Sunday, August 05, 2007


So the NFL season sort of began tonight with the Michael Irvin Loving Handjob Also Featuring Football Teams. At one point, Bryant Gumbel apologized to Irvin, who was in the midst of telling the same story for the third time, because Bryant had to, you know, talk about the game. All of the other new HoFers got their time, but tonight was all about Mike. And how he used to be a fuck up. But now he's down with the Notorious G.O.D. so he can give advice. I have some advice, too: Fuck off, Michael Irvin. Wait, is that advice? Whatever.

In actual game action, pretty much every single Steelers player looked better than every single Saints player. The exceptions were Nate Washington and Willie Reid of the Steelers, who couldn't hold onto the ball, despite a job description that consists of little more than "hold on to ball," and Saints players Pierre Thomas and David Jones. Thomas is a rookie running back who looked good catching swing passes and running faster than all of the other guys on the field, and Jones is a rookie who looked good simply by not being all of the other Saints' corners. Seriously, the Saints' corners were terrible, consistently getting burned on double moves, single moves, pretty much every movement that involved a wide receiver moving off of the line of scrimmage. Jones made one play, so he won the battle of Saints' corners.

Tyler Palko was another Saint who looked like absolute shit, pretty much chucking passes designed to get nowhere near a Saints receiver while at the same time putting his receivers in position to get the shit knocked out of them. Robert Meachem should kick Tyler Palko in the balls.

I think a lot of the disparity in play had to do with the fact that the Steelers run a tougher camp than the Saints do. They just looked more ready to play football.

Already in midseason form, however, was the NFL Network coverage. They managed to combine cable access level production quality, high quality reporting from Adam Schefter and Cris Collinsworth, and absolutely horrible reporting from Sanders, Mariucci, Faulk, and Gumbel. During half time, Sanders was "analyzing" a pass play where Cedrick Wilson ran right by Fred Thomas and made he play about 15 yards down field. Sanders called it a double move. Considering Wilson was already past Thomas 2 yards off the line, the first move must have been "leave the line of scrimmage"and the second was "catch ball." Then Marshall Faulk talked about how "I can really tell that Reggie Bush has been working on his inside running" while watching a play where Bush ran far around right end for 5 yards. He finished with 2 carries for 8 yards. Um...

With the NFL Network, you also get the admirable ability to watch the same ten commercials over and over again all day, with about 7 of them being for NFL products, and tonight's game was no exception.In addition to NFL.com fantasy football, nflrush.com, United Way, Madden '08, and 3 commercials for the NFL Network's programming, I also got to watch commercials for Heineken, Wendy's, and the Home Depot. Because NFL fans like beer, disgustingly unhealthy food, and building shit. Last year NFL fans like Gatorade and Snickers bars, I think. Oh, and I promise you- I will never in a million years order something called "the Baconator." Not only would I be embarrassed to have to say the name out loud (from the same chain that brought you "Biggie" sizing!), but I would probably have a heart attack about halfway through.

Also, Michael Strahan issued a press release saying that he still didn't know what he was doing. Apparently he, Brett Favre, and Roger Clemens have the same publicist.

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Now playing: UGK - International Players Anthem (Feat. Outkast)
via FoxyTunes

2 comments:

@slushygutter said...

Yo, when did the Steelers hire Omar Epps as their coach?

and to see Tyler Palko finally in the NFL. Was it just me or did it seem like he was playing at Pitt for about 10 years?

(big ups on the UGK joint, Andre 3000 just kills it on his verse)

Hallux Valgus said...

My original 10th year senior was QB Charles Johnson, who I swear was the CU backup QB since Whizzer White before his fantabulous Orange Bowl performance.

And for as long as I've been watching Tyler Palko, I'm still not 10% sure he's right-handed.