How about when your team sucks and the starters are rested? A month ago the Chiefs slapped Priest Holmes on the injured list with a “boo-boo” injury so that he could set up for next year. Everybody knew the season was over so why put the star running back in the line of fire?
And I have to add I was never so proud of my boys as when I watched them fall to San Diego’s B team on Sunday. :smack:
I agree that if your team isn’t going to the playoffs, you’re entitled to see the best game possible on the last day of the season.
There isn’t going to be a way to please everybody. I think the downside of getting a star player injured before the playoffs is worse than the downside of pissing off some fans in the stands. A coach isn’t going to lose his job over the latter but he may over the former.
Andy Reid has already lost T.O. There’s no way in hell he’s going to take a chance with McNabb. If you think the fans were pissed on sunday, think how they would be if Koy Detmer was going to start in the playoffs.
They saw a footbal game. Not only that, but they saw the game that gave their team the best chance to continue winning after most teams are done for the year. If they can’t understand that, then they’re not really fans. Fuck 'em.
I agree with you here.
I won’t take you to task for your other two paragraphs, as other posters have already said what I would have.
The Bills clearly did not earn a playoff spot, and so losing to the Steelers’ JV squad is okay by me. I went to my buddy’s house with the bigscreen high def tivo setup and the four theater-seating recliners to watch the game with the Jets fan, the Steelers fan, the Bills fan, and me. During the 1:00 games we switched back and forth between the Jets and Bills game.
Unfortunately, we did not get the day of football we were expecting. 44 Bills played great football, left everything on the field, and generally played their very best in what was a single elimination game for them. But the 45th man cost the Bills the game. As down as I was on Kurt Warner during his run at the sack record, I’ve never been as down on him as the Bills’ fan was down on Bledsoe.
He is seriously bummed about the Bills’ QB position. Bledsoe played every snap all season except one embarassing late-game effort by Losman. So he believes that the Bills will start Bledsoe next year, to his great dismay. I offered the Cincy Experiment as evidence that you can go a different way, but he doesn’t believe they can justify it. Palmer was the #1 overall pick, whereas Losman was a late first rounder.
The closest comparison to Losman would be Pennington, who was also a late first rounder. If you recall, The Chad rode the bench for two full seasons, and then when Vinny and the Jets started off his third season 1-3, Herm decided to start Pennington the following week in hopes that he would create a spark. So if the Bills were to follow that precedent, Losman would come in during a 1-3 season start in early October of 2006. So my buddy is dreading next season. Sucks to be a Bills fan.
As for the Jets, it was distressing to watch Bulger, Holt, and Bruce make mincemeat out of Gang Green’s pass defense. At least the timing was good, in that the Rams put on a passing clinic just in time for any possible playoff opponent to learn from. Ugh. Sure, they need to be able to pass in order to capitalize, but the last time I checked, the Colts had a halfway decent passing game.
I stayed for the night game after the Bills and Steelers fans went home. What a great game! We all agreed, in grave tones of voice, that it would be a very bad thing if Eli were to start next season still looking for his first win. It was great to see him get a win. It was even better seeing him produce a game winning drive late in the fourth. It was absolutely the best thing ever that “Eli’s” game winning drive was all about Tiki. Run it, screen it, dump it off, run it again. With Shockey out of the lineup, Eli was forced to look to the rest of the team.
I’ve been a huge fan of Tyree since opening day last season, after seeing his excellent work at gunner. He has a bunch of great inside-the-five touchback saves in the punting game, and last year after all the starters went down, he did well as a starting receiver. Eli demonstrated his comfort with Tyree last night, a repore built up during preseason. The funny thing is that Tyree isn’t a receiver; he’s a pure special teams player drafted for no other purpose. On that draft day, Ernie Accorsi was asked about him. “He’s a great special teamer, and it was obvious we needed help in that facet of the game. The NFL requires that you declare a position for a player, so we’re putting him at WR because we have a lot of WRs.”
The fact that Tyree is playing WR so well is truly an added bonus. I don’t have any illusions that he’s a great WR, or even a starter, but he and Taylor could be excellent slot receivers. Taylor and Tyree is not a starting duo, but then again how much better is Toomer and Hilliard? Good enough for one more year, IMO. Keep the skill positions through 2005, sign a big-name high-priced middle linebacker in free agency, pick up a journeyman (Tim Couch?) QB as a backup, and continue to draft projects like we have been, and Big Blue could be a force to reckon with next year.
Once we get our seventeen IR guys back, (17!), that is. Osi is clearly a starter, so him and Strahan will provide the pressure. Hand, Robbins, and Joseph provide a nice rotation at tackle, Shaun Williams will come back (and needs to prove himself), while Gibril Wilson can slide over to FS to capitalize on his ball hawking. Our defense (assuming we get a MLB) will be fine.
On the offensive side, I like our OL and TEs, Eli has played well enough in the last few games to make me cautiously optimistic about him, and the skill positions are good enough to make it one more year before the retirement homes come calling. That leaves the entire draft available for depth. Good thing, too, as our top ten overall pick went to San Diego.
Regarding Couch as a backup, I’m thinking that his experience of the pressure of being a #1 overall pick might be useful. Is my thinking here crazy?
God, I hope the Eagles lose their first playoff game. If it’s not enough to take a bye week, and you feel you’re so goddamned bound for the Superbowl that you take three weeks off, it’s only just if your well rested darlings get completely mauled by a team that gives a shit.
Unfortunately, the NFC stinks and the baby Iggles will probably get to lose the Superbowl.
What do you want them to do? Reid’s job is to win the Super Bowl, especially after losing the NFC Championship the last three years. He’s doing what he thinks is best for the team.
And I hate the Eagles. My team’s not even in the playoffs this year. I just don’t think any of the playoff-bound coaches deserve the criticism they’re getting for this.
Let Reid win a goddamned NFC championship game before he worries about the Superbowl.
True that. While the likelihood of Pennsylvania producing a Lombardi trophy this year is pretty good, the odds that it will come home to the City of Brotherly Love are vanishingly small.
Exactly; thanks.
A casae can be made that the layoff makes teams rusty. But as Dio pointed out, coaches are in a damned-either-way situation. What it comes down to is not whether an abstract “player” will get rusty in the layoff, but an assessment of how specific individuals and teams will respond. I have to assume that Andy Reid knows his players better than I.
As to the “fans deserve” rationale … as a fan, if I were at the Linc last Sunday, I would have felt nauseous every time McNabb or Westbrook was tackled.
OK, looks like Pittsburgh gets the Jets next week. Going back to Week 14, right around a month ago, it was a low-scoring affair which actually gave the Steelers a scare. However, they pulled it out 17-6, and now that they’re all rested and recovered I think it’ll end up 24-10 Pittsburgh with Bettis and Duce running wild on them and Pennington getting especially dirty from getting hit so often.
How come everybody hates the Eagles so much? That’s a serious question. I feel like a Yankee fan or something in here.
Sorry for the late response. I wouldn’t know Maddox and Parker from Adam and Eve, but that’s beside the point because I didn’t see the Steelers game. I was basing my response on what the commentators said at the half time show. One of them was noting the difference between Reid’s game plan and Cowher’s. He reported that while Reid was resting his first string, Cowher was playing “today’s game like it was the SuperBowl.” I make shit up, but I didn’t make this particular shit up.
And I still think that resting your first string is a pussy way to enter the playoffs and a poor way to treat your fans. So if Cowher did the same thing, I hope neither of them make the SuperBowl.
I don’t hate the Eagles. I actually like them quite a bit. I like Donovan McNabb not just for his play but for his personality on the field. It’s hard not to like a guy who smiles so much while he’s playing. I even like T.O. and I dig it when he does some sreative new celebration. I see it as a kind of performance art/ The Sharpie in the sock was brilliant.
My Vikings are going up against them next week and of course I’m going to root for my team but if the Vikes get beat then I won’t have any trouble rooting for the Iggles to represent the NFC in the Superbowl (and the Eagles may be the only team in the NFC that has a shot to beat the AFC team).
I agree with Dio. Unless you’re a diehard Cowboys, Giants, or Redskins fan, there’s really little reason to hate the team itself.
It’s the fans that most people hate. Say what you want of other teams, but those fuckers booed Santa Claus for chrissakes.
ttp://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/quarterback.asp
Link fixed
If John “I’m a Pussy” Abraham grows a spine and starts this week, I think the Jets should be favored. The Jets have a better rushing game, (though Pittsburgh is no slouch in that department), and a QB who has playoff experience. Big Ben is quite good, but he does throw picks.
This should be an excellent game. Hopefully not so heart-attack inducing as last week was, what with Eric “I’m a Dumbass” Barton getting his freak on.
As for the everyone hating the Eagles, I do, but I’m a fan of Big Blue. One thing that bothered me a little was the comment by an ESPN guy a couple weeks back about how the Eagles swept the division. The Giants posted the first undefeated divisional record back when there were five teams in the division. They did tie the Redskins that year, but that still left them with a 7-0-1 record, which IMO is more impressive than 6-0. Hmmm, 6-0 is still pretty damn impressive. But the Eagles Suck! Go Vikings! (We’ll see how much McNabb has truly grown now that TO is out and the season is on the line.)
As much as I hate the Vikes, I have to root for them. Maybe I’ll skip that game altogether. I loathe the Rams, dislike the Falcons, hate the Vikings, and despise the Eagles. This sucks. I’m currently leaning toward rooting for the shudders Rams to make it to The Show.
::chokes::
Last I saw, The Steelers were 9 point favorites. With or without Abraham, there’s no way at all the Jets should be favored for this game. I think that 9 points is a little high, but 5-7 sounds about right as far as lines go.
Well, I suppose it’s a solid pick, since Curtis Martin had 160 yards rushing and Chad Pennington went 18 for 22 for 300 yards and 3 TDs…
Wait a second…Martin had 24 rushes for 72 yards and Chad Pennington threw 3 picks, and neither one, along with the rest of the team, managed to score a touchdown that day.
What makes you actually seriously think they deserve to be favored…are you secretly trying to place a Steelers bet???
If he is I’ll take that bet at whatever the spread is, to be verified by a reputable book 1 hour before the game, and if John “The Pussy” Abraham plays (what an appropriate name that is, too) I’ll throw another three points on top of it just to shut his piehole when the Jets get shot down like a bunch of bitches.