Necessary Roughness, Week 11 in the NFL

NR presents…

Necessary Roughness Presents, Week 11 in the NFL:
Boss Hog and his Jets feel disrespected that the Pats didn’t take them serious and only beat them by 17 points


where...

…the Colts break out the Santi Clause in their game plan!
…Vince Young has the entire AFC South feeling a little queasy!
…the Chiefs pound the Steelers with the ground game, wait…what?
…the Raiders beat the NFC North leading Bengals, wait…double what?
…the Vikings prove they are an elite NFC team by beating the Seahawks!
…the Jaguars are somehow AFC wild card contenders! Worst 6-4 team ever!
…the Pats looked genuinely disappointed to only score 31 points on the Jets!

…beyond belief!


1st and 10…

The Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions played in, what has to be thus far, the game of the year. This game pretty much had everything, including a bogus defensive pass interference call on a Hail Mary at the end of regulation. To be clear, there was defensive pass interference on the play as it was called, but Megatron was also busy transforming into a backpack on his defender and the play was a Hail Mary! Come on! That kind of garbage is never called on a play like that in a game like this. Of course, Matthew Stafford did get his shoulder popped out of socket on the play, and since an NFL game cannot end on a defensive penalty and a player must leave the game for a play if they have caused an injury timeout, the Lions had the ball and goal with no time left on the clock and one play to win the game with an Antarctic iceberg-cold Daunte Culpepper under center. Only, Cleveland Browns soon-to-be-fired head coach Eric Mangini calls a timeout to game plan (which he should have done during the injury timeout) and subsequently allows Stafford back in to the game to throw the game-winning touchdown with an arm dangling at his side like a shark-attack victim. He looked like Luke Skywalker at the end of Empire Strikes Back when he ran back to his sidelines after the touchdown. It was a big day for a kid who just wanted to go into town to get some power converters. Cheer up though Cleveland, this loss virtually guarantees you of the first pick in the NFL draft (which he Browns will probably use on either Tim Tebow or a long snapper, but still).

Week 11 of the 2009 season may best be known as the week of sideline in-fighting. Brandon Marshall, being the team leader and consummate professional that he is, berated rookie Knowshon Moreno grill-to-grill for a goal line fumble until Moreno finally had to push him away. Also, train-wreck-in-coverage cornerback Terence Newman and longtime coaching moron Dave Campo (Cowboys secondary coach) had to be separated on the sidelines after a play, though both later laughed it off. Newman presumably because Campo is a moron and Campo because Newman—like many Dallas Cowboys—is not an apt professional football player, and it is unfair to hold him to such lofty standards.

Sure, Brett Favre has been a compelling story so far this season, but I have heard way too much “Brett Favre is the MVP of the league” talk, and it is really distressing to hear terms like “clear-cut favorite” and “odds-on favorite” being tossed around as well. Ridiculous. Favre isn’t even the MVP of his team. That would be All Day and the way he forces defenses to stuff 11-22 men in the box to not contain him. I would also listen to you if we were both drinking at a bar and you started rambling on about how Sidney Rice could be the team’s MVP for how he accelerates to catch over-thrown Favre bombs and how he takes short passes long to the house. I would. So Favre comes up second, possibly third on his own team for MVP yet he’s a “clear-cut favorite” to win league MVP over guys like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees? Even less obvious names such as Chris Johnson, Steven Jackson, Maurice Jones-Drew and Larry Fitzgerald are better MVP candidates than Favre. Every one of these players means more singularly to his team than Brett does to the Vikings.

The Tennessee Titans win, Chris Johnson runs like the modern-day Barry Sanders only, gasp…faster. Nothing new to report here, right? Hold on, what’s that? Horrific Houston head coach Gary Kubiak ran a quarterback sneak to the center of the field to give his kicker a 49-yard field goal with a timeout and and time left to run another "real" play. What are you doing Gary? Do you realize that a 49-yard field goal is not automatic, and that missing a second long-distance, game-tying field goal might be career-threatening to the Texans longest tenured player Kris Brown? Are you that afraid of a Steve Slaton fumble that you chose to kick a 49-yard field goal over giving him one shot at getting you even three to five yards closer for Brown? You play to win the game Gary. What did you think would happen in overtime, Gary? Chris Johnson would have run the length of the field on your pathetic team in about 3 plays, that’s what would have happened. Run a play and either look to win the game or get your kicker in better position to win the game. Great job Gary!

…touchdown!


extra point…

The internet nerds are down on me due to this whole hot-linking issue. They are killing all my links, thus the lack of awesome visual backup in this issue of Necessary Roughness. I’m sorry geeks, I didn’t realize it was morally objectionable for me to steal pictures from you when you have so fairly stolen them from someone else first! Get real. Anything on the internet is public domain, anything! If you put your diary there, it’s public domain. It’s the internet. Don’t put things there that you don’t want people to rape every which way possible. Think of your intellectual property as your child and the internet as a posted convicted pedophile’s residence. If you don’t want your child/property abused, don’t let it near the pedophile’s house/internet. If anyone has any decent suggestions around such obstacles, I would be glad to hear them (internet geeks that is, not pedophiles).

…it’s good!


ps…

A happy Thanksgiving to all. I am thankful for football and you.

…great job!