NECESSARY ROUGHNESS, WEEK 1: RGIII TO THE RESCUE
We are back! It’s football time again, and husbands all over the country have found a way to have at least a little time for themselves this fall. Wives won’t generally let you have all-day BBQs during the pre-season.
Week number one in the NFL got off to a great start… if your team won, anyway. And that was certainly the case when Robert Griffin III and the much-maligned Skins went down to the Big Easy, which, despite all the hype that RGIII had received, was a game the ‘Skins were supposed to lose. But as soon as Pierre Garcon hauled in a 91-yd TD pass from RG III there was a new sheriff in town. Saints’ QB Drew Brees (who has the worst hair in the NFL) wasn’t going to go down without a fight, but for some reason the Redskins didn’t have their normal fourth quarter meltdown and hung in there for a 40-32 victory. I think the loss of head coach Sean Payton to the NFL’s disciplinary board for the “bountygate” scandal has hurt the organization more than they would care to admit. Apparently they thought they could just go about business as usual, and that’s why they decided to remind the team to continue doing so by putting up a huge poster of a pissed-off looking Payton challenging his players to “do their job”. What job is that? The one where you paid them bonuses to injure other players? Well, apparently the Saints were confused about what job they were supposed to do — a number one or a number two? I mean, if they crapped all over the Superdome it would just be a continuation of a tradition that started during Katrina!
The week got off to a predictable start with a fairly pedestrian game between the Cowboys and the Giants. We all know what will happen next: Romo will play decently all season and then blow it in the playoffs. The Giants will play spotty ball all year, with head coach Tom Laughlin catching tons of shit from the New York press, only to have the team be born again hard during the last couple of weeks and have a good run at the Super Bowl. Has anyone ever noticed that Romo seems to have tiny, button eyes, devoid of all emotion or expression? No matter. I predict the biggest Romo-choke in the history of the league. I watched this game half asleep, and the Cowboys won, 24-17.
Another big story was the return of Peyton Manning to the field on a new team after more than a year away. Many wondered if Peyton still had what was needed after as many as four or five neck surgeries over the last year, but Manning looked amazing in a 31-19 victory over the hard-charging Pittsburgh Steelers. I had horrible visions of Peyton getting sacked and having his head actually knocked off his body, only to have it scooped up by Troy Polomalu and accidently returned for a severed-head TD. But it was not to be as Peyton looked as good as ever, just without as many ridiculous line-counts. Looks like we have several years of one of the classiest players in the league to look forward to… unless your team is playing against him.
Michael Vick, dog killer, had a gutsy day, overcoming 4 INTS to beat the Cleveland Browns (hey Cleveland, why are you guys called “The Browns”?) The Vikings had a great overtime victory that I would have cared about a lot more if they hadn’t been playing the Jaguars. Good to see Man-Beast Adrian Peterson fully recovered from his injuries.
The big problem with this column is that I have to have it in by like eleven, Monday morning (which is nothing for most sports writers, I know, but I am NOT a sports writer, I am a sports FAN, and a lead singer at that… I don’t get to bed til’ late and hell, there are still two more games on Monday night!) So I have a great idea for the column! Let’s all write it! This template has got a great comments section and it’s all there for you. If I didn’t write about your favorite team…get it in there… if you don’t feel I have enough appreciation for a particular facet of the game? Berate me publicly! Just think I am an asshole? I can take it! Let’s make this the biggest and best football forum for metal and hard music fans on the web, but remember, this column is never more fun than when we are complaining about things… and I want to complain about that annoying NFL “hipster” dude that kept popping up in various commercial breaks. Listen, NFL, “hipster” and NFL don’t go together. Sure, I don’t really like Terry and Howie and all of those other lunkheads…but at least they look like they belong in the world of football. But this bearded, blue-jacketed (with a waistcoat no less?), gap-toothed moron is the best they can do? Didn’t they learn anything when they put Dennis Miller on Monday Night Footbal? What’s next, “the most interesting man in the world” brought in as a replacement official? And speaking of that, I thought the officials did a pretty good job, as long as you don’t mind your games lasting several extra hours and the official mistaking a replay booth for a urinal. HEY NFL OWNERS… YOU OWN THE BIGGEST MONEY MAKING SPORT IN THE WORLD… PAY THE OFFICIALS!
Well, that’s about all I have for this first week. I know I missed a bunch… so let’s hear it!
-DB
