Checking in with some NFL thoughts

Hi there. Greetings and salutations. Also hello. I am really hoping/trying/praying to finish the longest running segment nobody but me cares about that has become the NBA Top 50 Trade Value post. I need to finish this because I am one of those people full of good ideas who gets fired up to start them...and then never finishes them, either because I get fired up about something else or just lose interest halfway through. But I started that one and need to finish it, only so that I can move onto other topics I need to share with you. Today I have three thoughts regarding the NFL:

1) It sucks. There, I said it. Congratulations all of you people who wish for parity and fairness and equality for everyone in sports because your dream has come true! You've got yourself an NFC championship game between the 9-6-1 Eagles and the 9-7 Cardinals (who would have finished under .500 for the nine millionth year in a row if they weren't in the NFC Worst). In the AFC we have the Ravens vs the Steelers, two good teams who will be lucky to combine for 40 points on Sunday. No matter who wins it will result in a boring, poorly played Super Bowl.

This is what we've come to in a league that demands parity and has gotten it. There's no stars in the league anymore, certainly nobody I'd pay to watch: honestly, is there ONE player in the league you'd absolutely pay to see right now? I would say Adrian Peterson, but in doing so, it means I'd have to sit through three plus hours of horrendous decisions and indecision from Brad Childress and Tavaris Jackson, so no thanks. Quarterbacks are supposed to be the stars of the league, but go ahead and try to name the top 5 QB's in the league right now after Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady (who missed the entire season with a knee injury). Go ahead, take your time. You won't come up with any because there really aren't any other GOOD quarterbacks you can rely on anymore. Tony Romo is 0-for-the-playoffs, Eli's Super Bowl win last year looked like a fluke after this season, Donovan McNabb got benched this year he was so bad, Kurt Warner is, well, Kurt Warner etc etc etc. There's a LOT of issues I have with the league right now that I won't delve into further here, but I will say this: I like college football so much more than the NFL right now it's not even close.

2) From the "A person is smart but people are stupid" deparment:
Memo to Arizona Cardinals fans: for the love of pete, please shut up. We hadn't heard from you in decades simply because there was no "you", and I'd be fine if we never hear from your whiny selves again. The Cardinals have been the worst franchise in football not named the Detroit Lions, and the Phoenix metro is the third worst pro sports town in America (with Atlanta and Miami well out in front and Tampa Bay somewhere behind. Honestly, why do we even give pro sports franchises to the state of Florida?), so it's no surprise Arizona Cardinal fans haven't made much of a dent in the national sports landscape. This season their team won the crappiest division in the history of crappy divisions bascially by default while redefining the term "backing into the playoffs" to the point I'm renaming it "Cardinal'ing into the playoffs" by losing four of their last six games (getting outscored 198-138 in the process). Despite all of this, the bandwagon Cardinals fans are outraged about being "disrespected" because nobody picked them to win against either Atlanta or Carolina.

Seriously, the only way a non-biased knowledgable football person picks the Cardinals to beat the Panthers last week is if they throw every result and ever stat from the 2008 season out the window and says "the Panthers will inexplicably not run the ball even though that's what they do best, and make no even attempt to put more than one guy on Larry Fitzgerald even though HE'S THE ONLY GUY ON THE ENTIRE ARIZONA OFFENSE WHO COULD BEAT YOU!?!?!?" And for reasons known only to John Fox and the rest of the Panthers coaching staff, that's exactly what happened. Despite having an awesome rushing attack the Panthers instead ran just 15 times- and don't even start with the "well they were down 27-7 at the half. They HAD to throw." No, no they did not. They turned the ball over 3 times in the first half- two on interceptions- because they refused to run. And if they had double, triple, quadruple, or been the league's first defense to put all 11 guys on Fitzgerald, would have Arizona done in the second half? The Panthers would have had the entire second half to run the ball and score points. But no, they did neither and so the Cards won.

Yet still, Cards fans as pissy because the Eagles are favored on the road- as they should be. As Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders said this week "in the Cards two playoff wins their opponent committed 9 turnovers under minimal pressure" which is a nice way of saying "your opponents handed you two wins. Congratulations." So yeah I'm going to go ahead and doubt that happens again.

So Cards fans, I know you're new at this whole "cheering for a winning team thing" or even "cheering faithfully for any team at all" but understand that when your team wins a crappy division and then plays like crap heading into the playoffs and then you're handed two playoff wins, nobody will believe in you. And if you happen to win against Philly on Sunday, then I'm not picking you to win the Super Bowl either- and neither will anybody else. Deal with it.

3) John Clayton hosts a weekly Saturday radio show on Sports Radio 950 KJR in Seattle. It's a station I grew up listening to in Vancouver, and I listen to their podcasts from time to time to check up on the Mariners and Huskies. In one of last week's interviews, Clayton made a matter-of-fact statement that, IF true, blows me away: he was talking NFL draft and said that while teams have about a 50/50 chance of drafting a successful QB in the draft, they have only a 25% chance of success drafting an underclassmen.

WHAAAAATTTTTT?!?!? You're telling me 75% of underclassmen QB's that come into the NFL are a bust?!?!?? That, my friends, is a staggering statistic, and one that would make me stay the hell away from junior and sophomore QB's in the draft. I haven't done the research on this one yet, but I plan to, although knowing me I'll probably do the research, start the post...and then never finish it. So you've got that to look forward to.