UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS, WEEK 2: THE FURY OF THE LIONS [MASCOT]
It dawned on me as I was watching the games yesterday that I was doing it as a professional journalist. I mean, I was last week as well, but I don’t think it had dawned on me that I was finally doing something that I been following avidly my whole life. Reading about football isn’t as fun as watching or playing it, but it’s not bad! It fact the biggest reason I got a Kindle was so I could get a hometown newspaper everyday and follow my team from mini-camp to immolation! And to be given a chance to write about it is a responsibility I happily embrace, and am honored to be given a chance to excel at. Now let’s get to the action!
Week Two in the NFL was a surprising flurry of stupid yet brutal circumstances. New England QB Tom Brady told the fans to get “lubed up” before the game, then had management decide he was talking about water. That’s just brutally stupid! Thankfully the games started before he could say anything else.
This weekend I saw a Detroit Lions team whose dominance of their opposition was so great that even their mascot became an instrument of death — I’m talking about the Lions’ 48-3 drubbing of the Kansas City Chiefs, and the season-ending injury Chiefs RB Jamaal Charles suffered on the same play he collided with the Detroit Lions mascot, which is basically a dude in a football jersey with a gigantic fiberglass lion head (and a sock full of nickels in his pocket). It has been so bad for the Lions recently that there have been times I am sure they would have welcomed their mascot into the game, but ever since Matt Stafford came to Rock City there has been a new buzz in town. And they fucking deserve it! Detroit’s a hard town and the people are great. They should have a team where the mascots hurt people. A team that wins, something they have done far too little of for the last ohhh… time immemorial. But people were saying the same thing after Week Two last year, and the Lions season ended with Stafford’s injury. As long as their offensive line can keep Stafford’s grill out of the turf, the Lions have got their best shot at the playoffs in years.
I know part of this column is supposed to be fair and balanced, but there is one area where that cannot extend — Michael Vick. I think it’s a black eye for the whole league that this guy is allowed to play, and a terrible example for kids. It wasn’t just dog-fighting, it was dog-torturing, it was dog-murder. It was completely sick and twisted and I don’t buy his whole rehab thing for one minute. Sure he has lent his name to some causes, but I have yet to see any kind of major public work that he is personally involved in. And judging by some of the reports that have been getting out, Vick has done little to change his posse, his demeanor, and his generally sadistic attitude, expect for maybe hiring Tony Dungy to spin his bullshit, which Dungy is so good at that that we believe he’s a great dad even though one of his kids committed suicide and was basically never heard about again. It really made me sick to watch him smeking his triumph after his SURVIVING son’s touchdown in a weekend college contest. And if Dungy is such a football guru who made a big deal about still being involved with the Colts, why the hell can nobody in Indianapolis explain why there is no back-up plan for an injured Peyton Manning? Explain that one, Coach…
So I was glad to see Vick get hit so hard that he left the game with a concussion, spitting up blood during last night’s 35-31 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. But that’s no emergency, as the Eagles head coach Andy Reid acquired Vince Young as a back-up… oh, that’s right, he’s injured. Looks like everybody in Philly forgot that Vick is usually lucky to play half a season and Young is a flake and a cry-baby. Maybe Andy can bum some “happy-pills” off his drug-dealer son and get his back-up QB’s head on straight… or at least at a more comfortable angle… or at least get himself high.
There were a lot of other great games around the league. The Packers prevailed over the Panthers, 30-23, as another strong showing from Cam Newton couldn’t stop the Super Bowl Champions from adding to the argument that they are the best team on the turf for the second year in a row. If I had to call the Super Bowl right now I’d say we were looking at Green Bay vs. New England line-up. Other notables were the Cowboys’ Tony Romo showing considerable grit in coming back on the field despite suffering broken ribs to lead his Cowboys 27-24 over the San Francisco 49ers, and the “Rex-urgence” continuing in Washington, as Grossman overcame two early interceptions to deliver a gutsy 22-21 win over the visiting Phoenix Cardinals.
Wow! This is kinda fun. So far the hardest thing about this column is getting up on Monday morning to write it! See ya next week!
– Dave Brockie
