Something To Think About...

No matter how many teams he's ruined, quarterbacks he's insulted, offensive coordinators he's pissed off, Terrell Owens, now a free agent, still presents one of the more difficult quandaries in sports.

Do you sign the talented superstar, and willingly accept the superstar's baggage and surrounding bull crap in hopes that he continues his past trend and does make your team better, or do you forge ahead with your "team first attitude" and hope that a second rate wide out corps can get the job done?

On the radio in New York, it's being talked about as I write this.  Should the Giants pick him up?  How about T.O. in Gang Green?  The Raiders, as is the legally required mandate in all NFL free agent talks, come up in the discussion as well.

What I want to know is, do you think he's worth it for your team?  I know we've got a bunch of Bear fans reading this, how do you feel about Owens playing for your squad?  Any other fans reading, please get at us.

I find it interesting to hear what people have to say about him.  There's really no denying how much better he's made teams and players.  Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb, and the Eagles as an organization can all vouch for that.  But, how many other great players switch teams as often as Owens does?  Thus, the issue.

Let me know...

(For the record, if the Bucs had a quarterback of any repute, I'd say go after him, just to see.  But, seeing as how Luke McCown could very easily be the starting QB, I'd hold off on a big name wideout for now).

The Monday Morning Longsnapper

Cancel Your Playoff Plans Edition

If you live in New York (and wear green and white), Denver, Dallas, or Tampa, you've got to be extremely disappointed with your football teams' efforts.  There's no true way to describe how awful these teams played, not just this past week, but over the last quarter of the season.

It's honestly even hard to pin one down as the worst choke job of them all.  

Tampa has to be up there, losing four in a row to close the season, allowing more than 30 points  per game in that stretch (which just included a home loss to Oakland and Walter Payton...sorry, Michael Bush).

The Jets would have to get serious consideration, too.  They join the Bucs as the only two teams to start out at least 8-3 and not make the playoffs since 2002, and the advent of the current four division set up.  Road losses to the dregs of the league in Seattle and San Fran obviously don't help anyone's cause.  Neither does Brett Favre saving his absolute worst stretch of the season for the end (2 TDs to 9 INTs in the final 5 weeks).

Denver is just bad, plain and simple.  Good teams don't give up 52 points.  Good teams don't lose home games to Oakland and Buffalo in the same calendar year.  Good teams don't lost to Kansas City, anywhere.

And last, Dallas.  If you're really surprised by this latest Dallas collapse, then you've mysteriously either missed out on the last few seasons of awful Decembers for the Boys, or, you refuse to believe it could happen again.  Can Tony Romo have a full good season before people anoint him as anything other than an average QB?  As far as I see it, he's a guy that gets injured too often and has a real hard time winning games either in December or January or any other time labelled as "big".

• You think Pittsburgh's rethinking playing Ben Roethlisberger after watching him take a beating that lead to his leaving the game with a concussion?  Maybe, but, that sort of thing happens sometimes.  If it had happened in the third quarter, there's beef.  As it is now, that bye week should be enough.
• Stat of the Day:  the Browns haven't scored an offensive TD since Nov. 17th.  That's a string of 6 games to close the year, without one.  So long, Romeo.
• Whether or not you're from the New York area (in fact, unless you root for the Jets), you've got to be happy for Chad Pennington.  After being let loose for the golden goose, he latched on with a one win team, and most people in the NY area figured never to hear from him again, at least not with anything serious on the line.  To have him come into the final game of the season in the Meadowlands, and not only beat his former team, but kick them out of the playoffs...Mmmm, revenge is sweet.
• Who says the one-running back systems are dead?  Don't tell that to Michael Turner.  First full season in the books, pretty darn good.  Nearly 17-hundred yards, 17 TDs and two 200+ yard games.  And, oh yeah, he lead the league in carries.
• Of course, this wouldn't be complete without a reference to the now infamous Detroit Lions.  At one point during the broadcast, the Detroit announcers referred to the roster as the worst roster in the NFL.  The final call went something to the effect of "16 times the Lions thought this Sunday was theirs, 16 times, they were wrong".  Obviously, this isn't just a one year problem.  Those of you thinking this year's Lions will be next year's Miami--not so fast.  Detroit's lost 97 games over the past 8 seasons.  Getting rid of that clown Millen is a great start, but, from there, it's truly anyone's guess.  I don't root for Detroit, nor do I truly care how they do.  But, for their own sake, could they at least work at not being the biggest joke in the league?  Until that point, get them off the Thanksgiving Day game.  If 0-16 doesn't kick you off that game, nothing will.
• Houston is on the brink of something big.  Maybe it'll just take Matt Schaub to be healthy for the whole season.  Maybe another year of dominance from Mario Williams.  Who knows?  But, they're going to be good, and real quick.

Special season wrap up edition of the Longsnapper coming mid-week.

Much Ado About Nothing

Every year, all we hear about from the talking heads on TV is how good the Dallas Cowboys will be, or how good they are.

They have so much talent, they proclaim.  This will be the year they break through and represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, they'll shout.

But, as usual, the talking heads are wrong.  "America's Team" is much ado about nothing.

Sure, they have a good quarterback in Tony Romo.  The Eastern Illinois product has been impressive in the regular season over the last three seasons for the Boys, posting a QB rating over 94 each year and amassing 81 touchdown passes.

Yet he's also choked in big spots for Dallas, costing them opportunities to really cement themselves as a legitimate force.  Remember the first round of the playoffs in 2006? The botched snap?  Or the NFC Divisional Game last year when the Giants held Romo's great offense to 17 points at home in a loss to the Giants?  What about just a couple of weeks ago, when Romo's pick-6 cost the Cowboys a much needed victory in Pittsburgh in the final minutes?

They have a bevy of good running backs.  Marion Barber, Felix Jones, now Tashard Choice.  All three have been effective.

They have a bunch of big name receivers (Jason Witten and Roy Williams being among them).  They have the loud-mouthed, cocky Terrell Owens, who is so important to the worldwide leader they have Ed Werder devoted to covering his every move.  Owens has never won a Super Bowl, and while it can be argued that without him the Eagles would have never reached the big game in 2005 (2004 season), he is credited with destroying locker rooms more than he is helping them.

Their defense is good at times.  But this past week, as Scott mentioned in this week's Monday Morning Longsnapper, the defense allowed two 75-plus yard rushes and they blew a golden opportunity to cement their playoff status at home. 

And yet they're still the big talk on the networks all week long.

Let's look at the facts.  Other than last season's 13-3 record and #1 seed in the NFC playoffs, the Cowboys have won nine games each of the two previous seasons, and six the year before that.  This year's team has only nine wins, and with a loss this week may be the third 9-7 team in the last four years.  Does a 9-7 team really deserve as much attention as this one gets?

Do something in the playoffs first.  Do something that actually matters.  As a fan of the biggest choke team in sports history, I know that people get tired of watching a team fail to fulfill expectations year in and year out.  Until Dallas actually has multiple good regular seasons, and at least advances to the NFC Championship, what are we talking about here?  All this team has is a bunch of big named players that can't do anything when it counts the most.

They may have a lot of big stars on the field, and a star on their helmets.  But until they win something, they're much ado about nothing.

The Monday Morning Longsnapper

Tale of Two Seasons Edition

With a week to go, it's clear, to me at least, that this NFL season can be divided into two distinct seasons for many NFL teams.  Some started off like world beaters, only to fade, pathetically.  Others kicked off like Keystone Cops (note the title in the video), and wound up possibly playing for spots in that little post-season tourney they have every season.

According to research done by more qualified reporters, no team that has started out at least 8-3, since the formation of the four division set in the NFL in 2002, has not made the playoffs.  This year, two teams, both not in control of their own destiny, could change that.  Tampa, after a 9-3 start has fizzled, losing three in a row, and now need a win and Dallas loss in Week 16.  The Jets, after inexplicable losses to Seattle and San Francisco, find themselves in need of a win and either a Patriots or Ravens loss to get in.  The honest likelihood is that one of these teams will be the first.

But, it's not just them.  Philly was 5-5-1 after 11 weeks, and now, while a 3 point effort against the Redskins hasn't helped them much, they find themselves in playoff contention.  That Redskins team, the same one that was 7-3, dropped three straight before winning last week to ensure they wouldn't make the playoffs.

How about the indestructible Giants?  The 11-1, home-field throughout the NFC locked up, Giants?  They needed OT to beat the Panthers after a recent slide had them losing two in a row, unable to protect Eli Manning or stop anyone on D.

Finally, there's more, but I'll spare you with just one other.  The Chargers have to be the most miraculous of them all, after starting off 4-8, they've rattled off three straight victories (tough road games, might I add, with a comeback in KC and a beatdown in Tampa).  With the help of some good ol' Denver incompetency (see the Keystone Cops reference above), they're going to be playing for the playoffs, come next Sunday night.

Some of this, and some of that...

• How's this for comeback player of the year (do they even offer that in the NFL?):  Antonio Bryant, WR for Tampa Bay.  After not having played in the league in 2007, the former Niner, Brown and Cowboy has racked up nearly 1200 yards receiving (good for 7th in the league) and 7 TDs.  With another over 100 yard game, he'd be in line for the second highest single season receiving yards total in Buc history.  Bet no one thought that when he came into camp. 
• Don't get caught up how the Reggie Brown play that ended the game in Washington.  Facts are facts.  It was the first time all season they hadn't scored a TD in a game.  You can't win in you don't score TDs, and you shouldn't bank on scoring them with under a minute left.  If you need to get caught up in something, ask yourself why Brown ran a route to the 1 yard line, and not a foot farther, into the endzone?
• Well, Dallas laid another egg on Saturday night, this time with stereotypically soft defense.  Tony Romo supplied enough firepower offensively, but, when you give up two (not just one, but two!) rushing plays of over 75 yards in the fourth quarter, well, you're just a sad group.  The defense was so porous, and the tackling so pathetic, I almost had to look away.  Terence Newman, I've been a fan of the guy since he was taken from K-State, but he looked like a turnstyle (about 1:35 on the clip) on that Le'Ron McClain run.  
• Finally, let's give Miami some real credit.  They've been the team that no one wants to say is really that good, the team that's been doing just enough to win.  Yet, this past week, despite the opponent, was an impressive victory.  To play in KC, to score 38 points, to come from down 7 late in the third (something a Chad Pennington-led team, in this day and age, isn't built to do).  That's a nice job for Tony Sparano's Fins, who, despite going 1-15 last year, could make the playoffs this year.  Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel for Detroit Lions fans.