myopiclunacy.com

The wind was making it hard to throw to the edges and Moss was being blanketed. But that didn’t stop the Patriots from finding other guys like Faulk and Moroney to put the gimpy Chargers out of their misery and come one step closer to making Mercury Morris eat his words.

The Chargers were too inept on offense - settling for too many FGs, and too vanilla on defense. That’s not the way to beat the Patriots. What they should have done, and what I’d like to see in the Super Bowl, is for them to be defended with a 1 or 2 man line. Line up in a typical 4-man front with 1-2 blitzers threatening, then at the snap, drop off into coverage to clog the passing lanes. And when you rush the 2 guys, rush them from the same spot overloaded on one side. Remember the Pats did that to the Colts’ pass-happy offense to great effect a few years ago? Now it’s the Patriots that have the pass happy offense.

Honestly, you will not beat the Pats playing straight up D. You have to gamble and guess, morph and disguise. Otherwise Brady will always know what he’s looking at and always find a Faulk open - who looked like he was just finding the open space in the zone. Norv (or rather Ted Cottrell) simply got outcoached. It’s ok - only 2 or 3 teams really were an equal match coaching and strategy wise all season.

The worse scenario for the Pats today was having to play the Giants. They are now the hottest team not named the Patriots. The Chargers were crippled and they didn’t get creative. The Packers played well, but just not well enough. Eli Manning (not Peyton) played well down the stretch and and will be rewarded with a spot in the Super Bowl. Scotsman Lawrence Tynes overcame 2 missed kicks to end the game in overtime with a game winning kick.

But here’s what I like about this most. Tiki Barber is left to stew over the fact that he left an average team and they became a great team all the while fending off his barbs (pun intended) about Eli not being a good QB. Thats called the Ewing Theory, buddy. A high profile player leaves an underachieving team and they suddenly rally and achieve something. And since there are no more games on NBC Tiki won’t have to answer to it.

Well, I guess you could say the same thing about the Giants going on a run after Jeremy Shockey’s injury, but since he’s from The U I’ll leave him alone.

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OMG - what happened to the ESPN pregame show? To borrow a phrase from Charles Barkley, “It’s Turrible, Man!”

I haven’t really checked in on ESPN’s NFL Pregame show since week 1 or 2, but checking in today I was flabbergasted. They all suck. Chris “The Ego” Berman’s making bad baseball references, Tuna and Keyshawn sound nothing like the flamboyant and incisive interviewees they were when they were playing, and Emmit Smith was better at dancing the cha-cha than dancing around the teleprompter.

I don’t know how else to say it. The guy just shouldn’t be anywhere near a microphone and if you read this ESPN (which I know you do) please get rid of the guy. I know that you spend a ton of time prepping people before they go on-air. Well if that’s the case….When he’s asked which 0-2 team would be falling to 0-3 could he say the Chargers?

It’s not like we’re talking about 5 or 6 games here….we’re talking about two. 2 games. The Chargers were 1 and 1 coming into this week. And Emmitt is also the early leader in the clubhouse for the dumbest quote of the year……..

His biggest gaffe came during the Week 3 edition of Sunday NFL Countdown, while debating the question of whether Moss can be a leader in New England. At least twice Smith uttered this sentence: “You cannot change the stripes of a leopard.”

Has ESPN finally cornered the market on mediocrity? I mean - gimme the Pleamaker and Steve Young any day! Ditka and TJ are the only ones there that are salvagable. First Primetime goes away and MNF is ruined, and now this. Seems even MLB knows better than to give ESPN their playoff games. I suppose with the FSN Final Score, networks like the NFL Network and media-rich internet outlets - no one really needs ESPN anymore. It’s obvious that ESPN is responding with confirmation that they’ve given up!

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