I made the 2 hour drive home from Indy this morning in relative peace. Instead of listening to sports radio, I chose to relax my frayed nerves by listening to the amazing Cincinnati group Over the Rhine . They really are wonderful; check them out on Itunes (start with the title of this post). I mostly stuck with A Drunkard's Prayer which sort of fit my mood. It was, however, the words to All I Need is Everything which resonated exactly how I feel about last night's debacle:
Calm down.
Be still.
We've got plenty of time to kill.
No hand writing on the wall:
just the voice that's in us all.
And you're whispering to me,
time to get up off my hands and knees,
'cause if I beg for it, it won't come.
I find nothing but table crumbs.
My hands are empty.
God, I've been naive.
All I need is everything.
In my own postmodern way, I'll let each person interpret that for themselves. It made me feel better though. Way better than I would have felt if I had tried to listen to Colin Cowherd for two hours.
One more note about the Luke: they seem to have worked out the crowd flow issues. Demond made it from his car (parked for $3) to the seats in 22 minutes. I walked my parents through the stadium for the first time, and we found it easy to navigate from the North Gate to the South Gate escalator with no crowd crush and no waiting. We left their house in Northwest Indy about 7:15 and were in our seats by the coin flip (including a stop at the Pro Shop). Again, we got there fairly late and still parked for $3. Amazing.
Links:
Peter King may well be insane. He ranks the Jags (who were horrible with no excuse) 5 spots ahead of the Colts. Whatever. Jacksonville had every chance to win that game (better field position, the Titans backed up 3rd and 15, ect), and were incapable. That team isn't very good. All in all, it was one of his weakest efforts in some time.
Saturday might practice this week? The coaches must have watched tape of the line last night.
There were interesting scout comments on the game last night.
Brady is done, in case you haven't heard. I take no pleasure in this. If Brady had to get hurt, I would want it to be with a crippling case of anal warts, not a blown ACL. In fact, I will root for the Pats openly all season now. Mostly because I want Cassel to throw 40 TDs to Moss so no one is ever confused again as to why the Pats were great. Or maybe not.
Audibles at the Line was surprisingly uninspired this week. At least in terms of our game, which is the only part I've had time to read so far.
Monday, September 8, 2008
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15 comments:
Hey, did the weight of Brady's injury crash the FO servers? Been down for 20 minutes now as metrosexuals everywhere are looking for impeccably-clad shoulders to cry on.
Wow,
Vinnie Iyer cranks up his magical hyperbole machine (I used to think he was sane) about how the NFL might just as well cancel the season in light of TB's injury and all. He came short of suggesting any MVP or SB winner have an asterisk next to their names for 2008, but give him time... while I vomit.
http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/26600869/site/21683474/
Rats! That URL ends with :
/site/21683474/
Someday I will learn how to embed links.
Did anyone see this on Indy Star?
Jeff Saturday might practice?
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080908/SPORTS03/809080418/1100
Wow. That means they were as sickened by the line play as we were.
In other humorous news...
According to the Sportsnet.ca, the Toronto Argonauts have made a multi-year contract offer to running back Kenton Keith that would make him the highest-paid running back in the Canadian Football League. Keith could make roughly $160,000 a season in base pay, but bonues could drive it up another $20,000-$40,000
Are runningbacks allowed to participate in the passing game in Canada? If not that's a great signing.
Why do you say that...? I think Keith throws very well.
Jags get their onion video of the day. Pretty good one.
http://tinyurl.com/6gwuzr
Re: FO's audibles and stuff
-- I thought that Urlacher's flag was for hitting 18 in the head. Haven't seen anyone else comment on that. Madden didn't, but he was really bad the other night.
-- also, on the kickoff fumble, both focused on the "down by contact" part and neither of them in the booth ever noticed in all the replays that a Bear actually did touch him with his hand as he was going down. Yes, the ball came loose befor the knee hit, but he was touched by a Bear.
-- Madden should have retired. I have a lot of affection for the guy, but he's not what he once was.
I am curious what you two and bobm. have to say about my post on the inability of 18 to sprint to the mesh on the outside zone. People don't realize that other teams QB's are unable to replicate it in practice (per Jeff Fisher). Peyton himself commented a couple of years ago (to a former UT player) wondering how many more years he would be able to keep getting the ball out that wide so quickly. It's a big deal in the Colt scheme.
Finally, I am curious if my initial impression of the Colt WRs being well-covered bears out. The frustration with TV is that we can't see what is going on in the secondary.
Oh, and on further reflection, we played against Kyle Orton at QB and STILL struggled to get stops. Really not good.
Stan
I'm watching the tape now, so I'll evaluate some of those thoughts later.
The coverage hasn't been an issue yet (I'm through 1 quarter). Manning threw 9 of his 19 incomplete passes in Q1. There were 3 drops, 2 tipped passes, 2 dumps under extreme rush, and 2 balls where Manning was just high or just wide. That sounds like bad line and recieving play (which was our initial reaction).
I'll post on your observations after watching the tape fully.
ugh, I have the game taped, but have no desire to watch it again. I'll trust you guys on the breakdown.
Hurrah for Over The Rhine!
For the record, my sister Molly is married to Myron Detweiler, who is the brother of Linford Detweiler, one half of the duo that comprises the core of OTR (the other being singer Karin Bergquist, his wife), so I've been a huge fan of theirs since I was a wee lad back in high school.
One of my most treasured posessions is a really old copy of C. S. Lewis's "The Weight of Glory" that Linford pulled off his bookshelf and gave to me for Christmas, because I was at their place for a Christmas celebration and he didn't want me to be the only person who didn't have a present to open. He's a good dude.
That's amazing, because that is a seriously cool book to get from such a cool dude.
I'm glad to hear they are cool.
Stan,
Sorry I didn't see this as there were a ton of new threads.
I concur with your gripe about TV blocking viewers' downfield vision--hard to tell what's happening 15+ yards off the LOS.
I thought your stretch analysis was pretty good too--PM has to SPRINT, arms extended awkwardly to everyone sees the ball. I am not surprised he's a little slowed right now and as he ages further they will have to adapt that play, I guess.
Responding to another of your queries on another thread, I do not recall too many decent play- actions at all and none on a stretch--but I did not see the whole game--family dinner at the in-laws and putting kids to bed consumed most of the 2nd quarter.
The play-fakes I did see were pretty half-assed looking--ball not stuck in far. I SUSPECT that part of the reason we did not see much stretch or true P-A plays was Chicago's penetration. These are movements that consume time and generally run parallel to the LOS behind it--one defender penetrating can cost you three yards. And the Bears were penetrating.
On D--we played inconsistently, which is frustrating. I saw them play stop-stop-break! We skipped the "bend" step entirley on some series. Looked a little slow and tackling was generally not very good.
Small sample size in 2008 coupled with larger sample sizes over the past few years makes me think we'll be fine shortly.
Or am I just making lemonade?
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