Big Lead Sports Bar

10/01/2006

Monday Morning Wrapup

This was a difficult weekend to be a football fan in Pittsburgh. Today, Pittsburgh suffered through yet another Sunday afternoon without a Steeler game, as our favorite team is busy being Super Bowl Hungover. The Steelers Sunday Afternoon Drought won't change next Sunday, either, as the game against San Diego will be presented with all the bells and whistles of NBC's Sunday Night treatment. That will be one Sunday afternoon game in the first five weeks; the 2006 Steelers schedule has all the regularity of someone in need of an enema.
So we shift to the college game. I used to enjoy college football on Saturday afternoons, just relaxing and flipping back and forth on a few good games. But now there are games on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, Sunday morning, etc., so the Saturday afternoon schedule has been greatly watered down. This weekend, the Pittsburgh market was treated to noon games such as the always exciting Connecticut vs. Navy blowout and another vanilla Big 10 game with the mantastic Pam Ward of ESPN. The games were so bad, ESPNEWS went to live coverage of Syracuse/Wyoming in overtime.
Pitt was busy taking care of Toledo, and that was only available on ESPN18, which wasn't available in my viewing area. If you thought that matchup was boring, it was even worse to follow on the internet. Great, Palko threw his 800th touchdown of the season, the running game still stinks, etc., etc. The always exciting Panther schedule really livens up the next two weeks, with trips to Syracuse and Central Florida. Maybe they'll end up in overtime and on ESPNEWS.
The best part of the day was Michigan State losing to Illinois, followed by a post-game fight and Michigan State coach John L. Smith slapping himself in the face at his press conference
Smith acts out the fantasy of each and every Spartan fan

And now, on to the games of the week...

UCLA 31, Stanford 0 - And with this matchup, Walt Harris drops to 0-5 as Stanford's head coach, with losses to Oregon, San Jose St., Navy, and Washington State preceding this one. Next week? At Notre Dame. Dare I say 0-6?

Penn State 33, Northwestern 7 - Anthony Morelli threw for a career-high 288 yards, Joe Paterno got through the game with just one pair of pants, and Deon Butler had a school record 216 yards receiving. Pretty good day for the Lions.

Patriots 38, Bengals 13 - The chirping Bengals fans who lurk on the Mondesi comments section are pretty quiet after this one. Chris Henry became the first player to sit out of an NFL game for a vomit-related incident, as the Bengals surrended 236 yards on the ground. Who Dey? Dey embarrassed. Of course, Dey beat our Steelers, which concerns me even more. But the Steelers are off this week, so they're out of mind. We can't pass up any attempt to take a shot at the Bengals and their classy fans.

Falcons 32, Cardinals 10 - Good thing Dennis Green squashed those "Matt Leinart starting" rumors. He wanted to give fans one more memory of Kurt Warner, former NFL MVP, before relegating him to backup duty, probably forever. Warner gave fans three nice parting gifts - his 5th interception of the year and 6th AND 7th fumbles of the season.

Ravens 16, Chargers 13 - The Chargers, the best 2-1 team in the league, had this game stolen by the league's most notorious criminals (sorry, Cincinnati...you just haven't had the longevity as Baltimore). Steve McNair had another "ehh.." performance, with just 158 yards and 2 INTs. But he did throw 2 touchdowns, and also threw a dramatic Omega signal after the game-winner to Todd Heap. By the way, you Schottenheimer haters will enjoy this piece by SI.com's Don Banks, that totally tears apart MartyBall.

Colts 31, Jets 28 - Peyton Manning is slowly morphing into Michael Vick, as he runs for his second consecutive game-winning touchdown. All he needs now is herpes, an alias and some cornrows. He already has the not-winning-Super Bowl-thing down pat.

Cowboys 45, Titans 14 - Lots of storylines here...Vince Young proved he can be a double threat in the NFL: an ineffective passer (155 yards, 2 INT-one returned for a TD, and 1 fumble) and ineffective runner (5 carries for 3 yards)...Terrell Owens, just days after a tragic incident in which his PR rep committed career suicide, had five catches for 88 yards in the win for Dallas...Pac Man Jones asked Owens for his cleats after the game, which had to be a completely surreal site to be seen...Mike Vanderjagt continued his stellar career in the Bill Parcells era with a 26-yard field goal that clanked off the upright...And the unprecedented Albert Haynesworth Headstomp.

Texans 17, Dolphins 15- The Dolphins continue to devalue the Steelers' lone win by losing to the freaking Texans. Daunte Culpepper has now been sacked 21 times in his first four games as a Dolphin, on pace for a Carr-Esque 84 this season. The entire preseason, all the NFL pundits tried talking fans into Miami as a Super Bowl team. "Culpepper's rehab is coming along well...Daunte is really excited about the season...blah blah blah blah blah". In reality, Culpepper was coming off a horrible 2005 season and a shredded knee. He was learning a new offense in Miami, that of Wikcy Wacky Mularkey. He has a fraction of his mobility back. This should not have been much of a surprise. But then again, I'm not a paid NFL expert.

Panthers 21, Saints 18- You should be aware that "conspiracy" rumors are circulating that the Falcons rolled over on Monday night for the Saints. Well, the Panthers must not have any sympathy for New Orleans, because they had the nerve to not only play, but beat the Saints. Drew Brees throws for 349 yards and a TD, further embarrassing Dolphins executives who used their money on Daunte Culpepper this offseason.

Reggie Bush vs. Mario Williams Update-

Bush: 45 carries, 147 yards (3.3 YPC); 23 catches, 187 yards; 0 TD. On pace: 588 rushing, 748 receiving, 1382 total yards.

Williams: 10 tackles, 1.5 sacks. On pace: 40 tackles, 6 sacks

Redskins 36, Jaguars 30 - Let me get this straight. The Steelers can't move the ball 10 feet all night against the Jaguars. But 82-year-old Mark Brunell can throw for 329 yards and Coach Janky Spanky can add 112 on the ground? Anyone else worried about this turn of events?
The league's top player/coach

Browns 24, Raiders 21 - I seriously wonder if the Raiders could go 0-16 this year. I've never seen a team quit in their first game and get worse after that, but the Raiders have pulled it off nicely. Today they blow a 21-3 lead to the lowly Browns, with QB Andrew Walter throwing for just 68 yards. Randy Moss, who used to be a great WR, had just five yards on one catch. Can't wait to see what kind of shape this team is in a few weeks from now when they take on the black and gold.

Rams 41, Lions 34 - Roy Williams can be vindicated. It was stupid how close the Lions came to scoring 40 points today...and they still lost. Mike Martz threw all he could at his former team, but leave it to a Pittsburgh-born QB, Marc Bulger, to throw for 328 yards and 3 TDs.

Chiefs 41, 49ers 0 - Coach Hitler suffers the most humiliating loss of his career, even worse than last year's 41-3 loss to Seattle and 42-3 loss to Philadelphia. Niners QB Alex Smith, who had posted 288, 233 and 293 yards passing in his first three games this year, had just 92 yards today. To cite SI.com's Don Banks yet again, he is predicting a possible QB controversy when Trent Green is healthy in Kansas City, after Damon Huard throws for 208 yards against the 49ers. This is why Don Banks is a writer and not employed as an NFL coach.

Bears 37, Seahawks 6 - A milestone game for Rex Grossman, who played in his career-high 4th regular season game tonight. Seriously, he's been around since 2003 and has never played in more than three games. This game was so boring, I checked out the Jim Gaffigan special on Comedy Central. Which was so boring, I checked out Baseball Tonight. Which was so boring, I was inspired to start writing my wrapup.
Jim just didn't do it for me on this evening

Freddy Sanchez, batting champion- A classy player, and even classier person, I am thrilled that Freddy was able to hold onto the batting crown. Especially because it proves how incompetent the Pirates' front office is. Yeah, a contemplating-retirement Joe Randa at $4 million is much better. Congratulations, Fred-Ex.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did i miss something, when did the bears get good again?

Anonymous said...

The shellacking that the Bears put on the Seahawks was really an eye-opener for me.

First of all, it showed what an intense football team plays like (please note, Steelers). What was truly amazing was a graphic that they threw up on screen that shows how horrible the losing team in the superbowl does the next year. At a quick glance it looked like about a 6-10 average!

I was glad to see the Chargers lose, even if it meant the Ravens winning. I'm not drinking the Raven-produced KoolAid just yet, but I'd rather play S.D. coming off a loss than being undefeated. At least now they know they're capable of losing.

As for Cincinnati, that bludgeoning they took was well-deserved by those cocky a-holes. Of course it really angered me too, because the Steelers played them so absolutely stupid.

In short, our division, I feel, is eminently winnable. I'm not that umpressed vy anybody in it. I will tell you this though, with the way they're playing right now, I'm glad the Bears aren't in our division. They appear to be on their way to evolving into the best team in the NFC. All they need is some additional seasoning for Grossman. They are tough, fast, physical, hard hitting, fast, brutal, fast, tatooed, did I say fast? Oh, and by the way, barring another Grossman injury, which could very well happen, chances are very good you'll see them in a superbowl game in January.

SAMO said...

Nice recap of the day...what a self-slap!

Anonymous said...

I was even more impressed when I found out this weekend Freddy's married to an actress. Anyone know if she's hot? Inquiring minds want to know.

vinnie said...

Even with the Ravens at 4-0, I feel a lot better about the Steelers being 1-2 after watching the Bungles "d" and the Ravens O.