"Did a lot of thinking as the games played out last weekend, for lots of no-brainers left time for the cerebellum to otherwise be occupied. Week seven will go down in recent history for representing a slate on which just two games were played between teams with winning records – and one was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Detroit Lions matchup.Whoa, too weird. I’m just about ready for week eight, but a quick and witty recap of seven before we go. Channeling SI.com’s Peter King, then, here are some thoughts that someone somewhere might have been thinking I thought about thinking.
(By the way, apologies for this column’s tardiness. These short weeks are killers.)
Okay, this one’s making millions mad still, surely: What was Arizona Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt thinking? The Cardinals down by two with around 1:30 to play, after having scored the TD, go for the two-point conversion with WR Anquan Boldin taking the snap and former third-string, then second-string, now sometimes starting QB Tim Rattay on the wing. (Wait; couldn’t they have just run, say, Edgerrin James, say, up the middle on a plunge?) The gadget play didn’t work. Imagine that.
Then Joe Gibbs and company thought, “Whaaaaaat?” After the trick two-pointer fails, the Washington Wampanoags blow the special teams play, generously giving the Cards one more chance at 4-3. Naturally, this being Arizona ball, the wounded offense did nothing and poor Neil Rackers couldn’t convert on a 55-yarder. And thousands – okay, dozens – of Cardinal fans thought, “This will never end.”
You gotta be thinking the Indianapolis Colts are looking really good. I’d put them at no. 1 on my power poll, seriously. Yes, this writer has been espousing the innumerable virtues of the football machine known as the New England Patriots all year, but while the Pats have demolished mostly patsies, the Colts are crushing better competition. Indy’s battering of the good-looking Jacksonville Jaguars on Monday Night Football (Should we be referring to this as “Tuesday Morning Football” here in Budapest?) reiterated the point that this, too, is a force to be reckoned with.
Millions thought “wow” on one play in the “TMF” game. The Jags, facing fourth-and-one with less than three minutes to play in the first half, opted to go for it. The call goes to Maurice Jones-Drew to run wide left. While the Jags’ solid offensive line held, Jones-Drew saw daylight for about 0.01 seconds before getting positively pounded by safety (and certainly defensive MVP) Bob Sanders. Ouch.
A moment of silence and a passing thought for Green Bay Packers great Max McGee passing away. A former member of Vince Lombardi’s “Title Town” teams of the 1960s, McGee is surely best known for his performance in Super Bowl I. In that inaugural game, McGee was well hungover after an all-nighter at Hollywood’s amazing Whiskey A Go Go. Famously not expecting to play at all, McGee got a surprise (and a Corvette) after Bart Starr’s no. 2 target in 1967, Boyd Dowler, went down in the first quarter.
The rest as they say, is history. And stats: Seven catches for 138 yards and two TDs plus the MVP nod – thereby taking home the fast-car prize – in the ‘Bowl. Career-wise, McGee snagged 345 for 6346 yards to go with 50 TD receptions and an impressive 18.4 yards per catch spread over a 12-year career. Always fun to watch and funny to quote, McGee was a true gem from an era when professional athletes partying properly was more jokingly admired (and, admittedly, less psychopathic).
Lessons learned: The Philadelphia Eagles have been eliminated from playoff contention, and the Kevin Kolb countdown begins. Tampa Bay may not have enough depth or weapons to go far. The Detroit Lions actually play passable football from time to time."
By Os Davis
30.10.2007