COME to think of it, how long is the ride back from Kingdom Come?
Late in Sunday’s Ravens-Steelers AFC Championship, after Willis McGahee had been wheeled off, ending a solemn and even tearful two-team, on-field prayer vigil, it took just five more plays – five – for the same deeply concerned professionals to demonstrate glee and self-admiration for having just needlessly brutalized an opponent.
Five plays after McGahee was removed, headed for the hospital, condition unknown, Joe Flacco threw an out to WR Mark Clayton. Steelers CB Bryant McFadden next did what he likely has been coached to do since he was a kid. He tried to separate the man from the ball by separating him from his good senses.
Clayton, his body exposed, fully vulnerable, was knocked flying. McFadden could have as easily and as effectively shoved Clayton out of bounds, limiting the risk of injury to both – especially with an 11-point lead and 1:20 left – but that’s rarely how the game’s now played.
And then McFadden, 27, did what he likely had been conditioned to do since he first watched a game on TV. He rose, triumphant, preening, callously stepping over Clayton, eager to let all know that he was damned pleased with himself.
And then fellow CB William Gay, 24, did what he likely had been conditioned to do since he first saw a football game. He ran to McFadden to share his joy, to pound his pads. Yeah, baby!
The return trip from Kingdom Come took just five plays.
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That McGahee episode made for disturbing moments here, there, everywhere.
Phil Simms, working the game for CBS, firmly stated that it was a legal hit when it clearly was a Rule Book, Exhibit A illegal helmet-to-helmet hit. Heck, even if defensive back Ryan Clark had first made contact with his lowered shoulder, hits to the head are illegal – to best avoid on-field prayer sessions.
Simms, who normally would never treat viewers like dopes, left many infuriated. He actually had asked them to forget what they know and what they could see and instead go with what he told them.
In Simms’ defense, thin as it is, there was no flag. But such blatantly illegal, anti-personnel, aim-to-maim helmet shots – the kind selected for network promos and video game come-ons – are performed 10, 12 times a game with impunity. That’s how the game is now coached, played, indulged, celebrated and sold.
To that end, the NFLPA’s 2009 rank and file would be wise to be extremely sensitive and generous on pension issues.
While we hear and read the grievances of former NFL players lamenting the diminished mental and physical capacities of their same-era brethren, the conditions of former NFL players of the near future can only be worse.
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Though he doesn’t know it, Mike Francesa remains the funniest man on radio.
With his WFAN Super Bowl contest this year sponsored by a private jet company, Francesa has let his audience know that among all the private jets he flies, this company’s private jets are his favorites!
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Super Bowl lookalikes: Submitted by, at last count, 10 readers – Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin and actor (“House”) Omar Epps.
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Even as ESPN’s news credibility nears zero, nothing discourages nor embarrasses the network.
Friday, ESPN credited Chris Mortensen for the “scoop” that Brian Schottenheimer will stay as Jets’ offensive coordinator, a story widely reported elsewhere on Thursday.
And even during the biggest moments from ESPN2’s live Australian Open coverage, the last few days, ESPN’s indiscriminate bent on self-promotion would distract viewers with a screen-shrinking crawl presenting Mel Kiper’s projected NFL Draft, just three months away – on ESPN!
Incidentally, ESPN ombudswoman Le Anne Schreiber, according to USA Today, this spring will leave the network, her two-year term expired. Schreiber was highly critical of what was impossible to miss (and what could have/should have been easily corrected long before she began): ESPN has worn out audiences with its self-promotional excesses.
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More Slaves to (Gang) Fashion: Monday, this space included word that the DePaul Blue Demons have joined, among others, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and Duke Blue Devils, in adding a black basketball uniform. We could have additionally noted that the Harvard Crimson team now wears a black uniform, too.
Why would Gabe Kapler’s new, one-year deal with the Rays be for $1,000,018?
While the AP reported that 18 is “Kapler’s lucky number,” there’s more to it than that. Kapler’s Jewish; in Jewish folklore 18 is considered a lucky, life-sustaining number. That’s why he chose 18 dollars, that and because the Rays weren’t going to pay him 18 million dollars.
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ESPN Classic, Monday, presented the 1949 Yanks-Dodgers World Series. With the Yanks up, 10-6, ninth inning of the fifth and final game, newsreel footage showed Commissioner Happy Chandler meeting with managers Casey Stengel and Burt Shotton, informing them that the lights would be turned on – a first in Series history. Corresponding Game 5 footage from the 2008 World Series would show Commissioner Bud Selig, standing in a heavy rain in Philadelphia, late at night, shrugging.
