|
December 29, 2008 - Monday 6:55 AM
 |
Current mood:  argumentative Category: Sports
OK ... everyone, altogether now ...
[Breathe in]
"WHEW!"
[Breathe out]
 In the end, it was a little more nerve-wrecking than I think everyone, me included, wanted it to be, but yes, the worst "epic fail" in recent Packers memory will remain Fourth and 26 while the Lions will remain, well, the biggest epic fail in memory, period.
(This image is linked from the Booth Newspapers news site in Michigan. An actual news organization.)
It's been quite a two years for the extremes of the NFL. On the one hand, you had the Patriots, who became the first team since those vaunted Dolphins to go perfect through a regular season, only to falter in the Super Bowl on a play that will be relived for ages. On the other hand, you have the Lions.
The funny thing is that the Lions don't really seem that bad. They did give the Packers a game. There were games this season that they didn't get blown out of. They lost to the division-champion Vikings at the Metrodome in Week Four by two points, needing a last-second field goal by Ryan Longwell to win it (a rather-common method of Vikings' victories this season, which is why Minnesota will get crushed in the playoffs). A loss to the Texans, who did in the Packers, came by just four points. The Bears only beat the Lions by four -- after being down 23-13 at halftime.
It was more a combination of injuries, lack of talent to begin with and complete mismanagement that led to this Lions team's problems. I mean, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1976 were bad -- legendarily bad. You all have seen that clip of Dave Green, Buccaneers punter/kicker, trying futily to kick a rolling football as it gets away from him. There is no moment like that for the Lions, save maybe Dan Orlovsky forgetting where he was on the football field when he stepped out of bounds for the safety that ended up costing the Lions their game in Minnesota. The fact of the matter is the Lions had a slew of different quarterbacks (Orlovsky, Jon Kitna, Drew Stanton, you, your brother, etc.), a number of other injuries, a lot of guys who are veterans but not exactly stars, a couple of possible stars in Kevin Smith and Calvin Johnson, but a lot of things wrong organizationally, so much so that they would think to trade one of the few talented players they have in Roy Williams to Dallas, where Tony Romo is having his usual December of failure.
(Aside: Don't tell me you don't take a little sick pleasure in watching the Cowboys fall on their face in Philadelphia today. I know you do.)
So many of the issues with this Lions team go back to people who are no longer with the franchise -- not just Matt Millen, but Dick Jauron, Marty Mornhinweg, Bobby Ross and a lot of other folks -- and there's just no excuse for William Clay Ford's total mishandling of this franchise since he's been in charge. Between what's going on with the American auto industry and what's happened with the Lions, you begin to wonder if the Fords should really be in charge of anything in life. (Just check this headline if you haven't heard the old joke. Also applicable is "Found on road, dead.")
I keep reminding people that the Lions were a perennial contender -- often a few defensive pieces, a quarterback and an offensive lineman or two away from being a great team -- pretty much through the 90's. To fall that far in 10 years is a feat that seems Raider-esque, though boht might have something to do with their owners moving into senility (c'mon, Jerry Jones!).
You know the Lions will look around after a season like this and make a lot of changes. The fact the Dolphins were still talking playoffs going into this afternoon says a lot about how much a team can turn things around in one season. But the Dolphins are also a proud organization that knew they had to get their act together and were also very young last year. They brought in a great new staff and they're on their way to big things. Can the Lions make the right moves to put themselves in that position ... ?
I don't know. Part of me says that's just not part of their institutional makeup.
The Lions just don't feel like a total failure, even though they certainly are. The problem, though, is when the group on top doesn't know how to win.
 It was the biggest concern on the part of Packers fans today and it was probably the biggest reason why the Packers struggled to put the Lions away: It's easy to forget how to win. If you've listened to Mike McCarthy at all this season, he's reiterated time and time again that the team just needed a win. They needed to remember how to win and what it felt like to win. Momentum can't be discounted in football. There's enough time between games that it can start fading together. When you have the confidence it takes to win in the NFL, you do the little things and you know you're physically capable of doing the big things. When you're not sure of yourself, you forget stuff and things go awry. You forget to get a good surge on a field goal and the Bears win in overtime. You blow a coverage or two that ends up costing you a game like the Texans contest. It all runs together.
The Packers, for a good chunk of this year, just weren't real certain about themselves. I know some, in turn, took the opportunity to blame that on not having Brett Favre's "quiet" (i.e. non-existent) leadership around, but this is the NFL and everyone has to look inside at themselves and step it up, particularly when you have the kind of injuries the Packers had on defense. Considering how decimated that defense ended up being -- you took major pieces out of the line (Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila), the linebacker corps (Nick Barnett) and the secondary (Atari Bigby) -- while factoring in Al Harris' aging and a lack of push from the middle of the line and the fact the Packers were close in as many games as they were should be seen as a bright spot. There's a path to success for this Packers' team and, despite what you might think, I believe it's a path that is best followed behind the leadership of Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson. I'll be upset if Thompson doesn't make a lot of moves during this off-season. But I wasn't that upset with the moves he made during past off-seasons, including this past one. The only things he could have seen happening were the line's problems and the fall-off for Harris. You can't forsee the injuries. You expect the likes of Bigby to get better. You expect the offensive line, which was young except for Mike Tauscher and Chad Clifton, to gel and improve a little. Those things didn't happen, despite expectations. That's not Ted Thompson's fault. He played the game his way and it just didn't work.
Thompson wants to build a Ravens-like defense and have a ball-control, old-fashioned West Coast offense and he wants to do it organically, through the draft, staying away from free agents who are likely past their prime and want more money than their eventual output will generally deserve. As much as you, and Brett Favre, might hate it, that's not a bad strategy. I understand what Thompson's trying to do. It didn't work this year, and there will be years when it won't work. But I think it could work in the next few years.
The Packers just needed a turning-point play. Unfortunately, it didn't come until there was 7:30 left in the season when Aaron Rodgers found Donald Driver for a huge touchdown. But if the team can make some significant, mood-altering changes during the off-season and can get off to a good start next year, I think they'll be fine.
We all expected some fall-off this season. We didn't expect it in the areas where it happened, but we got it nonetheless. OK. We can handle that. We didn't expect to be a Super Bowl team this year and we weren't. But there's next year, and with a bit of a new look, this Packers team can be good next year.
But if Ted doesn't make many changes this time around ... then I start putting him on the frying pan.
Alright, enough about the Packers and the worst team in the modern era record-wise. I did go and see Marquette/Presbyterian today and it was actually worth it.
 The good news today was the continued improvement of the bench. Lazar Hayward hit five threes today, Wes Mathews looked good fighting his way to the free-throw line again, Jerel McNeal had a kind of quiet day and Dominic James made a couple plays, but I was more impressed with the contributions of the guys off the pine, particularly Maurice Acker, who made a spectacular play near the end of the first half that I hope you get the chance to see on the highlight shows tonight.
After knocking the ball out of a Presbyterian player's hands, Acker, with the ball going out of bounds, fell over the ball, but did a Curley Neal-like move to keep his dribble, then get off a nifty pass that turned into a basket. It was a pretty amazing moment that showed great creativity and athleticism.
Chris Otule looked a little awkward at times, but showed good fight in picking up a pair of baskets. You can tell he still is kind of trying to figure things out and needs to realize that he can't do things with his size alone at this level. It's little stuff, like moving your feet to get a rebound rather than reaching for it, that he still needs to improve on. It seemed like he got more comfortable as the day went on, though.
Jimmy Butler is to the point where Buzz Williams doesn't seem to feel the need to have him out there getting a lot of time in a blowout right now. He looks confident and he looks like he belongs on the floor with this Marquette team. He makes a good strong forward with his size, though he can handle the ball like a guard. It's easy to call his eight points today "quiet."
Buzz might think Joe Fulce is a rebounder first and everything else second, but I like Joe's scrappiness and toughness down low. He showed a little more energy today than Otule did, which is something the bench players need to have. They know the stars of the show are Dom, Jerel and Wes, but when they're out there, they need to recognize they're wearing the same uniforms and need to play up to the same level as those guys if Marquette's going to be any good in 2009-10 and beyond.
The only guy I was a little frustrated with today was Patrick Hazel. There were a couple of times where he definitely could have moved his feet a little more and got a rebound accordingly. Hazel better be careful because little things like that could start costing him time late in the season if Fulce can play a little more under control.
David Cubillan hit a three, which was a bright spot, but I'm still a little surprised he isn't getting more opportunities. Granted, he's not a great defender and he doesn't have Acker's speed by any stretch of the imagination. But when Cubillan gets hot, he can hit threes and I actually kind of like the way he runs the offense. It's been suggested that the surgery Cubillan had over the off-season had an effect on David but I think there's something up with what Buzz wants to do and David not quite fitting in.
 It's all little stuff though. If Lazar's going to hit five threes, there isn't going to be much any opponent can do. You could tell today was Lazar's day. Hayward has struggled some lately and today was kind of his re-emergence. Having him hit outside shots creates a dangerous scenario for teams trying to defend Hayward: You have to come out to guard him, but a simple ball-fake can give him the chance to make the move down low where he can use his nifty post moves on you. Hayward is a very dangerous weapon and is kind of the X-factor in the Marquette offense because he gives you a presence in the post, depending upon how seriously teams take him versus Marquette's other components. I've always been a big Hayward fan and I was happy to see him have a big day today. Something tells me he's going to have a bang-up season next year and might have a solid career as a pro in front of him.
Even Dwight Burke made a basket today. Yipee.
It was nice to see a good, clean, 39 point win for Marquette in which they rebounded fairly well and took advantage of most offensive possessions.
A couple odds and ends, though: First off, there was a major scorer's table goof in the second half of the game as a foul that clearly should have been credited to Presbyterian's Al'Lonzo Coleman (number 34) was instead credited to Pierre Miller (number four) by public address announcer Mike Jakubowski and, apparently, the official scorer. The person running the individual stats for the scoreboard, I believe, got it right, giving Coleman a foul and not giving one to Miller. When Miller got a foul later, Jakubowski announced it was his second when it was really his first; I noticed two fouls got added to Miller's total on the scoreboard. Then, Coleman got called for a foul later that should have been his fifth -- the scoreboard still had the foul up for Coleman from earlier. Instead, it was called his fourth.
With the point differential in the game being about 40, a stink was not made on either side. Nonetheless, having been on the scorer's table staff for four years at UWM, I know there would have been hell to pay if we made a mistake like that at any point in time and I did see some confusion down at the table after the final foul on Coleman. The lesson is check, double-check, triple-check and always cross-check. I had an OCD-like nature when I was running the player board at UWM men's games, making sure I was on the list of names to get a stat sheet at every media timeout and always making sure my totals matched the official book's -- sometimes to the point where the sports info staff would get annoyed with me. I hate to be critical of Mike and the table staff since I know a lot of them (and would like to be a part of that group at some point), but for those of us that know about those things, have done them, take them seriously and would love to have the chance to do them at a place like Marquette would like to at least know the people ahead of them are doing the right thing.
And one more meaningless aside: Why are the scoresheets in the program not on facing pages? I have to tear the center four pages out of my program to score, unless I want to constantly be flipping back and forth between two pages in the book. Yes, people do score the games, but when you put the sheets on non-facing pages, that makes it a lot more difficult. C'mon, guys; fix this.
Sorry, that was inside-basketball ranting there. I guess I have to find things to complain about when you win by 39.
The NFL season wound up today as the playoff picture fell into place. Man, where did that year go?
The Carolina Panthers won the NFC South while the Atlanta Falcons will be the top wildcard, setting up an Atlanta Falcons/Arizona Cardinals playoff game. Atlanta/Arizona in the NFC playoffs, hosted in Glendale, Ariz. Eventually my head will stop shaking.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Eagles destroyed the Dallas Cowboys today, putting the Eagles in the playoffs ahead of the Cowboys and matching them up against the Vikings in the opening round. First off, this is a much more sane playoff matchup than the previous one discussed. Secondly, count me among the people who thought the Cowboys had a chance at winning the Super Bowl this season, much less making the playoffs, of which they will do neither. Tony Romo's December failures are starting to stick to his reputation and you have to start wondering whether this kid from Burlington is more Scott Mitchell than he is Troy Aikman. Romo looked really bad today and while you know he's certainly got an accurate arm and a good head on his shoulders, he's got a little too much Brett Favre in him in that he seems to refuse to tuck the ball under and take a sack while he also seems to throw the ball deep and get picked a lot more than he should (Ed Reed made mincemeat of Romo in Baltimore's win over Dallas). The Cowboys have been lucky to get off to good starts the last few seasons, keeping Terrell Owens from running his mouth too much. I can only imagine, though, what it will be like if the Cowboys struggle to start the year in their new Taj Mahal of a stadium next season. Personally, I'd like to see Jerry Jones and TO get into a shouting match. Two of the biggest jerks in all of sports yelling at each other. Great television if they can get it on tape.
Over in the AFC, the Dolphins have done the job and will host the Ravens in the first round of the playoffs. How about the Dolphins? And how about the Jets' fans for giving Chad Pennington an ovation as he walked off the field? Talk about a guy that got screwed. The Dolphins did turn things around and it goes to show you that the smallest bit of momentum can mean the biggest of things, even when major changes happen in an organization. The Dolphins only won one game in 2007, but it was an emotional win over the Ravens on a long overtime touchdown that gave the 'Phins a taste of victory I think they carried with them. Take note, Packers fans. Take note.
The Patriots won 11 games this year, yet will be the second-ever 11-win team to miss the playoffs. Given the recent behavior of Boston fans, who have rivaled Cubs fans for their utter arrogance with their very recent championship success in football and baseball, I don't think any of us feel sorry for the Pats.
Meanwhile, we eagerly await the Broncos final collapse as I type this blog to determine who will get the right to lose to the Colts next weekend. Not much to say other than this about Jay Cutler -- you're not as bad as a lot of Broncos fans say you are, but while comparisons to John Elway are very unfair, you're also not that great, either.
Not much else to discuss today other than the football stuff and the Marquette stuff. This blog had a kind of bitter feel to it. I apologize. Oh well.
More soon.
Photo: Mike McCarthy (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images/Yahoo! Sports)
Photo: Lazar Hayward (Darren Hauck/AP/ESPN)
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|
|
Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 27
City: Brookfield
State: Wisconsin
|
|