Right Now...

...my team's MVP, Wes Welker, is being carted off the field with a knee injury and is sitting on the bench crying. My team's other MVP, Tom Brady, has three broken ribs and is playing. This game is utterly, utterly meaningless. Why are they on the field at all? Last week, we saw Jim Caldwell pass up a chance at history and forfeit the most important game of his career just because he was trying to limit the risk of injuries going into the playoffs. Now, Bill Belichick is throwing his A-listers out there for literally no reason?

Someone out there in the POB universe, please--explain this to me.

And While We're At It..

Quick memo to Jim Caldwell: Super Bowls don't have any inherent meaning other than what we assign to them. We consider them to be the ultimate goal because, under normal circumstances, there's no better way to demonstrate your team is the best, and no better way to become a part of NFL history. But this season, there was--your team had the chance to do something no other team had done. The benefits would have been far greater than those that come from winning a Super Bowl, but you chose not to pursue them. You're clearly an excellent coach, but you just made the most important decision of your career and you made the wrong one.

Why No One Will Ever Go 19-0

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CITIZENS OF NEW ORLEANS AND INDIANAPOLIS:

Hey guys,

I know this is a difficult time for you, and this may only make it worse, so I'm just going to get it out there: your teams never actually had a chance of going undefeated. It was never going to happen, and it never will. In fact, no team actually enters the season with that possibility, even though we think they all do.

Indy fans, I don't want to hear about how you could have pulled this one out had Peyton played the whole thing. Sure, your coach made a decision that I will never understand, and robbed you of a chance at immortality and us of a chance to watch a fascinating season-long story reach its natural conclusion. But that's a subject for another post and ultimately, it doesn't really matter, since either way, your team was destined to lose.

Allow me to explain. You see, I've been there. My Bostonian brethren and I have Ph.D's in this kind of stuff--we wish we didn't, but we do. Our 2007 Patriots team was among the best there ever was, with one of the best coaches there ever was, and they still couldn't get it done.

In fact, that 2007 season was among the most interesting sports phenomena I've ever seen. Sure, the Patriots had some holes on defense--and you could argue that their failure to go 19-0 was the result of those holes--but their offense was just about invincible on paper. However, as the season progressed, even their offense began to struggle more and more to eke out wins. And that is because of one fact: the pressure of an undefeated season drove Bill Belichick and the Patriots crazy.

It's true. Normally, I think mental factors in sports tend to be overrated, but in this case they're the only explanation for an inexplicable breakdown. For no apparent reason, during the middle of the season, Belichick completely abandoned the run (one of the best offenses in history wasn't doing well enough, apparently), and the margin of victory got thinner and thinner from week to week. With other teams already starting to gun for the undefeated Pats with some smart coaching choices (The Eagles almost ended New England's run prematurely via surprise onside kick), and the Pats' D beginning to show its weaknesses, the addition of a coaching meltdown was enough to trigger that one fateful loss. Remember Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and long in the Super Bowl against the Giants? That's the only way to explain it.

It makes a certain kind of sense--a team can only survive so long a stretch in which every game has the intensity of a playoff game. Then, once you get near the playoffs, every game has the intensity of a Super Bowl. It is simply nonsurvivable. A team that goes 18-1 can beat any of the teams that it plays that season, but it simply cannot beat all those teams.

That brings us back to you, Colts and Saints. Sorry it didn't work out, but it turns out that you can only survive so many Super Bowls in one season. With any luck, your regular-season losses may actually prove beneficial when it comes time for the real one.

Dogfighting Is Still Wrong

It takes a relatively momentous occurrence in the sports world to draw me from my Salinger-like seclusion and offer my sought-after opinions once again. Well, yesterday, such an occurrence happened, as Michael Vick signed with the Philadelphia Eagles. My colleague K.L. has already commented on it, and while he (K.L., not Michael Vick) is a Red Sox-hater who tries to bait me into posting in order to disagree with him, in this case, we are actually in agreement.

But there's one more element to this I want to single out. If I could summarize the argument I hear from those who feel the media and fans have treated Vick unfairly, it would be this:

"People need to lay off Michael Vick. Do you know how many professional athletes are beating their wives, on drugs, neglecting child support, involved in the deaths of actual people, etc.? Why, of all people, did we choose this guy to crucify?"

That's a valid point, but I don't think it means Michael Vick doesn't deserve what he gets from indignant fans. Coincidentally, we have a timely counterpoint to Vick to consider: Donte Stallworth, who, after getting a light sentence for killing a man while driving drunk, has been suspended by th NFL for a year. Vick killed dogs, Stallworth killed an actual human being. Aren't those entirely different levels of immorality?

In some ways, but not in all ways. Ultimately, Stallworth's crime was carelessness, not cruelty. It's possible he thought about the possibility of running somebody over and truly didn't care, but it seems more likely that he was just drunk, and high, and not thinking. That still makes him a terrible person who deserves whatever he gets, and it's absolutely true that killing a person is countless degrees of magnitude worse than killing a dog. However, when Vick killed dogs, it was premediated, deliberate, and even systematic--he oversaw an entire organization whose product was animal torture. Killing humans is worse than dogs, but killing intentionally is worse than killing accidentally. Can we really say that it's time to let Michael Vick move on, when I'm sure we'll never do so for Stallworth?

This also factors into the issue of rehabilitation and ultimate reinstatement to the NFL. When Stallworth says he feels remorse, I have an easier time believing it--he acted without considering the consequences, and maybe, hopefully, he'll never do it again. Vick? He tortured and killed dogs over the course of six years. During that time, he had to think about what he was doing, and decide that it wasn't a problem for him. If he didn't feel remorse over those six years, it's hard not to believe that the only reason he tells us he feels it now is because we made him go to prison, and he'd like to play football again.

In the end, we don't really have to choose--we can direct righteous anger at both, if we'd like, and have enough left over for all of the other reprobates who can sometimes sour our sports leagues. You can say that Michael Vick isn't the worst among them, and I don't think I could argue with you. However, we can't forger that Vick showed an inhuman level of cruelty for an extended period of time--and the fact that it wasn't directed at humans doesn't mean it's time to let him off the hook.

why t.o. needs to stop crying about vick getting a fair shake

the nfl is abuzz with rumor-esque questions these days.

will brett favre return? will michael vick join a team this season? will chad ochocinco change his name again?

okay, perhaps the third isn't so much of a mystery... and that's because 85% of the population doesn't give a crap about chad. the second of those, however, was addressed by the one and only T.O. at the bills' training camp on sunday. owens told reporters that vick should be able to sign with a team and play this season without any further suspension.

"why shouldn't he?" owens said, per espn.com. "there's a number of guys around the league that have done far more worse things than that and gotten a second chance. so i don't see why he shouldn't."

unintentionally, T.O. made the right point - nfl players are rarely punished for criminal activity. i mean, let's face it, ray lewis is scary on and off the field. anyone who's read any sort of expose on the nfl knows the amount of recreational drugs that players use. and plaxico burress shooting himself in a nightclub was as disappointing as it was ridiculous.

so much is made of performance-enhancing drugs and how they set a bad example for kids. but what about criminal activity? shouldn't nfl players and other athletes be held to a higher standard in general? and if so, what's wrong with roger goodell suspending michael vick for four games - or even for a full season - if it's going to prove a point and set the bar?

vick has done his time, the argument goes. bullshit. sure, vick spent two years in prison, but that's nothing in the grand scheme of things. given that he is still on probation and is expected to prove that he belongs in society again, it seems justified to delay his return to the nfl at least a little bit longer.

enough of the red carpet for multimillionaire criminals.

uh... i don't think so

sometimes, espn just gives sports journalism a bad name.

in a poll of its divisional bloggers, espn found that kurt warner was the runaway leader for nfl mvp.

runaway leader.

we're talking guaranteed 1-pick, 2-sacks a game kurt warner. we're talking plays-in-the-nfc-west kurt warner. we're talking are-you-shitting-me-it's-the-arizona-cardinals kurt warner.

yes, he does have a 99.1 passer rating. but let's remember that he gets to throw to the three towers every week. and it's not like seattle is putting up a ton of resistance as kurt rambles down the field.

you have to respect what arizona has done this year, regardless of how weak its division is. but kurt warner is not your nfl mvp.

if you don't want to drink the kurt warner haterade, consider the list of players who received zero votes in this poll. notable absences including titans QB kerry collins, giants RB brandon jacobs, atlanta QB matt ryan, colts DE dwight freeney... the list goes on. true, these may not be conventional mvp candidates, but do they really deserve as little as zero votes? i mean, even clinton portis got three votes.

poop on espn's nfl bloggers.