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January 5, 2005

Hot Teams With Great Chemistry They're Not

Which of the Birds' potential opponents in the divisional playoff boasts the biggest jerkface? It's a tougher call than you think.

The time is set (Sunday January 16th, 1 pm), the location is set (glamorous Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia), and the opponent has been narrowed to one of three teams (the Seattle Seahawks, the St. Louis Rams, or the Minnesota Vikings, pending the outcome of the Wild Card games) for the Eagles divisional playoff game next weekend. While the team has earned some time off by securing the best record in the NFC and the #1 seed for the NFC playoffs, the fans (for whom the supporting of football isn't quite as physically demanding as the playing of football) are ravenous for more football, and specifically, more competitive Philadelphia Eagles football -- something we haven't seen in three weeks. Instead, we are left sitting on our hands, scouring the Internet for Eagles-related articles we may have missed, and wondering (a) which potential opponent the Birds will face and, more importantly, (b) which potential opponent we would most like to face.

It's very easy, as a neurotic fan who's been disappointed by your pro football franchise of choice on more than one occasion, to be nervous about the playoffs right now. The Birds haven't played a competitive game in a while, and we really don't know what they're going to look like without TO. (NB: We fear that they'll look like the team that lost the NFC Championship game a year ago and should have lost to Green Bay in the Divisional Round.) Are we being set up for disgrace and despair yet again?

And then you take a look at the teams they could play in the Divisional Round, and you realize why the Eagles will be favored by at least 4.5 points in that game. Not only did all three of the teams involved stumble into the playoffs (two needed gift wins from teams playing their second-stringers, the third got in after losing in Week 17 to a team with a losing record), but all three are boasting a Grade-A jerkface that simply has to be crippling them internally. None of these teams look like the Patriots from 2001 or the Panthers from 2003 -- focused underdog teams that are all on the same page and are playing their hearts out. Nope. All three of these groups have a serious jerk at a key position -- so jerky, in fact, that it's something of a struggle to decide who is the worst. The nominees:

Seattle Seahawks, Shaun Alexander: on fourth and one from the one yard line, with his team needing a touchdown to win the game and earn a home game in the playoffs, the Seahawks call a quarterback sneak. TOUCHDOWN! Seattle to host playoff game! Hurrah! Only it turns out that Seahwaks RB Shaun Alexander was a yard away from sharing the NFL rushing title, and had he gained that yard, he would have rushed for the most yards in the NFL this year. Note that this is also a contract year for Mr. Alexander. After the game, Alexander explained, "We were going to win anyway. We were on the freakin' goal line, and I got stabbed in the back." As you might expect, the media aren't letting this one go quietly. Go team!

St. Louis Rams, Mike Martz: a few weeks after telling reporters that backup QB Chris Chandler "held the team hostage" by, I suppose, not being a good enough player(?), Martz's life was apparently threatened by offensive lineman Kyle Turley, such that security needed to be summoned to escort Turley from the building. Right. But after an unimpressive gift win against the Eagles' second- and third-stringers and a missed FG by the Jets, the Rams are in the playoffs and Martz is telling everyone what a genius he is (again)! Nothing cements leadership like blaming those who work for you when things go wrong!

Minnesota Vikings, Randy Moss: with a few seconds remaining in the Vikings Week 17 game against Washington, and the team needing to recover an onside kick in order to have a chance to win the game and secure a playoff spot, Randy Moss took off his helmet and headed for the locker room. Right. The team's best player left. Before the game was over. The quotes after the game were absolutely priceless. From coach Mike Tice: "I understand his frustration, but we can't let our frustrations make us make poor decisions of poor judgment." (No indeed. Those are the worst sorts of decisions to make.) From wide receiver Marcus Robinson: "I wasn't too much worried about it. That's Randy Moss. He can do basically what he wants to do. Definitely, he did what he did." (Yes. He definitely did.)

Of the three, I actually think that Alexander is the most defensible. I mean, it's pretty selfish, yes, but this is a contract year for him and the delta in the money Mr. Alexander will be able to demand based on that one additional yard ("NFL Rushing Champion" is worth a lot of money to certain NFL general managers) might actually be significant. It helps the brand. Bashing your players/ employees when times are tough is bad news no matter what business you're in, as is quitting on the people you work with. Bad, bad news. Playing hard and then running your mouth and being selfish afterwards? Not so sweet, but not crippling. Mr. Alexander, you're the least jerky jerkface of the three! Congrats!

From a macro level, nonsense like this doesn't really matter all that much. NFL Football is about total strangers pushing each other around on television for a couple hours, and team chemistry and whatnot doesn't usually matter if you're better at pushing people around than the other team. Still, sometimes it does matter, and sometimes teams with the right chemistry get hot and end up beating teams that were expected to be superior at pushing people around (see above: Patriots and Panthers). But at least Eagles fans can rest assured that they won't be facing one of those sorts of teams with the exciting chemistry; if they lose, it'll be because they got pushed around.

Posted by thatkid at January 5, 2005 4:31 PM under Sports

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