them. One, a pass interference call, was dubious at best but the roughing the passer call giving A&M a 1st down on their go-ahead field goal drive, was total crap. But it still doesn't excuse Pelini's outrageous behavior. Worse still is his assumption, along with some in the Nebraska media, that this is part of a major conspiracy hatched by the Big-12 as a send-off to the Cornhuskers. Bull. Pelini can look forward to a sit down with Chancellor Harvey Perlman & A.D. Tom Osborne for his actions. Perlman said yesterday he was disappointed with Pelini's actions, "it was embarrassing." Another focal point of the criticism leveled at Pelini stemmed from his "F" bomb barrage he leveled at his starting quarterback Taylor Martinez. He poked Martinez with his finger while screaming in his face for about 30-seconds, thanks to ABC, it was a lip-readers' dream. Pelini refused to answer questions regarding this episode but the word out of Nebraska is Martinez, who had his ankle stomped on by a lineman, went to the locker room for an X-ray. While in there he used his cell phone to communicate with his father & Pelini found out about it. What was said is really not known, there are numerous rumors but I'm not going to go there. Bottom line, can Perlman & Osborne get Pelini to stop some of the ridiculous behavior? For a time yes, but in the long run, the Pelini brothers are who they are.
Bo at LSU, same face, different cap.
One more immature hot head to talk about, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor. Ever since he was recruited the word "immature" was always a tag on his future. He was compared to Vince Young which was wrong. He's nowhere near the passer young was at Texas & Pryor isn't nearly as fast. But he is as immature as Young can be & that immaturity came to light Saturday after the Buckeyes defeated Iowa. On his Twitter account(when will they ever learn?) Pryor Tweeted "For all you haters you could not fit into my shoes with 10 socks on. Bums. Go Bucks." Then five minutes later he posted this beauty "Heard Kirk Herbstreidt was dogging us. He a fake Buckeye. Fake as hell." Herbstreidt was a quarterback at Ohio State back in the day & has made a great career for himself on ESPN. Altho he shades his comments toward Ohio State & the BIG TEN, for the most part, he's fair. I guess Pryor needs a class on fairness before he leaves Ohio State. For the NFL, Pryor carries a huge "Buyer Beware" sticker on him. Great physical skill set with a thin skinned exterior.
The Iron Bowl between Auburn & Alabama will kickoff Friday at 2:30. If Auburn should survive or even if they lose a close one, look for them to still be in the conversation for the BCS title game provided they beat South Carolina the following weekend in the SEC Championship game. I think Boise State, providing they beat Nevada by an acceptable margin, will be left out of the title game unless Auburn gets murdered Friday. By the way Craig James, what is "an acceptable margin?" This guy's an embarrassment to a good college football staff at ESPN. Anyway, where does this leave Boise State? How about a Rose Bowl bid to play Wisconsin?
Who said "I've tasted caviar now, so eating out of the garbage is not where I want to be?" After yesterday's 31-13 loss at Arrowhead, Cardinal wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald said those words in the Arizona locker room. This cardinal QB situation is dismal to be kind, Unless they draft a QB early in next April's draft, the future for an all-pro wide receiver is equally dismal in the desert. If he were to be traded, he has huge trade value, where would he go? I have to believe Minnesota, his home town, where he was a Viking ball boy for years, would be a possibility. But what kind of QB situation do the Vikings have? How about Kansas City? Fitzgerald stated this week it was Todd Haley who told him "you're a great pass catcher, but that's all you are. You could become a great runner after the catch & you need to learn how to block." Fitzgerald took Haley's critique to heart & the pass catcher became the all-pro wide receiver. Other possibilities have to include Washington since Daniel Snyder always wants the chance to overpay for a player. The Rams would be a great place for Fitzgerald, but they're in the same division & that would make no sense whatsoever. There's always the possibility he will stay in Arizona, but as the losses pile up, I can see Fitzgerald taking his act to another city.
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