Eagles’ Gritty, Run-Oriented Offense

Paragraph in Bill Bradley’s column in today’s Sacramento Bee:

While the Cardinals and the Eagles have been reborn in the playoffs, there’s no changing their wings. The Cardinals, who had the NFL’s third-highest scoring offense, have become more balanced but still like to air it out. The Eagles play gritty run-oriented football.

Presumably, Bill Bradley was not in Philadelphia this fall for the non-stop torrent of every Eagles fan ever urging the team to throw the ball. But, you know, maybe he could have like looked up the Eagles to see if they were, indeed, a running team? And, hey, look! The Eagles page on NFL.com has them 6th in passing yards and 22nd in rushing yards!

But whatever: This was a major story in the NFL all season. And Andy Reid, coach of the Eagles, is famous for passing the most of any coach in NFL history. If you are paid to write about football, you should know this. You have to know this! You could not possibly be a big football fan and not know that Andy Reid likes to throw the ball.

I don’t think it’s just a typo or slip, and not just because he clarifies that the Eagles’ rushing attack is “gritty.” The column’s about how people should root for the Ravens and Cardinals if they want a high-scoring, fun, non-boring Super Bowl. Nevermind that Brian Westbrook and Donovan McNabb are known for being pretty damn exciting or that people enjoy defensive football more than people like, say, low-scoring basketball. Or that the Steelers were so exciting the last time they played in the Super Bowl they threw a wide receiver pass, the first time it had ever been done in the big game.

My question is: Why is this a column? Who to root for in the conference championships? What football fan doesn’t already have a rooting interest? Sure, I’m an Eagles fan, but I have teams I tend to enjoy because of a certain player or two, or their history or colors or they had Ickey Woods or whatever. I generally have soft spots for the Steelers and Bengals, and maybe the Lions out of pity. I guess I could root for a team so that the next time I watch football there is a chance it will be more exciting, but, I dunno, I think I’ll stick to hoping the Eagles face the Steelers in the Super Bowl because it’d be neat to have an all-Pennsylvania game, and I think it would be interesting to see if each team’s fans could actually be civil and not murder each other. (I’d actually say this is more likely than you think.)

I know it’s not a big deal. I write more than enough about stupid stuff, and “who to root for” isn’t exactly the worst thing ever. The new service journalism, telling you who to root for in athletic contests and then rendering that service moot by reporting the team with the coach that throws more than any coach in NFL history has a gritty rushing attack.

Leading Off: Want an exciting Super Bowl - or a boring one? [Sacramento Bee via FanNation]

Why The Eagles Will Win The Super Bowl

Every sports fan has a conspiracy theory about his favorite sport. Juiced baseballs. Collegiate referees betting on games and making a killing. Forced steroid injections.

A lot of these theories are bunk, but this one is true: The NFL is rigged. It’s the only major sport that uses radios. Referees have a lot of leeway about what calls to make. People gamble a lot of money on it. Come on, last year’s Super Bowl? No way Eli Manning leads a game-winning drive to beat the 18-0 Patriots. No way.

Now that I’ve given you this mountain of circumstantial evidence (and not even, really), I hope you’ve come to agree. But don’t fret! It’s like pro wrestling: The actors have a lot of leeway, and it’s still pretty fun to watch. And there’s an added bonus: Since the NFL is rigged, this football season has only one logical conclusion.

The Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the Super Bowl.

Think about it: There isn’t a much better story than Andy Reid and the once-benched Donovan McNabb rallying the Eagles to finally win the big one. Even if it’s not the NFL has to be worried about this city embracing the Phillies after winning the World Series. (The NFL saw only two football moments on that 100 years of Phillymag piece and was totally concerned.)

I hope the NFL doesn’t mind my suggestion here for a way to end the regular season. If things fall as they might, the Eagles and Cowboys’ final regular season game could be a “play-in” game for the playoffs. The Eagles would be 9-5-1; Dallas 9-6. The game goes to overtime. Nobody can move the ball… and the game can end with Donovan McNabb kneeling out for the tie that puts the Birds at 9-5-2 and puts them into the playoffs.

The rest is easy: Beating up on a bad division champ in the wild card round, beating the Giants at the Meadowlands again in the divisional round, et cetera. Now that I’ve mentioned it, doesn’t it all just seem to fall into place?

Court In Phila. Tosses FCC Fine

Hooray! A heroic federal appeals court in Philadelphia — a judicial panel including Midge Rendell — this morning tossed out the hillion-jillion dollar fine the FCC levied on CBS for the Janet Jackson nipple-flashing incident in the 2004 Super Bowl.

Yes, apparently the court just got around to ruling on this event, which happened while I was still in college during the Patriots-Panthers Super Bowl. Jake Delhomme almost won Super Bowl MVP! Remember that? No, of course not, it was a Patriots Super Bowl win and you’ve hopefully put it out of your mind. Well, ha ha, now it’s back in. And so is this term: “Wardrobe malfunction.” It’s like the second half of senior year of college all over again. For me, at least.

“The Commission’s determination that CBS’ broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy,” the court found. “Its orders constituted the announcement of a policy change — that fleeting images would no longer be excluded from the scope of actionable indecency.” Umm, yes, whatever. The little plucky underdog, CBS, has successfully challenged its fine, which would have put it out of business if enacted.

Thanks for making us side with a giant media conglomerate, FCC.

Update: Here’s the ruling, in all its PDF-y glory.

Court tosses FCC `wardrobe malfunction’ fine [AP/Yahoo!]

Johnny Doc Supports Football

BradyDale noted the above poster on YoungPhillyPolitics that Johnny Doc apparently had around the Super Bowl.

John Dougherty is against drinking and driving. And he supports the Super Bowl! Where do you stand?

Eli Manning Somehow Wins Super Bowl

Wow. The Ron Paul Blimp coulda crashed into the field — through the roof of the dome! — and I would have been less surprised than watching Eli Manning lead the game-winning drive in the final minute. Yes, the Giants are Super Bowl Champs, and now you have to hear about it from your annoying college friends for another few years or so. Thanks, Patriots, even when you fail to go undefeated you screw me over.

So, yes, the Super Bowl champs are a team that only beat one team with a winning record (Washington) during the regular season and beat the Eagles in game one without Westbrook and in game two when David Akers’ game-tying 59-yard field goal hit the upright.

The highlight of the game was clearly the end of the pregame show, where Ben Franklin impersonator Ralph Archbold (and other historical impersonators who probably aren’t as famous as Archbold since Philadelphia has no celebrities) helped introduce the Declaration of Independence. This had a lot to do with football.

The Founding Fathers were once again shown as freedom fighters instead of a bunch of annoying slave-humping, cannabis-smoking rich people who didn’t want to pay taxes. (They were kind of the Ron Paul supporters of their day, only effective.) Anyway, the dirty terrorist Giants defeated the all-American Patriots yesterday, so that means six more weeks of winter and it probably means John McCain wins the presidency to get us into 100 more years of war.

[video via The 700 Level]

Old Newspapers Are Always Awesome

The Inquirer has a gallery of 41 years of day after Super Bowl sports pages, from the Green Bay Packers’ win in the first Super Bowl to the Mastercard Priceless Pep Talks victory over the Bears last year. (Psst: Hey, can you guys please do more of this?) The Inquirer also has links to the game story from each year, which is going to make local sports fans feel old when they realize Gordon Forbes recapped Super Bowl 3.

There’s a ton of fun stuff, including the Inky’s concise headline for the Eagles’ Super Bowl 15 loss, “Eagles save their worst for last as Raiders romp to crown, 27-10.” I think my favorite cover is the one attached to this post, where the big story was not that the Packers won but that the team they beat was better than the previous year’s.

41 Years of Inquire Sports Pages from Super Monday [Inquirer]

Revisionist History

A hearty fellow on eBay is selling the t-shirt at right, apparently saved from the incinerator after the Eagles lost Super Bowl 39.

BIdding is up to just over $26 — I’ve already been outbid — so with shipping included it’s only a little over 30 bucks right now to pretend the Eagles covered Mike Vrabel on the goal line even thought everybody knew the pass was going to him, or maybe to pretend the Eagles remembered what the hurry-up offense was.

You know what? I think it’s easier to pretend that game never happened than to pretend the Eagles won it.

ERROR Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl 39 Champs T-Shirt [eBay via Bleeding Green Nation]

Thanks, Internet: Gays, Bloggers Join Together To Rid World Of Annoying Commercials

I, like all good Americans, had a grand old time watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. And, like all good Americans, I sat on the egde of my seat during every commercial break, waiting to see what ad would come next: Hilarious ad about creatures that do not normally have the capability to crave beer, let alone a specific brand, craving beer; or incomprehensible series of events followed by insurance company logo.

Unfortunately, the ads this year weren’t very good. Actually, most of them weren’t really bad; they were just forgettable. One not-so-forgettable ad was the Snickers ad where two guys accidentally kiss while eating a Snickers. Upon seeing this ad, I immediately though: “Boy, I sure thought that ad was annoying. You know, I’d like to never, ever see it again.” I couldn’t really fathom how this would happen, of course; Super Bowl ads from major candy companies would probably be on the air a million billion times again.

But never did I guess that someone would come to my rescue. Daniel Rubin — in a post cleverly headlined “Snickers” — writes Snickers has removed the ad and its alternate endings from the Internet after an uproar from bloggers and gay and lesbian groups. Apparently, instead of just ripping off their hair to confirm their manliness as they did in the Super Bowl ad, the alternate endings featured them beating on each other with wrenches or something.

And, apparently, this encouraged violence against lesbians and gays. Rather than admit it was all part of a secret advertising plot — “Snickers: The candy bar to keep you energized so you can commit hate crimes!” — the company apologized and pulled the ads from the Internet. Now they’ll probably never be seen again!

In conclusion: I could never, ever fathom a scenario in which I could form an actual opinion on whether the Snickers ads were offensive to gays. But, fortunately, I have people on the Internet to do it for me, and now there are fewer annoying ads on television. It’s a win-win!

In other news, I heard those Head-On ads have lead to, like, several instances of Polish jokes. Can somebody get those of my TV, too?

Snickers [Blinq]

Super Letdown

A correction from this week’s Center City Weekly Press:

Yes, clearly, that was the story in last week’s paper that needed a correction.

Saturday: Weekly Press: Powerhouse University Of Pennsylvania Takes On Galloping Ghost Red Grange

NFL Restrictions Drive Local TV Anchors To Insanity

As you may know, the NFL runs a very tight ship in regards to its footage. NFL Films does a great job with all the footage, but only licenses footage to… I dunno, whatever. I don’t know how it works. But (it seems) only news broadcasts and those who pay out the ass can show NFL footage, especially Super Bowl footage. And you certainly can’t put it online. (You have to go to NFL.com for that!)

This puts local television hosts in a tough situation. When talking about last night’s Super Bowl, the hosts of 10! weren’t able to show any footage. Fortunately, Lori Wilson channeled her second grade ways and was able to use action figures and stuffed toys to create a fairly accurate recap.

Oh, also, Bill Henley is wearing a Peyton Manning jersey and shoulderpads in this clip.

To the NFL: Please don’t ever release your footage. We’d lose moments like this.

Oh, and also, this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.