Not exactly surprising. Of course Goodell is just going to tell himself that these are a handful of fans who are greatly mistaken. But the owners have done everything possibly wrong if they were trying to win the PR battle. The fact that the league decided to end the CBA early, that the owners won’t open the books, that most fans don’t want an 18 game schedule, etc … It’s not just a pocket of fans that happened to have been at the draft last night. You could put fans from just about anywhere across the nation and the reaction would have been the same. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
I wonder behind the scenes what’s going on. Owners have been forcing local and state governments to pay for their new stadiums. The lockout looks largely to be the fault of the Owners. Do the owners owe these communities games? Should the owners pay back some of these communities if there aren’t games? I really would love to see what would happen if for example the city of Philly sued the Eagles for not having games. That’s what the owners would deserve, a little payback for holding cities ransom over new stadiums.
It’s easy to make multi-millionaire sports athletes look bad. Especially when it was the NHLPA and MLBPA trying their best to not get a salary cap. But at just about every turn so far it seems the Owners are doing everything to be the villains here. It’s like that South Park episode in which Lars Ulrich complained that he had to get a regular tiger cage, and not a golden tiger cage.
Tonight while I was going through some random NFL stats I noticed that Micheal Vick is currently the highest rated passer in the NFL at 112 (or so) QB Rating. At the same time not too much further down the list is Kevin Kolb at 98.3 QB Rating. I got curious as to when the last time two QBs on the same team finished the season with a 100 or higher QB rating while making 40 throwing attempts or more. It’s a really short list.
In 2003 Billy Volek started one game and played in 7 others finishing 44 of 69 with 4 TDs to 1 INT. McNair was the primary starter finishing the year with a 100.1 QB Rating while posting 24 TDs to 7 INTs.
In 1987 and 1989 Steve Young and Joe Montana both finished over 100 QB Rating. But still the primary starter was Montana, as Young finished with 90 Attempts in 89 and 69 Attempts in 87. He started 3 games in 89 and 1 game in 87.
Now Young and Montana are both in the Hall of Fame, so I’m not going to say the Kolb/Vick duo is any better then them. But as of right now Kolb and Vick have split the season almost exactly between them. They both have played 4 games, they are within 9 attempts of each other (Kolb leads at 105) within 1 TD of each other (Vick has 6) and within 5 yards of one another (Kolb has 804).
These are stats that are head and shoulders above what any of the other three QB duos have managed with their backups. It’s easy to finish with a good QB rating behind a good team and only playing one or two games during the season. Vick and Kolb are doing something which has never done before. In actuality when you have two QBs splitting time like this it’s usually something that hurts the team.
Just for a frame of reference I tried to find a team with two QBs who started at least two games and were both over a 90 QB Rating. Since 1990 that has only happened once. The Philadelphia Eagles, the season that they had Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb both manage an above 90 QB Rating.
The question is will Reid use this to his advantage, or find some way in the long run to screw over both Kolb and Vick so that he ruins the team for this season. It is an interesting idea if he goes into games with both Vick and Kolb as his starting QBs. It keeps teams from being able to gameplan against just one of them, and if one of them struggles he can always switch things up. A team ready for Kolb the pocket passer might be exploited by Vick, meanwhile a team ready for Vick to run and forcing him to pass may get lit up by Vick.
It’s not a perfect system or a perfect world. But when you have one of the best QB Duos in easily the last twenty years (as much as I love Billy Volek, he’s a backup) you should use it to your advantage instead of it becoming a weakness. If both QBs can put aside their Egos they can easily make this one of the most exciting teams to watch in the last few years. I just get the feeling in the long run no good will come of this.
Another year, it seems like another bunch of blowouts in the divisional round. Last year the Ravens squeaked by the Titans in an awful game. The rest were pretty much decided early as the Steelers manhandled the Chargers, Cardinals destroyed the Panthers and Eagles thumped the Giants.
This year so far you have the Saints burying the Cardinals and the Colts just destroying the Ravens. You know, the game that all the talking heads predicted the Colts would lose because they rested their starters? oops, not so much. For that matter there was those that said the Saints entering the playoffs with three straight losses would have an effect on them. Shockingly not playing Wild Card weekend let them rest and heal up while the banged up Cards were no where near as good as they could be.
Tomorrow is even worse. I hate the Cowboys and I hate the Vikings. I hope they find a way to eliminate each other from the playoffs. I’ve almost always hated the Cowboys. It seems like during the 90s every front runner on the planet became a fan of them. The most annoying fans possible of course. The funny thing is most of them are Steeler fans now. You know, the Steelers, one of the biggest rivals of the Cowboys in the history of the league. I hate those kind of fans.
So is this parity? An easy march to the Super Bowl for the best teams? Even the Baltimore game seemed to have some questionable calls early that helped dull any momentum they had. I’m just annoyed that it seems to be the same dam teams every year. This is probably despite the fact that it isn’t the same teams every year and last years Super Bowl Winner is playing golf (YAY!)
This is just my rant before the Jets play. I know its about a hundred to one shot of them winning, but I’m hoping for it. Rex Ryan is too much fun to be done for the season already. Revis Island is also one of the greatest Jets quotes in years. Also, the Islanders continue their winning ways and pushing towards the playoffs. Maybe for once I’ll actually be able to cheer for one of my teams in a championship game. Yes, I do realize the Mets have been to the World Series, but they still don’t count. I don’t watch Baseball anymore, too long.
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