Tuesday Afternoon Linebacker

TO is a lazy son of a gun. Another champion in Tampa. And the asininity of the NFL’s blackout rules.

$9,803.87
That number, using an estimate from Peter King, is what Terrell Owens makes, per play. Read the quote from TO that appears in this week’s MMQB. I’m finally agreeing with King on something; how can anyone continue to support this guy?

TALB is stupefied that someone can be paid nearly $10,000 for 10 seconds of effort. Granted, his salary includes practice time as well. But if this is his attitude on GAME DAY, how much effort do you think he puts in on Tuesdays or Wednesdays?

XLI
The folks at TALB HQ are basically in agreement that the Saints and Chargers are Miami bound come February.

Even Brett Farve Thinks He’s Old
Sunday afternoon Chris Weinke fired his first passes in anger since the Hoover administration. And he promptly ended whatever playoff hopes the Panthers had before the game.

The Whole Team Plays Like TO
Maybe the Bucs are just looking to the wayward Cowboys receiver for inspiration. When was the last time this team put together four competent quarters of football in one game? To paraphrase TMQ; “Sometimes all a team needs to do is run the ball, and everything will be fine.” Cadillac requires several touches before he can get his “thing” going. The thing that lets him break tackles, see holes, and exploit the defense. TALB is becoming tired of having to repeat this week after week.

If you’ve been paying attention to Bucs football, for whatever sick reason, then you know that negotiations to re-sign Chris Simms have begun. And those talks probably should have started about five weeks ago. But what are you gonna do? Anyway. Gradkowski was pulled at the end of the game Sunday. And Tim Rattay produced a fine 82-yard drive. The problem, of course, was that said drive started on the Bucs’ 16 yard line. Ouch. And if you, like TALB, subjected yourself to the game then you saw two disturbing things; 1) that the Bucs have had something like 78 different quarterbacks since the start of the 2002 season, and 2) Daryl Johnston is color-blind. The QB situation on this team needs to be rectified and quick. Between Rattay and Gradkowski one has to hit the road. And since Grads is Grud’s “project” we can be assured that Timmy will be on the market this off-season. And who the hell is Luke McCown? Simms isn’t likely to have much interest in the free-agency market should he choose to go that route. He has yet to prove himself all that much. So, let’s presume that the Bucs will find a way to sign Simms The Younger. Which should be no problem given that the 2007 salary cap is expected to grow by $7M to $109M, and the team should have somewhere around $20-30M to spend. With that kind of money to spend TALB would not be surprised to see the Bucs go after Damon Huard to compete with Simms. But above all else, I think that this team needs to find a QB and stick with him. Even if he gets injured and the new guy sets the world on fire.

The folks at Football’s Future have a complete listing of all other NFL free agents for 2007.

I Want My NFL Network
Well, I don’t. I have it, neener neener. Or something.
For giggles, you can visit the fine folks here to see which NFL games will be on in your local market on a given week.

Jesse James Did It!
Fox Sports, home of the (Mythical) National Championship, is putting on a contest. The winner, and 7 lucky sycophants, will be whisked to Arizona to witness Florida being taken apart by Ohio State. Also, there’s some kind of tailgating optimized pick-up truck involved. TALB has placed his entry. If I win, do you want to go?

Monster Garage Ultimate Tailgating Vehicle

Panther Pride
Big news around here is that your* Plant High Panthers captured the state 4-A football title. They defeated St. Augustine Nease, which is the alma matter of little known and lowly regarded Gators quarterback Tim Tebow.

*For the vast majority of the reads of this column, Brett notwithstanding, the Panthers are “Not Yours” really. But it sounds good. The whole “Your 1998 National Spelling Bee Champ!” and all…

Black Out
Arlen Specter, outgoing chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called for a hearing regarding the anti-trust ramifications of the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package delivered by DirecTV. TMQ has long been railing against this service as, nearly, an affront to human rights. For the last few weeks, as he’s been relentless with his diatribe, I’ve emailed him the same lengthy response.

Mr. Easterbrook contends that Sunday Ticket is being denied to people who cannot receive the DirecTV signal. And that the right for every American to see every NFL football game was laid out in the 1961 anti-trust exemption granted to the NFL. I don’t love DirecTV. I am a subscriber because compared to my local cable provider they offer a better programming package at a better price. I don’t even subscribe to Sunday Ticket. And even if I did, I wouldn’t care a lick if it was available to everyone on the planet. Hell, that’d probably make it cheaper. I’d copy the entire email I send him each week, but it would dwarf the rest of the post. Instead I’ll summarize his criticisms (which seem to match those of other critics), and my response.

1. Millions of households are unable to receive the signal.
Wrong. Millions of households CHOOSE to not receive the signal. The FCC’s OTARD rules make it so that any homeowner or renter can install a dish in any location for which they have exclusive use. If someone lives in an apartment building or condo and do not face the South, they can lobby the landlord or association to install a common dish system for the entire building. Though I have heard of stories where owners of these structures will enter into deals with the local cable concern for exclusivity. Not really conducive to customer choice, but I digress. For those folks who live in a nice country home with lots of trees, there are options there as well. A properly placed mast with the dish on top can see above the trees. Or some strategic trimming and maintenance can open a a line of sight to the satellites. Really, the only people who can’t receive the signal are those who live behind some mammoth geographic feature (mountain, large hill, etc) or those who do not wish to put in the effort to receive the signal.

2. The 1961 anti-trust agreement as it pertains to broadcasting games on TV.
The NFL promised to televise every game and make those games available to each and every American. They do that just fine right now. The thing is, they don’t provide EVERY game to EVERY American. And for 30 years that was fine with everyone. For the vast majority of the country, there are three games on Sunday afternoon, one on Sunday evening, and another on Monday night. Damn near one-third of any week’s schedule is available to most American TV viewers. The problem lies in cities and metro areas that are homes to NFL franchises. And for Mr. Easterbrook the problem is doubly so since he lives within the blackout radius of the Baltimore Ravens AND Washington Redskins. For folks like him, each Sunday brings him a Ravens and a Skins game. Regardless of what other match-ups might be available that week. And if the team on the single-header network for that week is home, he loses a game. But that particular Hell greets all of us who live in NFL towns.

What does this all boil down to? Blackouts. The blackout rules are intended to draw fans to the stadium. But as mentioned in the Wiki article, there are a multitude of factors that could keep fans away. I personally think the blackout rules are, in theory, just fine. TALB sees three major flaws in the execution of the rules. The first is that the radius is too large. Seventy-five miles is probably a two hour drive one-way if you account for the increased traffic around the stadium. How can anyone justify telling people that if they want to make sure they see the game, they need to shell out for tickets AND drive two hours? As I’ve noted in King of Football, I’d drop the radius to 25 miles or less. The second problem is the timing of the sell-out. Twenty-four hours, or even 12 should be enough. And the last one is about the competing game thing. Where if the home team is home, regardless if they sell out or not, that no other game can be on at the same time. Dumb. Just dumb.

The blackout rules also apply to Sunday Ticket. They shouldn’t, but they do. I personally would not disagree with a complete abandonment of the blackout rules entirely. And it could make sense for the owners. If every game is on TV, then the broadcasters can sell more ads, and therefore the TV package is more valuable. Thus putting more money in the teams’ pockets. Rarely will you find a game’s ticket sales “on the cusp” of a sellout. That’s why it makes the news when a local business buys out the last thousand tickets. Either the game is a sellout, or it’s not. And it’s probably not sold out by a pretty wide margin. But that’s another discussion for another time.

If there’s a broadcasting problem in the NFL, it starts and ends with the blackout rules. At least in TALB’s opinion.