Real Tweets From Real People: Super Bowl Halftime

The Black Eyed Peas played the Super Bowl halftime.  It was terrible.  The following are real tweets from real people as the Peas "played."

Be sure to not thank your wardrobe designer.

Mark Sanchez and Trent Dilfer

They're a lot alike.  Both were top draft picks, Dilfer 6th overall in 1994, Sanchez 5th overall in 2009.  Both were from and went to school in California, but that only superficially matters.

It's not an exact match, and yes comparing Dilfer's 13 year career to Sanchez's 2 year career is not that fair, but the point is that Sanchez's production levels so far in his career are on par with Trent Dilfer's career.  Sanchez may improve.  But I'm looking what each have done.

Dilfer/Sanchez

Completion Percentage: 55.5/54.4
Yards per Attempt: 6.5/6/6
Adjusted Yards per Attempt: 5.4/5.5
TD Percentage: 3.6/3.3
INT Percentage: 4.1/3.8
Passer Rating: 70.2/70.2
And both have thrown more INTs than TDs.


I'll be the first guy to tell you that numbers are far from everything when it comes to football.  But the comparison first came to mind based on both players being QBs who don't have the greatest arm, are not very accurate, are mobile enough to not be statues, and make boneheaded decisions that lead to INTs.  I was surprised that the numbers were that close.  And you can do a lot worse than Trent Dilfer's career.  I'll gladly be the worst QB to win a Super Bowl.

Atlanta Winter X Games

The beginning of the week was what many Southerners are calling "Snowpocalypse."  Please.  It's 4 inches of snow.  That's nothing to a north east transplant like me.  The ice on the other hand, that's just dangerous.  It wouldn't have been a problem if salt was laid down BEFORE the snow fell and not AFTER.  But that would make sense.  So there was a sheet of ice all over Atlanta, causing everything to come to a stand still, and for Do It Yourself Winter X Games: Atlanta to happen.

7-9 Thoughts on Week 17

My friend calls Charlie Whitehurst "Porn Jesus." I feel compelled to point out this friend is a woman.

In honor of the 7-9 playoff bound Seattle Seahawks, and Charlie Whitehurst's awesome beard/hair combo, here are 7 to 9 thoughts about week 17 in the NFL.

1. 7-9 and they feel fine.

So the Seattle Seahawks are 7-9 and division winners. They will host the Saints on Saturday, who are 10-6 and a much better team. But so what. The Seahawks won their division, the Saints didn't, Seattle has earned the right to host a playoff game. There will be clamor for the NFL to change the way they seed playoff teams after this one time occurrence of a sub .500 division winner. Too fucking bad. First off all, just because a team has an inferior record doesn't mean they're inferior. I'd take the 7-9 Seahawks in a game versus the 10-6 Buccaneers or 8-8 Jaguars. On the flipside, I can't see the Saints losing this game. But more importantly, the idea that we change the whole way the playoffs are done off a knee jerk reaction is just pathetic. It's how we got this new overtime rule which only applies to the playoffs (I like the idea, but let's apply it to all games). It's why they're suddenly, in season, heightening the punishment for helmet to helmet hits without giving the players, coaches and refs time (I also like the enforcement, but the timing is just so reactionary and pro-active).  Because something happened for the first time in the history of the league.  Oh no.  Part of me is rooting for the Seahawks just for fun.

2. Eagles/Cowboys doesn't feel the same when it's like a pre-season game.

Kevin Kolb versus Stephen McGee!  A starting lineup of guys I've never heard of from the team I follow!  Yesterday's meaningless game had all the feel of a pre-season week 4 game, but still the Eagles losing to the Cowboys sucked. You never want to lose your arch rival. Kolb played alright, but nothing special. I'll give him a bit of pass because he had the backups to a bad offensive line playing in front of him against the DeMarcus Ware and Jay Ratliff, and no DeSean Jackson to stretch the field or LeSean McCoy to dump off to. Jerome Harrison looked good, Clay Harbor looked terrible, Max Hall played pretty good against a weak pass defense, the aforementioned offensive line looked like crap because even the starters stink. And now they host the Packers, the worst possible match-up they could have. I would have loved to have seen the souls of Giants fans crushed again, or see the biggest frauds in the league, Tampa Bay, come to the Linc and get taken to the woodshed. Interesting that the season started with the Packers at the Eagles and for one team it will end with the Packers at the Eagles.

3. Can Al Davis have 12 straight months of sanity?
There are reports that the Raiders will fire Tom Cable.  Sheer lunacy.  Cable took over for Lane Kiffin in 2008 with an underwhelming record and the appearance of an Al Davis yes man.  And maybe he was, but since taking over he's convinced Davis to cut JaMarcus Russell and produced the best season the Raiders have had since 2002.  Neither one of those things were easy, and Cable's been fairly impressive as head coach.  Last year he started training camp with walk throughs, which I found to be pretty smart.  He said something to the effect of "if we can't get this stuff right what's the point with the rest of camp?"  I agree, and for such a bad team it wasn't a bad idea at all.  The team plays inconsistently at times, but Cable's done more than can be expected with this roster and more importantly, with Al Davis lording over him.  To fire him would be incredibly dumb, and who are you going to get to replace him?  No one is actually going to want that job.

4. Black Monday is here.
Speaking of canning coaches, today's the day.  John Fox was out on Friday, Eric Mangini was out Monday morning.  Who's next? Marvin Lewis' contract is up and if I were him I'd leave, he'll be let go anyway. Gary Kubiak will somehow keep his job, Jeff Fisher might undeservedly be out too.  Norv Turner will keep his for some reason, Jack Del Rio's status is anyone's guess, as is Tony Sparano's.  Here's the thing with firing a coach: you better find someone better.  Jim Harbaugh has done a great job at Stanford and will almost certainly get a NFL gig this year, but who else is there?  No one else at the college level is worth it.  There's two routes to go, the hotshot assistant and the re-tread...

5. Tasting success again
There's a stigma that no coach has ever won a Super Bowl with 2 different franchises.  Well, a few have come close.  Don Shula, Dick Vermeil, Bill Parcells and Mike Holmgren have each won at least one Super Bowl with one team and lost it with another.  Dan Reeves went to four with two teams.  It's not that it can't be done, it's that it hasn't been done yet. And it's all because if you have a coach who has won a Super Bowl, you keep him around.  Most coaches who have won the Super Bowl have at least returned to the Super Bowl again if not won it.  From Vince Lombardi and Hank Stram to Don Shula, Chuck Noll and Tom Landry, to Tom Flores, Joe Gibbs, Bill Walsh and Bill Parcells to Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan and Bill Belichick, there are reasons why you keep these guys around.  It's hard to win a Super Bowl with two teams if you coach the team you won the Super Bowl with for 6 or 7 more years.  Generally it's your last stop because you've got nothing left to prove, or by the time you're on a new team the game has changed quite a bit (I'm looking at you Mike Shanahan).

Enter Brian Billick.  I like Billick, and the fan in me wants to continue to see him as an analyst, where he's excellent.  Of the 3 Super Bowl winning coaches available, the others being Bill Cowher and John Gruden, he's probably the best bet.  Cowher's got a great track record but he's going to want a lot of power, and coaches as GMs don't work.  Gruden's a good but overrated coach who has tremendous flaws that need to be kept in check such as his hoarding of mediocre QBs and lack of talent development.  He needs a strong GM who can draft well, and a veteran team would probably be his best chance.  San Diego would be a really good fit, but it's not available.  Back to Billick though.  Of the three, he seems to be the one that would cede GM power the most, I think he realizes that they're separate jobs for separate people.  And he's always had an excellent defense in part because he's always had an excellent defensive coordinator.  One mark of a good coach is a good coaching staff.  The 2000 Ravens had some all time greats on defense in Ray Lewis and Rod Woodson, but they also had some very good to great role-specific players that his coaches got everything out of.  But, he will be 57 next season, which isn't ancient but it's on the higher end of age for a coach. And they'll all cost quite a bit as we head into uncertainty as to whether or not there will even be a season next year.

6. Jim Mora, Brad Childress, Eric Mangini, they were all once the hot coordinator.
So you can see why a team might want to go with a hotshot coordinator.  But you better get it right, or you'll have the next Josh McDaniels.  Mike Zimmer will certainly get interest.  It's hard to not like Zimmer, both from a resume perspective and a personal perspective, he was great on Hard Knocks.  Marty Mornhinweg will for some inexplicable reason be given consideration.  Give him as much as a pass as you want for having Matt Millen as his GM when he was head coach in Detroit, but this is the man who elected to defer in overtime.  And I don't know how much credit he should be given for his time as the Eagles' offensive coordinator, one on hand the team has set team scoring records three years in a row; on the other hand Andy Reid is in control of the offense, and during the past three seasons the team has seen a huge increase in offensive talent. If I hear Brian Schottenheimer as a potential candidate, I will gut laugh.  When the Jets had Favre, he was getting killed for his play calling.  Now he's got Sanchez and he hasn't improved at all, he's just gotten lucky with interceptions.  Perry Fewell did a nice job as an interim coach of a terrible Bills team last year and did very well as the Giants defensive coordinator this year.  He seems like a good candidate who teams can at least bring in to interview to satisfy the Rooney Rule and not look like they're just being nice to some long time position coach who has no chance.  Falcons offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey and Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams should get some consideration, but their names are rarely mentioned.  Wouldn't it be interesting if they both left?  Hue Jackson, maybe, he's done a fair job with a rotation of mediocre QBs in Oakland, but he could use some more experience at the coordinator level, for which this is his first year.  And that's it for assistant. God help the team that gets some lousy retread.  John Fox is the only retread that would make any sense.

7. I don't know who Coach of the Year is, but Andy Reid's got a pretty good case.
I was none too thrilled when Donovan McNabb was traded.  I was against the benching of Kevin Kolb in favor of Michael Vick.  Those moves couldn't have worked any better.  McNabb has been bad in Washington, and very well may be out after one season. Vick of course is an MVP candidate and has taken the team to a division title.  He won't win it, and I wouldn't vote for him, but he's absolutely in the conversation.  He's played one bad game, the Tuesday night stinker against Minnesota.  Both decisions put his job on the line.  Had Kolb and Vick stunk while McNabb played well in Washington, it would have been a huge black mark.  If Vick played like he did in Atlanta, this is a 7-9 team.  A big part of being a head coach is making huge, tough decisions and suffering or enjoying the consequences.  If you think he would have been deserved to be fired if those moves didn't work out, then he should be given credit for them working out so well.  This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, and now the Eagles have as good a shot as any other NFC team to be in the Super Bowl.  I don't expect them to go, but it's not far fetched.


Well, there's 7 thoughts.  Just as I promised.

Top 5 Eagle-gasms

Yesterday, DeSean Jackson made babies with his game winning punt return against the Giants.  It was the highest quality of Eagles porn, and instantly one of the best plays in the team's history, if not the best.  In a nod to my other site, Top 5 List, here's my Top 5 Eagles Plays.  Not moments, but plays.  (Andy Reid's list would be nothing but screen passes.)

He's going for distance, he's going for speed.

Hockey 0/0

I love hockey.  Well, more accurately I love the Flyers and everything else in the sport is a distant second.  Which is the way it is for most fans.  And like most fans, I'm pretty much sick and tired of the NHL's golden boys Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin being rammed down our throats on NBC and to a lesser extent Versus, and by the NHL's own PR machine.  Don't get me wrong, they're Hall of Fame players, with Ovechkin being the single most exciting player in the league.  Crosby, well, being a Flyers fan I simply can't stand him, but I can't deny his talents.  So you'll excuse me if I don't care for HBO's "Hockey 24/7" series about the run up to the Winter Classic between the Penguins and the Capitals.  I'm sure it's a good show, because HBO does everything great.  I'm sure there's some interesting stuff, because they're granted unique and exclusive access.

But so what.  It's the Caps and the Pens, and frankly I've had enough of both.  If it were any other teams, even if just one of the teams was different I'd be much more inclined to watch.  And really, it should be any two teams but the Pens and Caps.  Those teams are TV draws anyway, and the Winter Classic is it's own draw.  So put some good but under the mainstream radar teams or teams that struggle to draw out there instead.  Give me the Sabres or Canucks hosting the event and the Predators or Thrashers as the visiting team.  Penguins vs Capitals is going to get ratings on a Tuesday.  Those teams aren't.

Cam Do

Later today Auburn's boy wonder Cam Newton will deservedly win the Heisman Trophy.  A few years from now, he may have it stripped.  If he does, it will be undeservedly.

Most people don't realize that is not John Heisman but Ed Smith.

Newton, or more specifically, his dad, is under investigation for attempting to solicit money in exchange for his son's commitment to play.  So far as you no doubt know by now, the only allegation is that Cecil Newton approached former Miss St. player Kenny Rodgers and said it would take $180,000 to get Cam to sign for the Bulldogs.  And that that price was a 10% discount over what was shopped to other schools.  No other school has been named, and there has been no connection to Auburn.  Yet.  And maybe there won't be.  But everyone and their mother has every reason to believe (Cam's mother though, one way or another she knows) that in the near future the truth will come out and Cam Newton will be found to have been ineligible.  Meaning that Auburn's 2010 dream season will be thrown out, and that he'll be asked to return the Heisman like Reggie Bush did.  Bush's violations highlights how much the NCAA turns a blind eye to star college players at major programs running amok and breaking the rules.  Reggie Bush was essentially paid to play, wow, quite the revelation there.  It's only been going on for decades. Player payments were a huge reason for the disbanding of the Southwest Conference in the 80s, most notably highlighted by SMU's "death penalty."  Earlier this year Sports Illustrated ran a great piece on agents paying players.  So color me shocked that a high profile recruit, or at least his dad, shopped his wares.  We half expect it.  We expect the high profile players to drive cars they shouldn't own and buy things they shouldn't be able to buy.  Except for the gifts that the bowls they participate in give them.  But no, that's not paying players.

Anyways, Newton won't deserve to lose the Heisman. The NCAA and SEC have confirmed that Cecil Newton tried to get money, which on its own should have made Newton ineligible.  But instead they decided that Cam Newton is eligible for the time being, changing the enforcement of their rules.  So if the NCAA isn't going to care that Newton wins the Heisman today, then it shouldn't care that he should have to give it back years later.

So accept that trophy with pride Cam.  You deserved it for what you did on the field, and the powers that be don't deserve to have the right to tell you to give it back down the road.  Also, make sure to thank your dad in your acceptance speech.