When I was a kid, one of my favorite comic book series was Marvel Comics’ “What If…”.  They’d take pivotal moments in Spider-Man or Captain America’s adventures and do a single issue about what would have happened if it had gone a little different.  Looking at the match-up for today’s Super Bowl, and how extremely close we came to having a Baltimore / New York championship, I have to wonder… What If… Lee Evans had made the catch? Looking at a potential Giants vs. Ravens Super Bowl, it’s amazing how evenly matched these teams really are when considering the stats: Giants Offense: 9th in points, 8th in yards (5th passing, 32nd rushing) Ravens Offense: 12th in points, 15th in yards (19th passing, 10th rushing) Giants Defense: 25th in points, 27th in yards (29th passing, 19th rushing) Ravens Defense: 3rd in points, 3rd in yards (4th passing, 2nd rushing) So if you look at it from those stats it’s the perfe...

Well, it’s that time of the year again.  Super Bowl week.  The pinnacle of the NFL season.  A time where the majority of football fans (approximately 30 out of every 32) are trying to pretend they’re still excited while the majority of non-football fans are trying to pretend they know something about the sport.  Every year there seems to be a dominant story that the media latches onto.  The key to determining what story they’ll grab is this; it has to be about a single player, that player has to be a national name, and preferably there has to be some type of presumed conflict.  It’s no real surprise that they’ve latched on to the will-he-or-won’t-he Peyton Manning story.  Sure, traditionally during the week leading up to the Super Bowl you’d think people would want to hear about the teams who are in it.  However, fans are getting sick of having the idea that Belichick is a football genius who can do no ...

Not to brag, but it’s a good thing that no player who spent most of his career with the Redskins is a Hall of Fame finalist this year. That’s because for the first time since I was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee in 2005, yours truly won’t be in the room to argue the case for the former members of the burgundy and gold. The room is a hotel conference room where the selectors will gather early this morning in Indianapolis and begin debating whether the 15 finalists and the two senior nominees deserve to be part of the Hall’s Class of 2012. The process usually takes six to seven hours, including a lunch break. I’ve been in the room when we’ve debated a single candidate for up to 45 minutes. It’s in the room where minds are changed. I went into the room for the first time planning on voting for Ray Guy, whom I had always considered the best punter ever. I was convinced otherwise that day. The opposite happened two yea...

You just have to love how the media is reporting how pleasant things are for them in Indianapolis this week as they engage in massive overkill coverage of Super Bowl XLVI. You can tell that these guys aren’t the ones who had to go to Kentucky to get a room 90 minutes away. And they are definitely not the ones footing the bill for a minimum four night stay at the La Quinta hotel for $1,975/night in lovely, rainy (this weekend) downtown Indianapolis. This same hotel charges $74/night most days. Indianapolis? Woo-hoo! Those concerned about New Orleans (a city that actually has appeal on many levels) really gouging fans next year, don’t be! The New Orleans Chamber of Commerce probably understands the game will return to the Big Easy. For Indy, it’s one and done (hopefully). One fan wrote in to say that a friend of his saves $500/year for the Super Bowl and doesn’t touch it until his team makes it to the big NFL show. If only Browns had done the same, many coul...

A lot of talk has started this off-season about Jon Gruden being looked at to take up one of the many open head coaching positions.  I for one, truly hope he gets a job too.  Is it because I respect him as a coach, and think that the NFL is a poorer place without him on the sidelines? Nope.  Is it because I think he’d do a great job, and am harboring a secret love for one of the coach-less teams, and think if he gets hired it’ll return that team to prominence? Hell no.  No, the reason is much more simple and selfish than that.  I don’t think I can take him calling MNF games for another season.  I’m old-school when it comes to the color commentary. I miss John Madden.  Yes, he had a man-crush on Brett Favre that occasionally bordered on the pornographic (good thing sexting wasn’t in vogue back then).  Yes, he wasn’t the smartest man in the world.  And yes, at times I wanted to fly to wherever the game...

I was playing monopoly the other day with a few friends, and one from our group volunteered to be the banker.  Now, there are only two types of people who actively want to be the banker.  The first type is what I like to call “The Whistleless Cop” He’s paranoid, and wants to make sure everything is on the up and up in every way.  The second type, and as it happens the type of this particular friend, is what I call “The Belichick”.  He’s also paranoid, but only because he’s grasping for any advantage, legitimate or not, because he’s not playing for fun, or even to win, he’s playing to make sure everyone else loses.   You know the type, he’s in every group of friends, every locker room, every class, every office, and on every job site.  I don’t know about you, but I hate that type of guy.  (And yes, for some reason it always seems to be a guy.)  The worst part is, he always ...

It was an AFC divisional playoff game in 2002—exactly ten football seasons ago now—and we know the game by a number of nicknames.  Raiders fans often call it “the Snow Job,” while Patriots fans will usually call it the “Snow Bowl.”  Just about everybody else knows the last game in Foxboro Stadium as “the Tuck Rule Game.”  To me, none of these nicknames really suit what happened on that Saturday night (yep, same time as this Saturday’s game just across the street at Gillette).  I think a more appropriate name for it would be The Vinatieri Game.  We tend to forget just how that game was won, regardless of the team we support.  Here’s my version:  after a controversial (but in many ways routine) replay review that overturned a Tom Brady fumble, Adam Vinatieri stood around the 38 yard line and knocked home one of the most unbelievable field goals the league has ever seen.  (“On a 4...

Let’s face it: the Pro Bowl is nothing more than a popularity contest. The Pro Bowl is not about showcasing the NFL’s best talent in an exhibition game; it’s about interrupting NFL players from their Hawaiian vacation to watch them play a few series. How can the most profitable sport in the world have such a horrible All-Star event? Starting in 2010, the NFL experimented with changing the location and date of the Pro Bowl.  Even though they were trying to fix the problem, it made the game even more unattractive because Super Bowl players can no longer play in the game. The only good idea was to move the game to the Super Bowl location and create a more attractive Super Bowl week and drive up revenues for the home city as well as the NFL. Even though it was a good idea, the league quickly changed their mind after the complaints of millionaire players voicing their opinions to selfishly keep the game in Hawaii (for strictly vacation purposes). Regardless of ...

To paraphrase the immortal Potter Stewart - no, he is not the running back for the Carolina Panthers - he is in fact, the Justice of the Supreme Court, who in a 1964 case involving hard-core pornography, said, in essence, I can’t definitively state what hard-core porn is, but “I know it when I see it”.  And just how does that relate to the NFL you might ask?  The Calvin Johnson Rule (which we all could define if we Googled it but is it really worth the effort), is probably THE most ridiculous NFL rule of them all.  As an aside, if you want to argue for the “tuck” rule being more so , I will disagree but I won’t protest toooo much.  I saw the Calvin Johnson catch last year.  It was a touchdown!  I know a touchdown when I see it.  In fact, we all know a touchdown when we see it!  Except for the referees (I know, they seemingly adhered to the absolute letter of the law, er rule) - the ruling on the field of a ...

The band of brothers who were galvanized by his loss is thinning. Only seven of his teammates remain on the active roster and only two of his coaches are still on Washington’s staff. His lockers at the practice facility and at the stadium, whose contents were sealed behind Plexiglas after his death, have been removed. But don’t think for a moment that Sean Taylor, whose shooting four years ago tomorrow and death from his wounds the next day inspired an unmatched outpouring of grief from Redskins Nation, has been forgotten. “I can still see Sean’s smile,” said safeties coach Steve Jackson, who keeps two pictures of Taylor in his Redskins Park office. “It’s four years, but it just feels like yesterday,” said receiver Santana Moss, whom Taylor followed to the University of Miami and then to the Redskins. LaRon Landry, whom Washington drafted sixth overall in 2007 to team at safety with Taylor, the fifth choice overall in 2004, said he th...