Well, you might be, but
the Saints sure weren't. Thank god I taped that one and watched it hours after the fact, since it was boring even with heavy use of the FF button. Lifeless first half, and a second half that became completely one-sided the minute Indy started throwing the ball down the field. (The real question is why the hell
didn't I record this instead? 58-42!)
My theory is that the Saints don't have a full-sized football field left in their ruin of a city. They practice on some half-flooded street, dodging the rusting hulks of abandoned, 22" rimmed Cadillacs, and as a result their offense doesn't realize the rules now permit teams to throw the ball more than twenty yards downfield, and their defense had never seen the offense do it, so didn't realize they had to continue covering those speedy guys in blue and white once they ran more than eight or ten steps.
I didn't see any of the Saints' preseason games, but man did they look unprepared for this one. I have never seen so many draws, end arounds, screens, and quick dump off passes, with never a toss downfield to loosen up the defense. It's admittedly unlikely, but could some kind of timeline-skewing wormhole have caught the team plane, and switched years? No one realized, but thanks to the wormhole last year's Saints were actually the 2007 version, with their big play/long pass offense and inspired play on defense. And now we're stuck with the chronological-challenged 2006 Saints, when everyone expected them to suck thanks to the hurricane disruption, and no one thought Brees would be able to throw the ball downfield after shoulder surgery.
This is opening weekend for the NFL, and after the promising (on paper) Thursday game fizzled, I turned my eyes to Sunday, hoping for some good games on TV. As the local listings loaded, I started to scroll down, before remembering that I live in the Bay Area now, where there's never a good game on Sundays thanks to the idiotic rules about exclusive air rights for the local teams' games. I looked to see which games were on anyway, and predictably enough... I'm fucked.
Sunday: Denver @ Buffalo early, Detroit @ Oakland late. There are a lot of early games, most of which aren't any good. This one definitely isn't, and I have no idea why it's on here. We should theoretically get an NFC game on then, since the Raiders host the late game, but both Denver and Buffalo are in the AFC. And it's a crappy game with two mediocre to crappy teams. It's the highlight of the day though, compared to the late game, which features the aforementioned Raiders playing host to the Detroit Lions.
This one might prove crucial in determining next year's top draft pick, since last season Oakland was 2-14 and the worst team in the league. Detroit? 3-13, good enough for second worst. Which actually worked out pretty well for them, since the always-incompetent Raiders picked a non-superstar QB with the first pick, then made no real effort to sign him to a contract. He's now the only draft pick not signed, while Oakland has two washed up geezers "competing" for their QB position and every other team in the league wonders what color the sky is through Al Davis' granny glasses.
Detroit has no doubt thanked their lucky stars any number of times that Oakland didn't manage to win just one more game last year, since with the Raiders picking first, Detroit went second and took a wide receiver most scouts say is the best talent at his position in a decade. Detroit has a legendarily awful general manager, but even he was smart enough to sign the WR and get him into camp ASAP, and as a result he's ready to play on week one, while the Raiders' QB of the future will be lucky to step on a football field all season, and may eventually end up competing against whichever QB Oakland selects at the top of next year's draft.
The annoying part is that there are only 3 late games on Sunday, and one of them features Superbowl loser Chicago @ San Diego. Those teams won 13 and 14 games last year, respectively (15 and 14 if you count Chicago's 2 playoff wins). Detroit and Oakland won 5. Combined. Just for fun, let's throw in 2005 too, which takes us up to 14 wins. Combined. For Oakland and Detroit. Out of their last 64 games. For real fun, we can factor in their last place finishes in 2003 as well, which takes them up to 25 combined wins... two less than SD and Chicago combined for just last regular season.
Needless to say, I'm setting the VCR right this minute, just in case all the tingly excitement of the "any given Sunday" NFL overwhelms me come the weekend.
Labels: football
