Football Friday - Biding our Time

Oh yes, the days will be long and the weeks will be longer until training camp starts, which is when the torture really begins. Summer football kills me. I’m a fan, I’m a big fan. But I cant watch summer football – preseason games. Football isnt about the yards gained or the passes thrown or the cuts made on the turf. Football is about do or die coaching decisions. Football is about whether you gain 2 yards or 5 on first down, and that that difference is critical. Football is about hitting someone to end not just the drive, but the game. Football is about winning, at all costs.

And preseason football is not about that. Preseason football is about rookie wide receivers hoping the one pass that comes their way is on target. It’s about keeping your star players healthy. It’s a low investment low risk situation. As soon as you remove the “at all costs” factor, it’s just about fat guys in tights rubbing up against one another.

But this isnt about preseason football. This is about football in March, of which there is little. But there is the NFL rookie combine, where Maurice Clarett ran about as slow as one black man can run with that many tough-looking white men watching. A tragedy, really. I’ve been on this guy’s side since Ohio State unceremoniously bounced him for behaving like the spoiled 19-year-old they helped create. He had to go to the Supreme Court to try to get a job in his field, and even they denied him his pursuit of happiness. The fall that he was cut, I figured what he should do is transfer, even to a smaller school. I guess the NFL dream got the better of him, but I cant blame him for that. Millions of dollars are a sweet proposition for a young man with skills.

The most disturbing thing to me about Clarett’s combine wasn’t his performance, however. It was that the Buffalo Bills’ GM and their coach were the ones picked by ESPN’s SportCenter for quotes on Clarett. Are (were) the Bills actually considering drafting him? They got fortunate enough when they brought in Miami’s Willis McGahee – a crap shoot after the dramatic knee injury he suffered in his bowl game only months earlier. At least the gods cut in and didn’t let the Bills push their luck again with another back.

What the Bills need is a veteran quarterback to fill the shoes of Bledsoe, who headed south after being released, to join up with the hubris-heavy Bill Parcells, who seems determined to win with as few players in their prime as he can. It’s clear that Parcells has lost his touch in recognizing talent; he’s just running on the fumes of his past. That’s not going to get him far. Without an offensive line built from concrete slabs with full military air support, Bledsoe’s not going to get much done.

So now the Bills are stuck with JP Losman, who should have been playing the last half the the 2004 season in place of Bledsoe, as long as he was on his way out anyway. I’d hate to think that the decision to release him came so quickly. Maybe it did. But things don’t generally happen fast in Buffalo, especially during the winter. So I think it was just bad coaching. Either way, I’m not thrilled about 2005 for Buffalo.

One thing that actually does make sense is Randy Moss finally finding his team. Al Davis must be melting in his rhinestone boots over Randy’s arrival. Raider Nation is going to love him, and he’s going to love California. Finally he’ll get to date models and singers. As far as football goes, Collins likes to pass downfield. And Moss is lining up across the field from Jerry Porter, a good receiver. But a quick-strike football team requires patience when you're not paying attention, and the question will be whether or not Moss can be patient enough to last in a town that, despite recent history, values winning more than any bundled-up Minnesotan.

But rest assured that whatever happens, football will still be the best sport in the nation come late August when the games count and blood is spilled. The salary cap may have destroyed the dynasty forever (sorry, New England, you’re not), but it saved the game as a form of entertainment and source of constant destruction. The games arent as well played as they used to be, the locks are few, and it’s harder to follow the revolving doors outside the locker rooms of your favorite teams, but at least we can count on it coming around every Sunday. In this day and age, we need something to rely on. And with baseball season approaching, we need something to wait for.

- posted by seanmh @ 4:07 PM