Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

To steal from TMQ, all predictions wrong or your money back. The NFL playoffs basically went against the “plan” with only the Colts winning as expected. Other than the playoffs, the football world was mostly quiet. Nick Saban in for the Fins, Dennis Erickson out for the 49ers. Like I said, a quiet football week.

Unscripted
Okay, don’t listen to me. Seattle obviously didn’t have their stuff together against the Rams. So they’re out, and the hated Rams are still alive. The same can be said of the Chargers. They were so hot going into the playoffs, but the Jets were just hotter I guess. Randy Moss and his hair went outside and won a game that no one thought they had a chance to win. More on that below. And then you had the only game that went according to plan. The Broncos were blown out of the water by the end of the first quarter. Now the Colts nThe head outside and face the Patriots. The Colts defense stepped up (but did they really, with a twenty million point lead…), but can they do it two more times? I don’t really think so. Especially given that they’d have to beat both the Patriots and the Steelers, and their houses, to advance. And the Patriots and Steelers both have pretty good offenses and defenses themselves. The AFC is definitely the more interesting side this year.

Mount Olympus
Oklahoma, blown away again in the “National Championship” game. Maybe next year someone will start them out in the polls out of the top ten. That way they’d have to actually prove something during the regular season.

BCS Mess
In an effort to fix the latest problem with the BCS, the lowly Big East, I propose the following change; a conference champion must be ranked at least 10th in the final BCS standings to be able to use their automatic bid. If a conference champ is not in the top 10 then another at-large spot opens up. And any team that is in the BCS top 10 can be considered for that spot. Of course, this all presumes that there will be BCS standings next year.

Running Items
WTF?
This week’s TALB is short and kind of crappy. It’s been a rough weekend and I’m not really all into this right now. Sorry. Hopefully all three of you loyal readers will get a better edition next week. And this week’s Thursday special has been in the works for a while, so it should also be better. And on top of it all, I re-used a title from a previous post about a completely different subject. It has now been changed.

Some People Call Me The Space Cowboy
Our friend Maurice Clarett (or more likely his group of “advisers”) has filed a case with the US Supreme Court to hear his argument that he should be allowed to enter the NFL. As I thought when I read the headline, and as is spelled out in the article itself, Clarett is eligible for this year’s draft. His attorney is saying that he is doing this for all of the other young people who “deserve that right and privilege”. I was always taught that rights and privileges were two different things. I have the right to vote, but driving is a privilege; that kind of thing.

Anyway. I think this is all a ploy to get more money from this guy. I’m sure all of these lawyers already have a hand in his pocket so that once he is drafted and signs a contract they’ll all get paid. Now I’m starting to feel sorry for the kid.

Assuming he goes in the first round (a big assumption) he will be pressured to sign the first decent contract he’s offered in order to pay off all of these people. Woe is him should he fall past the first round, which is likely. He’s proven to be a me-first troublemaker, so seeing him fall to the third round would not surprise me.

Grated Cheese
The Lambeau mystique is finally and completely destroyed. All hail the Vikings. In the span of three post-seasons the Packers have lost twice to dome-based teams on the “Frozen Tundra”. No one should be afraid of that place any more. In fact, it should be a welcome location to play a football game, even for the visiting team.

Super Bowl XXXIX
Steelers vs. SeahawksFalcons

Next Week: A better column…