Kevin O’Connor

Miami proved last week that it can stop the opposing team’s passing attack at home. Their aggressive 3-4 defense (is there a passive 3-4 defense?!) should give Jay Cutler a beating on the national stage. Remember that Cutler threw 5 picks in his Thursday Night appearance last year in San Francisco. Give me the Wildcat over the Wild Scientist (Mike Martz) in this one…

My pick: MIAMI (-1.5) over Chicago

Adio Royster

First of all, can I just say how much I HATE this game.  I hate that Jay Cutler could potentially throw 5 or 6 INTs.  I hate that Miami is starting Tyler Thigpen.  I hate the fact this has all the makings of a 6-3 final score because of the two defenses.  It’s just bad all the way around.  Geez.  I guess if you put a gun to my head, I’ll take Chicago and pray that Jay Cutler is, at least, okay.

My pick: Chicago (+1.5) over MIAMI

Jason Branch

The NFL picked a perfect game to hide away on Thursday night. Miami is starting a 3rd string QB, and the Bears are starting a QB who has looked like a 3rd stringer several times this year. This game has the makings of low-scoring snorefest, which typically means lots of offense. That said, I’ll take the team that at least has its starting QB healthy, even if he’s not that good.

Jack Sez: Chicago (+1.5) over MIAMI

Attiba Royster

There is nothing to like about this game. The offenses are equally bad and the defenses are equally good. What does that leave? Special teams. Chicago is better there so Chicago wins.

My pick: Chicago (+1.5) over MIAMI

For those of you who missed it, the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills played in primetime last Thursday night in Toronto on the NFL Network. And while I am one of the lucky NFL fans that actually get the NFL Network, I still chose to watch Oregon State and Oregon battle it out for the Pac-10 Championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

(For those of you that know me, your eyes are not failing you. Jack of All Sports actually opted to watch college football over the NFL.)

It really shouldn’t be all that surprising. Why would I watch two teams with losing records and no stars — sorry T.O., you suck this season – when I could watch a better football game with some actual star power and a better storyline. (Not to mention the fact that after the college game I could watch Dr. Sportsfan’s boss incarnate, Michael Scott, on The Office.) As I write, I can’t tell you who won the game. That’s how pathetic and uninteresting a matchup the Jets-Bills was. And the NFL featured this matchup in primetime?!

(I just looked up the score: 19-13 Jets. I missed a dandy, shame on me.)

For 35 years, Monday Night Football was one of the great NFL traditions. Under Roger Goodell, the NFL makes more money with NBC’s contract for Sunday Night Football. Don’t get me wrong, I think NBC does a very good job with SNF, who doesn’t like flex-scheduling, which ensures everybody sees the very best SNF games during the regular season’s final months. My biggest beef with NBC has to do with the presence of Keith Olbermann. He doesn’t even qualify as comic relief. Go watch Lethal Weapon 2 and study Leo Getz, that’s how you do comic relief that works! I also don’t like Cris Collinsworth, who has somehow allowed me to have missed John Madden this season.  (I also miss the old ESPN crew with Mike Patrick and Paul McGuire — although Joe Theismann sucks and everyone knows it.)

Still, my biggest issue with the rise of Sunday Night Football on NBC is the replacement of primetime football on Monday night. We were left with the piece of crap, sorry excuse of a production on ESPN, where as ABC covered it in the past. Disney Corporation blew that one big-time as far as Jack, and many other fans are concerned. Was Michael Eisner somehow involved with that decision, even after he was ousted by shareholders? He must have been, only he’s dumb enough to allow this:

• ABC’s best commentator, Al Michaels, was allowed to get away and call games for rival network NBC.
• The new team of commentators was Mike Tirico (who should only be allowed to call golf – period), Tony Kornheiser (Woody Paige’s long lost brother in worthless, airheaded sports journalism and sports bantering — can you say Dennis Miller?), and the aforementioned Theismann.

With that, Goodell turned the great tradition of Monday Night Football into a laughing stock. Let’s treat Goodell the way George Costanza did when he told-off George Steinbrenner when he was doing the opposite of his natural instincts. (I’m just gonna replace Goodell with Baddell from here on out.)

Sure Baddell ruined a great tradition with primetime football and spawned a wave of horrible commentating that plagues every network, but he also decided to give us more primetime football. Let’s look at this one Animaniacs style.  (If you get this reference, you are now cooler than you were before)

Good Idea! Bad Idea!

This extra primetime game was going to be on his own network, the NFL Network. The idea of 24 hours of football is simply fantastic, if you actually have access to the station. And the station is going to have one primetime game a week every Thursday night? Double fantastic!

This would all be fine if not for more greed on the part of Goodell and the NFL. Trying to charge cable companies an arm and a leg for this niche digital cable channel, the NFL priced its own network out of the range of most of its fans. To this day, the NFL Network is still not available to all cable and satellite providers because the NFL Network continues to charge outrageous rates for the right to carry the station.

Oh wait, how many marquee games have been broadcast on the NFL Network since it started Thurday Night Football? Good luck counting that on one hand! (Editors note: There was one hell of a game between the 15-0 New England Patriots and 10-5 New York Giants back in ‘07.) Thursday Night Football is garbage, as is the entire NFL Network – even though the idea was and still is great. Nuff said!

Baddell has already been berated with his handling of the NFL on T.V., but Jack still has more to say on this topic. First, I completely understand the theory behind the Home Market Blackout Rules. But don’t you think, given the sorry state of the national economy – let alone the local economy of several NFL cities (Hello, Detroit!) — why not ease them for this season and next and allow hard-suffering fans to see their home team’s games. At the end of the day, the NFL should be mainly concerned that its a fans’ and players’ game first and foremost and not the owners’ and NFL executives’. The NFL makes plenty of money, Rog! You didn’t have to be a heartless bastard and allow these blackouts to continue. For crying out loud, the lives of millions of Americans suck right now. The NFL would be a worthwhile escape from that each week for a few hours.

Second, what is up with games in Canada and London? How dare you deny teams and fans a home game so you can glorify your own massive ego by showcasing America’s Game in places it has no chance to succeed (wow, I’m really becoming Constaza in this article). You had NFL Europe for a reason, and our neighbors to the North are doing just fine with the Canadian Football League. Hockey will be Canada’s most popular sport, and Europe has soccer. With the countless gaffes by Major League Baseball’s Bud Selig and the National Hockey League’s Gary Bettman during their collective Reign of Incompetency as commissioners, the NFL has truly become America’s Game due in thanks to the leadership of Paul Tagliabue.

Seriously, don’t screw it up Rog! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

An additional point about this overseas business (non-T.V. division): if teams have to make road trips of 5,000+ miles as part of a normal schedule, how will they have a fair chance to prepare and play their best, and give fans the best quality of football possible? An NFL team from London could conceivably go 0-18 in its first 18 roads, just like the New Jersey Nets — only New Jersey added home games just for fun. Wow, the Nets really suck.

Baddell has also had some other ideas that only Michael Scott could agree with, one of which would be to change overtime rules to give each team a chance to score, like college. Memo to Rog: Making the NFL more like college football in any way is never a good idea! Part of the mystique of the NFL is the fate of the coin toss. If you lose, you have to play shutout defense to have a chance to win. Part of being a professional and better than your opponent is to handle adversity, like when a coin toss don’t go your way. Winning the coin toss doesn’t guarantee victory in overtime in the NFL — just ask Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, who famously chose the wind in overtime as the head coach in Detroit. In that case, not having Mornhinweg as your coach guaranteed victory.

Another of Baddell’s ideas: extending the regular season. I think this is another awful idea. Having players play additional games and being exposed to further injury risk does not lend itself well to good playoff football, especially when the best teams need their best players to play. Playing through pain is something every NFL player must deal with, but risking careers is bad for the long-term health of players, teams, and ultimately the league. Just look at all the concussions this season alone. Imagine additional weeks of football where this could happen. The best team at the end of the season should win the Super Bowl, not the most healthy team after the bloodbath of an 18-game regular season. Also, an 18-game regular season only gives dismal teams a better chance to make the playoffs and reach the Promised Land.

Let’s not forget that one of the main reasons for the NFL’s rise in popularity the last few decades is the mystique of the 16-game season. Your favorite team is only guaranteed to play 16 times a year. With only eight home games each a year (not counting playoffs), most NFL stadiums are sold-out (sorry again Detroit) with passionate and attentive crowds each week – even the stadiums of sub-par teams. My guess is that home crowds would be duller each week if there were more home games.

While we could assume that an extra game or two could be a good thing for the fans, the real reason Baddell wants owners to approve a longer regular season is money.

Rog, don’t sacrifice the integrity of quality football so you can make a few more bucks that you don’t need.

You may have also heard that the NFL is known as the “No Fun League”. With strict school-master disciplinarian Baddell in charge, we get celebration penalties. There’s a fine line between celebration and taunting of an opponent, but give me a break! There’s nothing wrong with an original celebration between teammates. I tune in first and foremost to watch quality football, but I won’t forget the entertainment I got out of the Joe Horn cell phone and T.O. sharpie celebrations. Eagles tight end Brent Celek recently got flagged and later fined for the “Captain Morgan” celebration that most people didn’t even recognize. Rog, how was that excessive or showing up his opponent?

My last greivence against Baddell – for now — has to do with the excessive quarterback protection rules. Quarterbacks have the starpower to drive the NFL – I get that – but the last time I checked, QBs are football players. As Dr. Sportsfan informs me every time we watch a game together, quarterbacks are in fact given a helmet and pads. As football players, they should not have special rules to protect them. Quarterbacks get hurt, it’s part of the game. Teams just have to move on without their franchise player. Good teams find a way. (The Patriots went 11-5 without Brady in 2008. The Eagles made the playoffs two out of the three years Donovan McNabb suffered season-ending injuries.) Tom Brady should not be wearing a skirt, he is a football player. (Thank you Rodney Harrison for once channeling your motor mouth at an issue we all agree with you on.) If you’re gonna treat the QB like a baby, at least enforce the quarterback rules consistently. If someone barely touches Brady and it’s a 15 yard penalty, it should be like that for all QBs. Yet McNabb runs for a touchdown in week one against Carolina, and after the play is over for a full three seconds, he gets hit on the ground and breaks his ribs. No flag and no fine. Hmm. Maybe, possibly, perhaps, its because McNabb is …. well … (I won’t say it and risk the backlash, but you’re thinking it too.)

I am still as passionate about the NFL as ever and always will be, but I don’t like the direction the league has taken under Baddell’s leadership. The NFL seems evolving away from fan-friendliness by the week into a Corporate entity that cares more about money. The game I was raised on was about us fans and the players we watch. Baddell was given the keys to a ship sailing on the perfect line, yet is slowly steering off course.  The only way the NFL could’ve improved anyway, in my opinion, would be if the Eagles finally win the Lombardi Trophy.

So unless you can make that happen, take it easy, Rog!

It’s that time of year, when the NFL begins to assert its control.

Not merely content with owning every ounce of programming in my life on Sunday and Monday, the country’s biggest sports addiction (Hi, I’m Kevin O’Connor, and I have a problem…) has once again claimed Thursday night as its own. That’s because tonight — on the NFL Network — the Chicago Bears (4-4) travel to the Bay Area to take on the San Francisco 49ers at Monster Candlestick 3Com Park.

Sweet.

Hold on while I go DVR the game, so I don’t miss anything after work…

(While I’m doing that, here’s something to think about. The most underrated aspect of moving from the East Coast to the West Coast? Start times for sporting events. On the Eastern seaboard, all we ever complained about were the late start times and how kids could never stay up late enough to watch a big game. No problem on the West Coast on that issue. The issue for us: the early start times.  With traffic factored in, I have to leave a little early from work (4:30 p.m.) to make it home by like 5:15. Kind of annoying to say the least when you’re used to game time at around 8 p.m. So yes, I finally understand the late start times.)

Anyway, I’m glad I finally have NFL Network again. The place I used to live at (um, it wasn’t my mom’s house) had Time Warner Cable, which didn’t carry that channel. HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE THE NFL NETWORK, Time Warner?! Professional football isn’t the most popular sport in the country, right? Why carry a cable network that a lot of your paying customers would most certainly watch, ESPECIALLY WHEN THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL IS ON IT?! Maybe they think it’s the XFL Network. I don’t know. Sounds unlikely to me, but I can’t think of any other reason.

(Truth be told: the NFL charges cable companies more for its channel than almost anyone else. In actuality, we should be blaming the NFL for creating a monopoly on watching its games on Thursday nights. But that would be like an alcoholic blaming beer for all his troubles. NOT GONNA HAPPEN HERE!)

So when I moved in with my girlfriend to a downstairs apartment in Ocean Beach, I made the executive decision to get DirecTV and Sunday NFL Ticket. Needless to say, I was pumped when the DirecTV guy arrived (on Sunday, no less) an hour before the early games started to install my dish. As I was getting my chips and dip ready for game time (you know, the accoutrement), my trusty DirecTV representative had terrible news — news that troubles me to this very day (even if it was just a month ago) – DirecTV could not be installed at my apartment.

#$@%&!!!

(That’s symbol for “F***!”)

Apparently, there were trees between my porch and the necessary satellites that provide the splendor that is Sunday Ticket and the ability to tell the NFL, for once and for all, who determines which game I get to watch. Now I have Cox (that’s what she said), which carries the NFL Network (my consolation prize), but of course they don’t carry the Redzone Channel.  For anyone that’s seen it (like me when I was visiting home back in Jersey — Comcast Cable), the Redzone Channel brings hope to all those poor little boys and girls that cannot get DirecTV. It has no commercials (you KNOW it), and it flicks between games when someone is about to score. On top of it all, former Comcast Sportsnet Philly anchor — and current NFL Network guy — Scott Hansen gives you any relevant info about the game. I was sold back home, and I’m sold now. Unfortunately for me, no one is selling the NFL Redzone channel in my area — that is, no one other than DirecTV .

I guess I shouldn’t be too upset. It could be worse. I mean, theoretically, I could still have Time Warner and no NFL Network. So for now, I hope you have NFL Network so that you enjoy da Bears face their old middle linebacker, Mike Singletarry, and his upstart gold miners on Thursday Night Football.