NFL Stuff
As is typical of this time of year in the NFL the papers are filled with stories of holdouts and signings and a smattering of bold predictions of this rookie’s hall of fame potential or gloom and doom predictions about the demise of some old grizzled vet or another. I’m always amazed at the sheer volume of stories filed from NFL training camps. Just for August 2 Yahoo has links to one hundred different stories on its NFL news page. I can’t fathom how this level of documentation is remotely necessary or even beneficial. When you start to see the volume of material it makes you wonder just how many people are at these camps. It looks like the press is starting to outnumber the players, and this at a time when really, not much is going on. Right now you and I know as much about the state of the NFL as anybody else does. It seems like every year we see one or two teams touted as virtual locks to make it to the conference championship games only to see them fail to even win their divisions. Practically every team in the AFC West has been the recipient of this kind of hype within the last ten years only to fail and fail miserably when the season started. Likewise how many times has Atlanta been stacked with talent and failed to work up so much as a sniff at the playoffs? For that matter New Orleans has wasted as much talent as anybody over the last ten years or so. On the other hand New Orleans has to contend with players getting lost in between the stadium and the French Quarter, St Louis has no excuse.
The one constant this season seems to be that we all agree that The Patriots have more excuses to fail this season than most teams and yet we refuse to be fooled again and insist on picking them to win it all one more time. Frankly, I agree with that assessment. I actually think they have instilled the type of mindset that thrives on overcoming a challenge and would have more trouble dealing with a smooth off-season than a turbulent one. My rooting interests in football are not anymore complicated than the engineering standards to which the Space Shuttle is maintained. I’m a 49er fan, but while they aren’t in contention for anything I root for a team that actually has a shot of winning something. While I’m waiting for my 49ers to crawl out of the cellar, I’ve decided to root for the Patriots. Ordinarily I avoid rooting for anything that’s remotely popular and would avoid a team like the Patriots as though they were the spawn of hell, but they won their first Super Bowl by beating the hated Rams who were at the time also wildly popular among bandwagon types, therefore I was fooled into becoming a Patriots fan without realizing the hype that would ensue. In descending order of rootology my teams are:
• the Raiders because they won the Super Bowl the year my Junior High team won its conference championship
• the Redskins because they aren’t the Cowboys
• The Giants because they also aren’t the Cowboys
• Pittsburgh because they are always just good enough to make it interesting before they fold the tent.
• New Orleans because the 49ers always used to get to beat them twice a year and Archie Manning was the best quarterback on a bad team I ever saw.
• Kansas City because Joe Montana ended his career there. I actually was forced to root for KC the first time Montana faced the 49ers. I really never have quite forgiven George Seifert for not pulling Steve Young and giving Montana a shot at beating the Cowboys in his last NFC conference championship game. What was it, down five with four minutes left or down four with five minutes left? At home with Joe Montana on the bench you don’t give him a shot? Never did make sense to me.