Football Musings

A whole bunch of football-related thoughts bouncing around my red-headed noggin...

* First and foremost, I was biased and wrong about Sean Taylor of the Redskins. Coming from the "U" of Miami where they've had more than their share of players arrested for gun-related incidents, and with Taylor's handgun incident in 2005, when I heard last week that he was shot in his home and was listed in critical condition, I was not at all surprised. I figured he had gotten caught up in something bad, and it came back to get him. After his death, the investigation, and the arrest of four young suspects, it turns out he did absolutely nothing wrong, and did nothing to deserve this. So even though I didn't share my bias against Taylor in this space, I was still thinking it, and I'm sorry. I was wrong. Peter King has an excellent piece on Taylor in his MMQB column.

* If you haven't watched the Adrian Peterson highlights from the Vikings win over Detroit last Sunday, do yourself a favor. He had some impressive runs throughout that package, but washis second TD run not a Barry Sanders-type move? That poor Detwah LB was waiting in the hole flat-footed for AP, and Peterson goes by him like he's not even there. HE DIDN"T EVEN TOUCH HIM!! I knew AP was fast and powerful, but I did not know he had that kind of agility. I'm not going to say anymore since he'll probably get injured again next week. But for right now, loving Adrian Peterson.

* Tavaris Jackson's play of late is another example of how little patience myself, and sports fans in general, have anymore. For the first nine games of the year Jackson was awful, and it was looking like Brad Kick Ass OFfense Childress made a huge mistake thinking Jackson was ready to play QB in the NFL. Through patience, stubborness and/or arrogance, as well as the ineffective play of Kelly Holcumb and Brooks Bollinger, Chilly stuck with Jackson. Sure he had not other options, but since reinserting him as a starter three weeks ago in the win against Oakland, Jackson has actually looked like an NFL quarterback. While three games aren't a large sample size, he's 45-58 (77.5 comp.%) for 504 yds for 3 TD's and 2 picks in the Vikes last three games, all wins. Hall of Fame numbers they're not, but if this continues the rest of the season, the Vikings could be just a couple of receivers away from being a contender in 2008.

* Speaking of the rest of the season, with four games remaining (at SF, home Bears and Skinnies, at Bronch) it's very possible the Vikes could win out and finish at 10-6. Of course it's also very possible that AP gets hurt again, pre-3-game-win-streak T-Jack resurfaces and the Vikes lose two, three or all four of their remaining games. You'd have to be insane to bet either way on the Vikings, or anybody else for that matter. Well except for maybe the Patriots.

* OK, I'll admit it: I was rooting for the Pats to win last night. I'm also rooting for them to go undefeated in the regular season. I don't care if they win the Super Bowl or not, but it's infinitely more interesting if New England is undefeated going into January.

* Last Patriots-related thought: are you prepared for the 2008 Patriots with Darren McFadden or Glenn Dorsey? The Pats hold the Niners #1 pick, which at this point looks all but guaranteed to be in the top 3. With at least three good quarterbacks available in this spring's draft (Andre Woodson of Kentucky, Matt Ryan of BC and Brian Brohm of Louisville), it's also almost guaranteed that the Patriots will have their choice of the best two talents in the draft: the amazing Arkansas RB or the bull-dozing LSU DT. I personally think the Pats should take McFadden, solidifying their offense as the best in history. But since everybody undervalues RB's in the draft now (and for good reason), they could also take the second biggest impact guy in Dorsey. Either way, the rich are about to get a lot richer. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen in this age of parity?

* Finally, one college football note: Josh Elliott, who I think is now an anchor for Sportscenter (I say "I think" because in Canada we get TSN's Sportscentre, which is infinitely worse than ESPN's Sportscenter. I know, I know, you didn't think it was possible, but trust me, it is). He was trying to make one of those fun controversial statements that ESPN just loves. This one was about how unjust the BCS system is. While that's not controversial at all, his big point of emphasis was, if only because it's so insane and made absolutely no sense: Elliott's big point on why the BCS is so wrong this season is, and I'm paraphrasing here, "it would be like if the NFL had the BCS instead of a playoff this season, and decided Tennessee and Green Bay would play for the Super Bowl, leaving New England and Dallas out!"

Um Josh? No it's not. It's not like that at all. The flaw in the BCS System is not that it doesn't reward the powerful marquee "BCS Conference" teams who go undefeated: the flaw in the BCS System is that it has no way of fairly determining who should play for the title if there's not two clear-cut marquee teams. It's flawed because you can only determine this if you have a playoff, and the BCS is not a playoff.

Therefore, if the NFL had a BCS system, New England and Dallas would be selected for the Super Bowl. They are both marquee teams (ie a "BCS Conference" team) with the two best records in the league. What I think Elliott was trying to argue is that it's unfair somebody like Hawaii (who went undefeated against a JV schedule) or Kansas (one loss against an equally pitiful sched) should be in the BCS title game. First of all, that's just wrong. Neither are more deserving than Ohio State or LSU. Second, the NFL example he gave is, as I've stated, just plain wrong. The NFL equivalent of what happened in college football this season would be if Arizona and Tennessee had the two best records, but did so playing only teams from the NFC West, NFC South, and the CFL, while the Pats and Cowboys did so against a real NFL schedule. THAT'S an accurate comparison of what college football looked like this year. Is the BCS flawed? Obviously and yet still it doesn't prove that the BCS got their selections wrong this year.