Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

Even though both teams were lackluster in their performance over the weekend, the Bucs and Gators came out on opposite ends of the win-loss equation. It helped the Gators that their opponent was just terrible. The ‘Lac-less Bucs on the other hand faced a team that should have been terrible, but found a way to win. Then there is the matter of the Packers and their 52-3 pasting of “America’s Team”.

Mistake Prone
Did the Bucs on Sunday look like the Bucs from last year or what? That just provides all the information future opponents need to stop the Bucs. When Caddy is back, stop him and the Bucs stop. Though if a team devotes their attention to Williams, that will open up the rest of the offense. It would seem that Mike Pittman is much better in relief than as a starter (duh!). And the penalties must stop. How many times can this team have their momentum destroyed by a stupid false start or holding call. Sure, a couple were bogus, but for the most part it was the Bucs stopping themselves.

And I have a big problem with clock management at the end of the game. We should not have used our last damn time out at 2:10 or whatever it was. Just let it go to the warning and save it for later. I was saying that at the time too, not just now in hindsight.

Griese’s decision making is starting to worry me. During that last furious minute, that he chose to throw the ball up the middle for small gains a couple of times is astounding. We have no time outs Brian! You’re better off throwing those out of bounds than completing them.

And where the hell was the damn pass rush? A 76 year-old quarterback is standing back there and we can barely touch him. Vinny should have been on his back a lot more Sunday. On the subject of Green Nads (you’ll get it in a minute), where the hell was all of this playing ability he’s shown over the last five years when he was playing down here? Did he want to fail? Was he trying to get out of town? At least Steve Young was doing his best when he was here, so TALB has no beef with him. But Vinny was just terrible; with pretty much the same guys to start with as Young did when he left. A pox on the house of Testeverde; you “Bo Jackson minus the fortitude” asshat.

The euphoria of the 4-0 start is now giving way to the terrible reality of just how fragile those previous wins were. I have no doubt that with Williams in the line-up we would have won handily against the Jets. The lesson learned: when he’s healthy, run Caddy just enough. If he’s hurting take him out. Pittman in relief is much better than Pittman starting.

Why Not?
Tiny Northwestern College in Minnesota played a double-header, in football. And they won both games in convincing fashion. History indeed. The Northwestern Eagles scheduled two relative cupcakes for this dog-and-pony show.
(TMQ note: if this appears in TMQ as well, TALB found the story and wrote about it on Monday morning well before glancing at Mr. Easterbrook’s column.)

Bargain Basement
Following the 2007 NFL season the Collective Bargaining Agreement will expire. In short, if the CBA expires then things in the NFL can get real bad, NHL bad. But that is not likely to happen because of what is at stake. The NFL economic model is a three-legged beast. It consists of TV Revenue, Revenue Sharing, and the Salary Cap. The CBA, among other things, defines the salary cap parameters.

First the bad. If the CBA is not extended or a new CBA is not worked out a lock-out or strike could occur. As we are acutely aware, these are not desirable outcomes. While the NFL is a lot bigger and would have a larger impact if there was a stoppage than as was the case with the NHL, irreparable damage to the league would be inflicted.

But it won’t happen. Everyone involved knows exactly what they have at stake. The players have to be realistic in their salary demands. And the owners have to know that the players should get more compensation. The sticking point will be, as always, finding the middle ground. Unlike the NHL though, neither the owners nor players have an undue amount of leverage over the other. The players don’t really have an option to keep playing and making money. Could you imagine T.O. suiting up for the Edmonton Eskimos? Or Tom Brady leading the Orlando Predators? No, you can’t because it would never happen. Unlike in the NHL where the players could easily suit up for European teams and still make a living.
And the owners need to put on the games in order to pay the bills. An outdoor NFL stadium doesn’t have much use for anything else. When was the last time anyone remembers a big event at RayJay that didn’t involve either the Bucs, Bulls, or big ass trucks?

What are the solutions? The most simple way to go is to extend the current CBA. But that won’t happen either. There will be a new economic system in the NFL for 2008. The first thing to expect is that the cap will increase. By how much is the question. TMQ favors a “real money” system in which there is no proration of bonuses and no “phantom” money. If you pay a guy $1 million in salary and $5 million in bonus money he counts $6m against this year’s cap. Next year he’ll only count for his salary. This is one of the best ideas I have heard. Well, that and someone’s call for a rookie salary cap and veteran exemptions.

TALB expects that the final result will be less ground-breaking than any of that. What will probably happen is that the same basic CBA will be extended. The players will settle for a smaller increase in the Cap in exchange for looser free-agent rules. Allowing more player movement. Don’t expect any real news or movement on this until next off-season.

One Down, One To Go
In the first game of the Gators’ “Bulldogs” double-dip the lads came out victorious, despite their best efforts. Into the meat of the SEC schedule we are now finding out that it might take another year for the offense to “get right” as it were. Leak is struggling, that much is obvious. He seems to be having trouble making decisions at times; which was not evident last year under the Fedora regime.

The defense did bounce back after that humiliation in Alabama to destroy the Bull dogs and take out their starting quarterback. Hopefully they will keep it in perspective though, this was the Mississippi State Bulldogs, not the ones from Athens.

TALB is going to count a couple of eggs prior to their hatching; dangerous, I know. But despite all of the struggling thus far, the Gators are just two wins (this Saturday at LSU and October 29 against Georgia) away from a return to Atlanta and a probable re-match with Alabama.

Given the rash of injuries, TTNHBC is going to tone down practice this week in the hopes of keeping at least one or two starters on the field for an entire game.

Fox Sucks
Normally this space is reserved for the terrible way that CBS broadcasts football, but this week our local Fox affiliate gets taken to task. This all started from a conversation I had with Aaron on Sunday afternoon. Why is it that TV stations will invest all of this money into HDTV equipment and then forget to flip the switch to actually broadcast in HD? Fox is well known for broadcasting all of their NFL games in HD 720p (”the finest standard…”) in opposition to CBS and their policy of only airing three contests in HD. Well, this past Sunday’s Bucs-Jets collision didn’t make it to HD until after halftime. Which seems to tell me that some guy over at WTVT just forgot to flip the switch that sends the HD feed out over their digital spectrum. Don’t they have monitors for that kind of thing?

Threesixty360
Remember a few years ago when the first iMac was released? And everything was iSomething? Well, it seems that “360″ is the new “i” as you can play video games (soon) on your Xbox 360, live your Internet life via Yahoo! 360 and finally, watch sports on ESPN360. Why does this appear in the TALB column? Well, the next USF Bulls game, October 15 versus the Pitt Panthers will be carried on ESPN 360. It is a free service, provided that your ISP is a partner. And as of this writing, BrightHouse/Road Runner is NOT a partner.

Grumble…
I had a bit all ready to go about how the Patriots were starting to succumb to the harsh realities of today’s NFL. And then they go and handle the Falcons. Way to ruin a guy’s column fellas.

Guatemalaed
So the Thunderers got off the schneid this weekend as they faced the division leading “Larry Guatemala”. The Thunderers offense exploded with several touchdowns by the starters. And even with a lack luster performance by the league leading Bengals defense, the team was able to come out ahead. With the game tied at 62 going into Monday night, Thunderers quarterback Ben Rothlesberger led two scoring drives to put the finishing touch on the 76-62 victory. The lads now move into third place in the division. It was right around this time last year that the Thunderers started to overcome their slow start and drive to a playoff berth. But with a smaller field for this year’s tournament the team will have to dig deeper to make it into the Final Four.

Next week the Thunderers take on the TeaBaggers in a battle for third place in the division.

League Note: Yes, the teams in my league have some, uh, interesting names. Just for the sake of teh funnAy, here are some of the more colorful names.
Big Gimmicks
TeaBaggers
Ass-Clowns
BitchSmackers
Rectal Turnstyles
Wife Beaters

Boy Wonder(lic)
If you have a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, you can go here and view their article about results of the NFL’s Wonderlic test. Other blogs have been able to read the article and from there I glean the following:
Highest scoring NFL team: Rams (Bucs are 4th)
Lowest scoring NFL team: Packers
Highest Scoring NFL Players’ College: Stanford
Lowest Scoring NFL Players’ College: Miami (FL)

Running Items
WTF?
For some stupid reason the Miami Hurricanes will sport throwback uniforms for their October 29th homecoming contest.

Grated Cheese
The Packers displayed poor sportsmanship this past Sunday as they pasted the hapless Saints 52-3. The Packers continued to pass into the third quarter (when the outcome was already determined), from the shotgun no less. TALB wonders just how Peter King, number one Brett Favre apologist, will spin this one.

On the subject of the Packers, just how are they going to plan for the future if Mr. Favre will never take a seat? On the one hand it is admirable that he plays through pain and “perseveres”. But for the franchise, maybe he should let the backup(s) take a couple shots when he’s injured. That way these guys can get some game action before having to take it all on their shoulders when Favre eventually retires. To some he’s a hero. But like Jerry Rice in the last couple of years, Favre is just becoming selfish.

Rose Bowl
USC vs. Texas
Now that Texas has gotten past their Oklahoma “problem”, they just might make it all the way. But that’s still not etched in stone. And of course, OU is not the same OU this year as they have been.

Super Bowl XL
Dungys vs. Coughlins
I had to take the Buckos out because, as was feared, they may not have it all together just yet.

Next Week: Can the Thunderers make it two in a row? Can the Bucs rebound against Ricky and the Fins? Just what is going on with announcers lately? Where are my pants?