smoothupinya
10-22-05, 08:49 AM
Even I, a Steeler fan, can laugh at this...........
The Tommy Maddox Corollary
By Bill Simmons
After five years of writing this NFL column, I'm lodging an official protest.
Every week during the season, I bang out my research on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, watch all the relevant shows, grab a post-"Survivor" coffee and write until the wee hours of Thursday night. That's my routine. And over the years, I came to grips that things can change from Friday morning (my last chance to change a pick) to Sunday morning (when games start on the West Coast). Six or seven times a year, I'll get screwed by a late pregame injury or an unforeseen weather report. I'm fine with this.
But I'm drawing the line with last week's Tommy Maddox debacle. On Sunday morning, right around 9:48, my daughter and I were watching the pregame shows when we saw a chilling graphic flash on the bottom of the screen: "MADDOX TO START FOR STEELERS."
Now ...
You know how I feel about Maddox. During the 2002 season, when the Kordell Stewart Era was threatening to cause riots in Pittsburgh, Maddox assumed the quarterback job and played out of his mind -- including a 473-yard game against Atlanta -- before nearly getting paralyzed by an awkward hit against the Titans in mid-November. He's never been the same. Not even remotely. To be honest, I didn't even know he was still in the league. When Roethlisberger was injured last week, Chaz Batch was supposed to start for Pittsburgh. I'm fine with Chaz Batch -- you can win with him, his Detroit years were better than anyone remembers, and he won't single-handedly kill you. So I picked the Steelers giving three to the Jags, never imagining ...
"MADDOX TO START FOR STEELERS."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat????? Maybe it was too late to change the column, but I still had a chance to take the Jags in my picks league ... so I threw my baby in her Baby Einstein Activity Center (she started crying, but whatever, this was important), turned on my laptop and waited for Windows to load. At 9:54, I was online. At 9:55, I called up ESPN's "Pigskin Pick'Em" site, which hosts our league and was loading slower than usual.
Suddenly I realized something: There were probably 3 million people online right now who saw the Maddox flash and scurried online to change their pick. This was horrible. Who would have ever thought that Tommy Maddox could potentially crash ESPN.com? Finally, at 9:58, the site loaded and I changed my pick with two minutes to spare -- although the baby was throwing a full-fledged Cowher-like tantrum in her Baby Einstein thingie and needed another 20 minutes and a right breast (not mine) before she calmed down.
How did this turn out? If the Steelers-Jags game was the Pitt-Aniston marriage, Maddox would have been Angelina Jolie. He single-handedly changed the course of the game. It was unprecedented. Forget about the interception TD in overtime that lost the game, or the preceding fumble that squandered a certain game-winning field goal, or the other two interceptions, or all the other terrible plays he made ... near the end of the fourth quarter, he threw another potential game-losing interception that a Jags linebacker dropped on his way to the end zone. Meanwhile, Bill Cowher was standing on the sidelines frantically pressing the RESET button on his PlayStation to no avail.
Here's the point: If this ever happens again -- and by "this," I mean, "I pick the Steelers on Friday, and over the next 48 hours, we come to find out that Maddox is starting the game" -- let's make a gentlemen's agreement that my pick switches to the other team. And I don't care if the other team is the Sex Cruise Vikings, the Dead Man Walking Texans, you name it. He made my baby cry, he made Steelers fans cry, he nearly made me cry. I'm never, ever, ever, EVER getting stuck backing Tommy Maddox again. We're calling this the "Maddox Corollary."
Five other quarterbacks qualify this season: Jonathan Quinn; Chad Hutchinson; JP Losman; AJ Feeley; and, of course, Mr. Jamie Martin. If any of them are announced as the starter for a 2005 game after my picks column is handed in, the pick switches to the other team because of the Maddox Corollary. I can't have this happen again.
While we're here, some other things I noticed during Week Six ...
• My favorite running NFL Package moment is flipping channels and coming across a Saints game right after an Aaron Brooks incomplete pass, followed by the announcer saying, "Slow start for Aaron Brooks" as Brooks stands there with his hands on his hips and a dumb smile on his face. I think this has happened to me 75 times over the last six years.
• Wes Welker, Rock Cartwright and Boss Bailey ... those sound like three of the characters in "Brokeback Mountain." There's no way those are real names. Why isn't anyone investigating this? The "Madden" engine has been making up names for real NFL players all season and nobody cares.
• Chad Johnson has gold teeth, he cries after losses, he talks trash, he's a gamer, he just wants to win. Absolutely. Now let's never hear any of these five things again.
• There's a Fox announcer who refuses to get excited no matter what's happening in the game -- he makes Pat Summerall sound like Kevin Harlan. Not sure of his name. Anyway, if his producers are reading this, get the dude some coffee. Seriously.
• Did you see Kenoy Kennedy's vicious hit on Delhomme that knocked him out of the Carolina-Detroit game? I've been asking this ever since Warran Sapp twisted Jerry Rice's head around and blew out Rice's knee on the same play in 1997, but why can't we have penalties more than 15 yards? Like that Kennedy hit -- that should have been like a 50-yard penalty, right? Or when Romo broke Kerry Collins' jaw -- that should have been a 125-yard penalty. They need to change this.
• Let's just say that I picked Gus Frerotte (and Miami) for two straight weeks on the road, and you will see me gargle with hydrochloric acid before it happens a third time.
• Vikings-related jokes and headlines that just aren't funny anymore: Anything involving the Whizzinator; any headline involving the phrase "Viking Funeral"; and the "purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka" joke. Done, done and done.
• This is bothering me even after the 10,000th viewing: Why didn't Tom Brady convince Bridget Moynihan to film the Visa commercial with him? Was she busy cutting a commentary for the "I Robot" DVD or something? Did the Visa people go out of their way to find a dead ringer for her, or was it just an astounding coincidence? And was Bridget ticked off when she saw the commercial? I mean, if I ever filmed a commercial and there was a Sports Gal lookalike in it, somehow I feel like I would get blamed and sucked into one of those pseudo-arguments where she asks questions like, "Did she hit on you?" and "You probably liked having an actress play me, didn't you?"
(By the way, don't get married. I'm serious.)
• Shhhhhhhhh ... we're getting very close to the Chester Taylor Era ... it's coming ...
• This has nothing to do with Week Six, but to the person who kept farting somewhere around the 10th row of the 12:54 PM United flight from Denver to Los Angeles yesterday ... may you burn in hell.
• Cris Carter's anti-Romanowski tirade on "Inside the NFL" this week single-handedly redeemed every HBO/Carter moment that has come before it. Tremendous television. Bob Costas couldn't have thrown it to the next game fast enough -- I kept expecting them to come back from the next game with a terrified Costas.
• Note to Fox: I would wager that 95 to 98 percent of the guys watching your pregame show are guys. Of that 95 to 98 percent, probably 96 to 98 percent have never had a conversation that included the words, "Hey, who do you think is the Sexiest Man in the NFL?" If your goal was to get me to turn the channel, it worked.
• Finally, when the Patriots announced that Tedy Bruschi was returning this week, we reached a new low in the "I don't make sports fun for fans to follow, so I'm going to play the contrarian role and just tick them off" game that has haunted the Boston sports scene for the last few years: Some media members tried to claim that Bruschi was being selfish for coming back, causing such a "major" distraction and even jeopardizing his family's future. Selfish? For being cleared medically by every doctor he had, then deciding to resume his football career? That's selfish? Also, who are they to decide what's best for Bruschi and his family?
On FSN's local TV show in Boston, I watched one of these contrarians smugly making the selfish argument with the incredulous hosts for a few minutes, followed by the guy shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Hey, you pay for me my opinion." I have this on TiVo -- even saved it. And you wonder why the sports fans in New England are crazy -- if Boston fans are like passengers on an airplane who are afraid to fly, some of these media members are like stewardesses who just walk up and down the cabin screaming, "We're all gonna die! We're all gonna die!" Then they return to their little flight attendant area, high-five each other and wait for the checks to clear. What a travesty.
The Tommy Maddox Corollary
By Bill Simmons
After five years of writing this NFL column, I'm lodging an official protest.
Every week during the season, I bang out my research on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, watch all the relevant shows, grab a post-"Survivor" coffee and write until the wee hours of Thursday night. That's my routine. And over the years, I came to grips that things can change from Friday morning (my last chance to change a pick) to Sunday morning (when games start on the West Coast). Six or seven times a year, I'll get screwed by a late pregame injury or an unforeseen weather report. I'm fine with this.
But I'm drawing the line with last week's Tommy Maddox debacle. On Sunday morning, right around 9:48, my daughter and I were watching the pregame shows when we saw a chilling graphic flash on the bottom of the screen: "MADDOX TO START FOR STEELERS."
Now ...
You know how I feel about Maddox. During the 2002 season, when the Kordell Stewart Era was threatening to cause riots in Pittsburgh, Maddox assumed the quarterback job and played out of his mind -- including a 473-yard game against Atlanta -- before nearly getting paralyzed by an awkward hit against the Titans in mid-November. He's never been the same. Not even remotely. To be honest, I didn't even know he was still in the league. When Roethlisberger was injured last week, Chaz Batch was supposed to start for Pittsburgh. I'm fine with Chaz Batch -- you can win with him, his Detroit years were better than anyone remembers, and he won't single-handedly kill you. So I picked the Steelers giving three to the Jags, never imagining ...
"MADDOX TO START FOR STEELERS."
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat????? Maybe it was too late to change the column, but I still had a chance to take the Jags in my picks league ... so I threw my baby in her Baby Einstein Activity Center (she started crying, but whatever, this was important), turned on my laptop and waited for Windows to load. At 9:54, I was online. At 9:55, I called up ESPN's "Pigskin Pick'Em" site, which hosts our league and was loading slower than usual.
Suddenly I realized something: There were probably 3 million people online right now who saw the Maddox flash and scurried online to change their pick. This was horrible. Who would have ever thought that Tommy Maddox could potentially crash ESPN.com? Finally, at 9:58, the site loaded and I changed my pick with two minutes to spare -- although the baby was throwing a full-fledged Cowher-like tantrum in her Baby Einstein thingie and needed another 20 minutes and a right breast (not mine) before she calmed down.
How did this turn out? If the Steelers-Jags game was the Pitt-Aniston marriage, Maddox would have been Angelina Jolie. He single-handedly changed the course of the game. It was unprecedented. Forget about the interception TD in overtime that lost the game, or the preceding fumble that squandered a certain game-winning field goal, or the other two interceptions, or all the other terrible plays he made ... near the end of the fourth quarter, he threw another potential game-losing interception that a Jags linebacker dropped on his way to the end zone. Meanwhile, Bill Cowher was standing on the sidelines frantically pressing the RESET button on his PlayStation to no avail.
Here's the point: If this ever happens again -- and by "this," I mean, "I pick the Steelers on Friday, and over the next 48 hours, we come to find out that Maddox is starting the game" -- let's make a gentlemen's agreement that my pick switches to the other team. And I don't care if the other team is the Sex Cruise Vikings, the Dead Man Walking Texans, you name it. He made my baby cry, he made Steelers fans cry, he nearly made me cry. I'm never, ever, ever, EVER getting stuck backing Tommy Maddox again. We're calling this the "Maddox Corollary."
Five other quarterbacks qualify this season: Jonathan Quinn; Chad Hutchinson; JP Losman; AJ Feeley; and, of course, Mr. Jamie Martin. If any of them are announced as the starter for a 2005 game after my picks column is handed in, the pick switches to the other team because of the Maddox Corollary. I can't have this happen again.
While we're here, some other things I noticed during Week Six ...
• My favorite running NFL Package moment is flipping channels and coming across a Saints game right after an Aaron Brooks incomplete pass, followed by the announcer saying, "Slow start for Aaron Brooks" as Brooks stands there with his hands on his hips and a dumb smile on his face. I think this has happened to me 75 times over the last six years.
• Wes Welker, Rock Cartwright and Boss Bailey ... those sound like three of the characters in "Brokeback Mountain." There's no way those are real names. Why isn't anyone investigating this? The "Madden" engine has been making up names for real NFL players all season and nobody cares.
• Chad Johnson has gold teeth, he cries after losses, he talks trash, he's a gamer, he just wants to win. Absolutely. Now let's never hear any of these five things again.
• There's a Fox announcer who refuses to get excited no matter what's happening in the game -- he makes Pat Summerall sound like Kevin Harlan. Not sure of his name. Anyway, if his producers are reading this, get the dude some coffee. Seriously.
• Did you see Kenoy Kennedy's vicious hit on Delhomme that knocked him out of the Carolina-Detroit game? I've been asking this ever since Warran Sapp twisted Jerry Rice's head around and blew out Rice's knee on the same play in 1997, but why can't we have penalties more than 15 yards? Like that Kennedy hit -- that should have been like a 50-yard penalty, right? Or when Romo broke Kerry Collins' jaw -- that should have been a 125-yard penalty. They need to change this.
• Let's just say that I picked Gus Frerotte (and Miami) for two straight weeks on the road, and you will see me gargle with hydrochloric acid before it happens a third time.
• Vikings-related jokes and headlines that just aren't funny anymore: Anything involving the Whizzinator; any headline involving the phrase "Viking Funeral"; and the "purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka" joke. Done, done and done.
• This is bothering me even after the 10,000th viewing: Why didn't Tom Brady convince Bridget Moynihan to film the Visa commercial with him? Was she busy cutting a commentary for the "I Robot" DVD or something? Did the Visa people go out of their way to find a dead ringer for her, or was it just an astounding coincidence? And was Bridget ticked off when she saw the commercial? I mean, if I ever filmed a commercial and there was a Sports Gal lookalike in it, somehow I feel like I would get blamed and sucked into one of those pseudo-arguments where she asks questions like, "Did she hit on you?" and "You probably liked having an actress play me, didn't you?"
(By the way, don't get married. I'm serious.)
• Shhhhhhhhh ... we're getting very close to the Chester Taylor Era ... it's coming ...
• This has nothing to do with Week Six, but to the person who kept farting somewhere around the 10th row of the 12:54 PM United flight from Denver to Los Angeles yesterday ... may you burn in hell.
• Cris Carter's anti-Romanowski tirade on "Inside the NFL" this week single-handedly redeemed every HBO/Carter moment that has come before it. Tremendous television. Bob Costas couldn't have thrown it to the next game fast enough -- I kept expecting them to come back from the next game with a terrified Costas.
• Note to Fox: I would wager that 95 to 98 percent of the guys watching your pregame show are guys. Of that 95 to 98 percent, probably 96 to 98 percent have never had a conversation that included the words, "Hey, who do you think is the Sexiest Man in the NFL?" If your goal was to get me to turn the channel, it worked.
• Finally, when the Patriots announced that Tedy Bruschi was returning this week, we reached a new low in the "I don't make sports fun for fans to follow, so I'm going to play the contrarian role and just tick them off" game that has haunted the Boston sports scene for the last few years: Some media members tried to claim that Bruschi was being selfish for coming back, causing such a "major" distraction and even jeopardizing his family's future. Selfish? For being cleared medically by every doctor he had, then deciding to resume his football career? That's selfish? Also, who are they to decide what's best for Bruschi and his family?
On FSN's local TV show in Boston, I watched one of these contrarians smugly making the selfish argument with the incredulous hosts for a few minutes, followed by the guy shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Hey, you pay for me my opinion." I have this on TiVo -- even saved it. And you wonder why the sports fans in New England are crazy -- if Boston fans are like passengers on an airplane who are afraid to fly, some of these media members are like stewardesses who just walk up and down the cabin screaming, "We're all gonna die! We're all gonna die!" Then they return to their little flight attendant area, high-five each other and wait for the checks to clear. What a travesty.