The Most Holy Of Subjects

In this space wherein I wax philosophic about pretty much any damn thing I please, it occurs to me suddenly that I've never once expressed my thoughts on the most holy and divine subject that graces the human mind. I've never discussed football. I trust this installment will go some distance towards remedying this oversight, and might become a running item here on HT.

But whatever. If nothing else, writing about football will spare me from doing anything resembling work, here on my fifth-to-last day at my current employment. This is important, considering that my tacit bosses, while handing out bonuses at our company X-mas party over the weekend, made clear that they don't consider me to be an employee at that this point. Thus, the only reason I have to work at all is courtesy, and since I received not even the Christmas card with which everyone else received a bonus check, the courtesy well has run dry as well. But don't worry about me; I won't miss the bonus money, and I'm sure I'll find ways to fill the next few days.

So on to football.

First, the big and obvious thing that everyone is talking about: Every time some jackass challenges the Patriots, they end up paying for it. I for one fully support the Pats' behavior this season, which causes me to recall comments I've made about DOTJ's prior significant others. Specifically, the idea that if someone is acting like a jackass, you are fully within your rights to point out that they are a jackass.

Now then. Early this season, somebody suggested that the Patriots' prior superbowl victories are 'tainted' by developments this season. Putting aside the fact that anyone who thinks about it will realize just how asinine the violated rule was, and how insignificant the behavior was, the results are clear: the Patriots winning, and usually winning handily. Let's consider the psychology.

It was not a big deal when the media challenged Bill Belichick's personal integrity. He doesn't have any. He would probably admit this himself. Personal integrity has no usefulness when it comes to winning football games. But as soon as the media challenged his ability to legitimately win, he and his team have been merciless. So we won through cheating, eh? Okay. Check this shit out. Now, we're thirteen games later. And the funny thing is, just as Bill's ability to play that particular us-against-the-world card in the locker room was waning (in early November), Don Shula does Bill the huge favor of saying to the national media that, should the Pats go undefeated, there should be an asterisk next to that entry into the record book. Don Shula, the same coach who himself lost a first-round pick for cheating, challenging Bill Belichick's behavior. Then other members of the '72 Dolphins - ignoring that the '72 Dolphin would get destroyed by the '07 Dolphins, much less the '07 Patriots the Dolphins will play in Week 16 - saying to the national media that the Pats' season so far is unimpressive, and still not even in the same neighborhood as their '72 season. The only undefeated team in NFL history, affirmatively challenging the Patriot's abilities. Very smart. Very witty. The Patriots will do their best to make those men look like the jackasses they have already shown themselves to be.

Finally, second-year Steelers defensive backs (who are only starting because the starters are injured) going to the national media with guarantees that they're going to win against New England, in New England. That has been the most recent challenge, and the Pats made him and his team look like jackasses on Sunday. I especially liked the early game moment when, in a jaw-jacking session after his first TD pass of the day, a Steelers defender called Brady a "pretty boy." Gee, why don't you go up to the best QB in the game, with the best receiving corp since Rice-Taylor-Craig-Jones, and challenge him to kick your ass as hard as he possible can?

What the hell are these people thinking? Honestly? And for anyone who is criticizing the Patriots for their behavior, you need to shut the hell up. You are making things worse rather then better, and the Patriots, aside from the scores, have been nothing but gentlemen. Every week, their media comments are limited to how they can still get better. About the things they need to work on. No one in that locker room is chest-pounding, despite the amazing things they're doing on the field. And the really amazing part is that they're doing it on a playing field that is as level as a decade of league tampering can make it. Working under the same salary cap structure as anyone else, the Patriots have been consistent performers, consistent winners, and have built a team for the ages. They are not spending any more on talent than your team, they're just doing it better than your team is. They're winning because, from the front office on down to their third-string practice-squad guys, they're doing it better and smarter than anyone else.

Now they do have their flaws: they're getting old and slow at linebacker, which has been made clear by some teams. But the coaches are game-planning to win with the older slower guys, and the front office is working the big-picture to help out as well. They already started last off-season, by signing Thomas, who is Vrabel's heir apparent. This up-coming off-season, expect that Pats to draft and/or trade to get heirs-apparent to one or all of Seau, Brushi, and Harrison. The Patriots will continue to do it right, and they will continue to win. If you don't like it, stop them. In the meantime, shut the hell up.

Now, thoughts on less spoken-of things.

No. 1: The Indy Defense. Were it not for the Pats, the Colts would be the talk of the league as an all-time best team, for their improved play on defense. Over time, Tony Dungy has built the kind of Tampa-2 defense he loves, and the results are showing. The Indy defense is #1 in the league against the pass; a hallmark of the Tampa-2, which showcases fast, sure-tackling, under-sized defenders. This defense had mixed results for the Bucs; while they did win a Superbowl, the defense has its weakness, which is interior run defense. You beat the Tampa-2 by running up the middle, and kicking the teeth down the throats of linemen, linebackers, and safeties who are relative "pretty boy" defenders. The simple fact is that the small, fast linebackers and safeties that make the Tampa-2 work aren't very good at shrugging off blocks from 300+ pound linemen and 250+ pound fullbacks.

The difference is that the Indy offense is light years beyond anything that the Bucs had, and it's tough to play an interior-run offense when the other team has a big lead, as the Colts usually do; you have to throw, because you need to score. So you can't play a patient, run-first offense against Indy like you could against the Bucs. Thus, HT's choice of teams not called the Patriots to knock off Indy over the rest of the season and/or playoffs: Minnesota, which has a great interior running game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. My pick would have been San Diego, which has a great inside (and outside) run game, and a defense that can get the Colts off the field. But they lost their starting FB, the hugely-under-rated Lorenzo Neal, possibly for the season. The Colts would beat Pittsburgh. PIT has a great defense, but their running game is based on the outside running of Willie Parker, where size matters less; the Colt's defenders are fast enough to catch him. The Colts would also beat Green Bay (Grant is also an outside kind of guy).

Dallas is the contender with the best chance, since Marion Barber is very much a straight-ahead kind of guy. But I have doubts about the Dallas secondary's ability to get Manning off the field. Still, if not for the Pats, the possible Superbowl match-up of Indy and Dallas would be having a lot of hype talked about it.

Item 2: Behind the Pats, the most feared team in the league at this point should be the Minnesota Vikings. As above, they have superb run defense, their pass defense has improved greatly, and they've been generating a lot of turnovers all year. They also have a run-focused offense good enough that you can't really stop it, even though you know what's coming (but see below). A lot of people said that the Vikes offered too much when they lured free-agent LG Chad Hutchinson away from SEA a few seasons ago. Look at the results: Shaun Alexander had a career year running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. Now, Alexander is not going anywhere, and both Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson are having a lot of fun running behind Hutchinson on the left side of the line. The Vikes are going to have problems against quick-strike offenses against whom they might fall behind, but between their ability to run the ball, control the clock, and create turnovers, the Vikes will have no problems in bad-weather playoff games. Even the big-boys fear the Vikes, or else they should.

Item 3: As an extension of the above, the game film of the Vikes' blowout of San Francisco over the weekend will become a fixture in the libraries of defensive coordinators the league over. Notwithstanding the loss, the Niners, who have no offense to speak of and who lack the critical run-stopping NT for their 3-4 defense, had a game plan that held Adrian Peterson to THREE yards on 14 carries. Chester Taylor got over 100 yards, but 84 of them came on one big play, the only big-play the SF defense gave up on the day. Setting aside that play, Taylor got 17 yards on 7 carries. Unless they can fix their running game to get by the game-plan created by Mike Nolan and his staff, the Vikes are going to have problems against teams with an SF-caliber LB corps (which is actually a pretty short list; the biggest problem with the 49ers defense is that it spends too much time on the field) when they meet such a defense married to an offense better than SF (which list of offenses includes every team in the league, except possibly MIA). But back to the point: every team that faces Adrian Peterson for the rest of his career will watch and try to duplicate what SF did in a 27-7 blow-out loss. Yes, the universe is strange that way sometimes.

Obvious Item Of The Week: Teams with solid play on the offensive and defensive lines won. (DAL, NE, IND, NYG, BUF.) Teams with soft play on the offensive or defensive lines lost. (MIA, KC, OAK, SF, ARI.)

I could go on and on about football. But I'm afraid that it's time for my nap.