From Crappy to Happy . . . and Other NFL Fables

What a difference a game makes. It's funny how one big win on Monday Night Football can take a team from sucking underachiever to "contender in a matter of, oh, 60 playing minutes to be exact.

Before an hour ago, the Cleveland Browns were mush and their current starting QB, Derek Anderson, was looking at the door. Eager (and popular) beaver Brady Quinn has been breathing down his neck for about a year now, and he keeps looking cute and smiley (in a kid brother kind of way) on the sidelines, all the while knowing he's more popular than the guy who starts over him. As the MNF gang pointed out, Quinn is the only back up QB to have his own commercial . . . making Derek Anderson the only starting QB whose backup has one when he doesn't.

Now, Anderson looks like Tom Brady with his "precision" and "accurate" throws, and the Browns, who could have been 1-4 after tonight, now have to be taken seriously.

No, the Browns didn't win the Super Bowl, but they did beat the Super Bowl champs, who have been looking pretty good in their champions tour. I should say looked good because they looked pretty awful Monday night. Eli Manning throwing three times as many interceptions as he has had in four previous games? That'll do it. And that tackle . . . come on Eli, that was pitiful, at least make it look like you care. (I couldn't find a picture of it, but I'm still looking!) I guess that's better than that jump away from the pile that Tony Romo did.

Speaking of Romo, his little pinkie's crying wee wee wee all the way home. (Sidenote: Romo really is an unfortunate last name for a really good high school QB) He will be out for at least a month with a broken pinkie on his throwing hand sustained in the Dallas Cowboys' loss to the Arizona Cardinals. I guess this is the one position in the one sport where such an injury would really cause the player to take time off. Broken fingers, especially pinkies, look really gross if they aren't set properly. So for the sake of all of us who will be forced to watch that reality show he and Jessica Simpson will have, I hope it sets properly so we don't have to hear her calling it "yucky." We'll see if any similar Brady-type effects are felt with this loss. The Cowboys have looked shaky (and always manage to get shaken and stirred in the post-season) so I wouldn't call them anywhere near a lock for a Super Bowl, but this certainly changes things. Once again, I'm ecstatic that I was too late for fantasy football this year.

Richard Collier is reportedly out of the hospital. That's good news.

Adam Jones may have cost himself a whole lot more than pissed off hired help. Bad news. Very bad.

One last thing: Braylon Edwards is definitely a star, but why is he the only one they let speak? He's certainly nice to look at and "articulate," so I'm not complaining but I find it interesting they never really talk to anyone else on the team, not even the QB. And the media loves QBs. Does Derek Anderson have a bad stutter?

Rundown From the Stuffed Up

My head is stuffy today. I don't know if it's allergies or whether I'm getting sick, but I do know one thing: we're running:



1. Tragic update today on Jacksonville Jaguars offensive tackle Richard Collier. While it looks like he will live, he's going to be paralyzed from the waist down and had to have his leg amputated. He was shot 14 times. Wow. The shots to the groin apparently caused clotting which required amputation. His agent says he's down and out because he won't be able to fulfill his lifetime dream. I can't imagine how he must feel. I hope they're keeping an eye on him because this is a lot for a man of his age and potential to take. I also hope that he finds his new purpose in life, because he does have one if he can find the will to keep living. Keep your head up, Collier.


2. In other sad news, last Wednesday, the 3-month old son of Tampa Bay Buccaneers' kicker Matt Bryant, Tryson, died suddenly in his sleep. It wasn't clear if Bryant, who had kicked the winning field goal the week before, would play this past Sunday. But he flew in from the funeral and not only played in the game, his field goal put the Bucs ahead of the Green Bay Packers for good. His teammates played harder for him and he rose to the occasion. I've said before that sports are a microcosm of life. Well, sometimes, they are therapy for life. My condolences to the Bryant family.


3. In happier news, Josh Howard apologized for his actions while addressing the media on the Dallas Mavericks' first day of training camp. In apologizing for his actions from the past 5 months, Howard said "this is not the way I carry myself . . ." but I say, au contraire, mon frère! This is how you carry yourself. The trick is to not get carried away . . .


4. Terrell Owens is turning on yet another QB. Just when you thought all was rosy in T.O. Land, it turns out all is still the same. By still the same, I mean still a mess - and still screwing himself out of endorsements. Following the Cowboys loss to their arch-rival Washington Redskins, T.O. had only complaints about not getting the ball from his formerly-beloved QB Tony Romo. Somewhere, despite the Cowboys' record, Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb are ecstatic that they aren't in Romo's position, even if that means they don't get to [sing country music] with Jessica Simpson.


5. Somehow, in the course of one week, I missed the entire WNBA Eastern and Western Conference Finals. The finals, which start on Wednesday, will feature the Detroit Shock and the San Antonio Silver Stars (seriously, who approved that name?). I didn't, however, miss this quote from Shock coach Bill Laimbeer: "You can't win the championship unless you're in the finals, and we're there." I'll cut Bill some slack because it probably sounded better before he saw it in print. It looks like I'll have to DVR this series in order to find some mention of it. . .


6. (I considered mentioning Monday Night Football here, but other than the overtime win, and Ray Lewis' usual antics, there wasn't much to report. Nice win, Steelers.) The Detroit Lions can take solace in the fact that at least one team in the NFL may - incredibly - be worse than they are: the St. Louis Rams. After benching QB Marc Bulger, Rams coach Scott Linehan got one better than the bench. He got the boot. You know it's bad when you blow it up with 12 more games to go. Whether this will be the same script, different cast remains to be seen . . . no, it doesn't. We can clearly see that winter in the Midwest started in September.

How Many More?

So that "vacation" ended up being more of a hiatus that almost became permanent if not for the prodding of a few folks. So thanks to them - you know who you are. I'm now blogging on the same couch in a different state than the last time I was here. Other than that, not too much has changed. I am looking forward to September, though, because real sports finally return. I love Pardon the Interruption but I struggled to keep my interest with no sports of interest going on. That's one reason I like the fall. The other is the clothes. (Yes, I'm a woman, and I like clothes).

Now I had hoped to start it off with an interesting story, but not necessarily a tragic one. Unfortunately, life doesn't always go how we plan.

This one out of Jacksonville, Florida, home of the NFL's Jaguars, where tragedy struck over the holiday weekend when two players (one now former, since he was recently cut from the team) were involved in a shooting while waiting outside what the media is calling a "middle class neighborhood." One - Kenneth Pettway - was not hurt, the other - Richard Collier - was shot several times and is in critical but apparently stable condition. One can't help but think back on the Washington Redskins' Sean Taylor, who was killed nearly a year ago, also in Florida. I truly hope this one doesn't end like that one did.

Collier seemed to have an interesting story. After high school, thinking he didn't have the grades for college, he worked for two years at Wal-Mart. But then, he entered junior college and transferred to a Division II school where he excelled and learned the value of hard work. He never got drafted so he certainly expected to be where he was, and was probably was told he would never get where he was because of the choices he made in his life. He almost quit and went back to Wal-Mart until the Jaguars gave him his only crack at the big times, and he took it and ran with it.

I could take this and run with it, too, calling it another situation in which an athlete is in the wrong place at the wrong time, running with the wrong crowd. And that could be true. He could be another Mike Vick. It doesn't help that the storyline says that they were going to the house of women they had just met that evening.

While we don't know all of the details just yet, at the very least, we have another example of the extreme vigilance necessary to be a "have" in a sea of "have nots." But they aren't the only ones getting caught up. Right before I started writing, I caught a rare few moments of the local news and was saddened to hear about three children who lost their lives in three separate shootings this weekend, ones in which they "just happened" to be outside at the time. One of the mothers of the deceased children said she wished there was some kind of program to get these kids off the streets. (If all goes according to *my* plans in the election this year, we will.) But no program will work without buy-in from the rest of us, and buy-in means giving time to change things where we can, no matter how small. We can't get used to this, folks.

My prayers for a speedy recovery to Richard Collier.