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Look, I know this book is about American football, and I know most of my readers couldn’t care less about American football. But hear me out, okay? Because this post isn’t really about football. I mean, there will be references to some football-related matters, but you can skim past those if you want. No, this post is actually about something deeper, more essential… this post is about aesthetics.

What do I mean by that? Time will tell. For now, let me begin by summarizing: Paul Brown was the coach of the Cleveland Browns, who dominated the sport during the 1950s. Brown’s teams racked up records and championships during the first few decades of their existence. Until a new team owner, Art Modell, took over and fired Brown after a few bad years.

Like Coriolanus, Brown decided to raise a team of his own in the south, and take his revenge. And thus the Cincinnati Bengals were born in 1968, and instantly became a major rival of the Browns. Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, the Bengals and Browns met twice a year, usually with one team having something to play for and the other merely playing out the string on a lost season. Oddly, surprisingly often, the team with nothing to play for would win.

The ’80s were peak years for the rivalry, with both teams enjoying considerable success during the decade, although neither ever managed to win the Super Bowl. Twice, the Bengals fell short to San Francisco 49er teams coached by a former assistant coach of theirs, Bill Walsh.

And then, in 1991, Paul Brown died, and the two teams collapsed. The Bengals became a perennial joke throughout the ’90s and the Browns–well, remember that Modell fellow from before? He packed up and moved the team to Baltimore, rebranding as the Ravens. Not until 1999 would Cleveland be granted a new team, with the colors and records of the old Browns, but most certainly not the tradition of winning.

And this is Knight’s thesis: the Bengals and Browns are haunted by the man who essentially created them both. Somewhere out there in the ether, the ghost of Paul Brown hovers over them, looking down with grim disapproval at his once-proud teams. Neither can succeed until this angry spirit is appeased.

Of course, this is all a manner of speaking, in the grand tradition of sports curses. There are plenty of obvious materialistic explanations for the Bengals’ and Browns’ many failures. Although, there are some things that do strain probability…

This book was published in 2018, and since then both teams have enjoyed some success. The Browns finally broke their playoff-less streak in 2020, and the Bengals actually made it to the Super Bowl in 2021. (Losing, it must be noted, in very much the same way they did to the 49ers in 1988.) So perhaps the curse is lifting. But can it really be said to be ended until at least one of these teams holds aloft the Vince Lombardi trophy?

Knight’s prose is light and enjoyable, and he has a knack for clever phrasing and for highlighting amusing instances of ironic misfortune in the histories of both clubs, of which there are many. I’m pretty well-versed in football trivia, but I still learned a few new factoids.

All well and good, you say; but why am I dedicating one of my October blog posts, normally reserved for reviewing Halloween-related stories, to this book?

Watch this clip of the Browns/Bengals game from Halloween of last year. You don’t need to know a thing about football. All you need to know is that it’s Halloween night, and two teams whose colors are orange and brown and orange and black, are battling it out under the lights, amid a sea of roaring fans, many of whom are rigged out in costumes befitting All Hallows’ Eve.

The whole spectacle is weird and eerie, and, I’d argue, perfect for Halloween. The NFL should make it a tradition: every year, on the Thursday, Sunday, or Monday night closest to October 31st, the Bengals play the Browns. It’s really the perfect uniform combination for the occasion.

Now, it’s true that other teams, including the Broncos, Bears, and Dolphins have orange in their uniforms. (And indeed, the Bengals played a memorably weird game against the Dolphins on Halloween a decade ago.)  But only the Bengals and Browns have that added (pumpkin?) spice of being arch-rivals. The memories of past triumphs and defeats echoing in every hit; the vaguely Biblical theme of two feuding brothers, and the added passion of the costumed fans, all combine to make a potent brew for epic gridiron madness.

And, in my opinion, football is as much a part of the Halloween season as jack-o’-lanterns and candy. Granted, I live smack dab in the middle of the state where the sport was effectively invented, but it is impossible to imagine midwestern Autumn without the thwack of offensive and defensive lines smashing together, seeing replica jerseys everywhere, team banners and pennants flying amid the Halloween decorations, and hearing the Monday morning radio shows buzzing about how the season is going. There’s a reason why, when I wrote a short story as a love-letter to the Halloween season, I had to include a scene at a football game.

And, as some of you may know, I am not even primarily a fan of either of these teams. (Though I will always have some fondness for the Bengals.) My team plays further north, and is more associated with the “something of winter in their faces” that  John Facenda once spoke of, than with the warm orange-and-brown hues of Autumn. Yet, my judgment remains the same: the Bengals and Browns are the perfect Halloween teams.

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Okay, I know most of you couldn’t care less about American football. But hear me out on this.

George Plimpton was a pioneer of participatory journalism—that is, journalism in which the writer actually participates in what he’s writing about, as opposed to simply describing it as a bystander. His many exploits included playing in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, boxing with Archie Moore, and pitching in an MLB game.

But arguably his most famous act of participatory journalism was his time as quarterback of the Detroit Lions. Plimpton joined their camp during the 1963 season, and participated for five plays in an inter-squad scrimmage. Here’s how he introduces the fateful moment:

“The offensive team in their blue jerseys, about ten yards back, on their own twenty yard line, moved and collected in the huddle formation as I came up, and I slowed, and walked toward them, trying to be calm about it, almost lazying up to them to see what could be done.”

After his five plays were run, the Lions had lost 29 yards. Certainly an inauspicious playing career, although as time has gone on, it’s proven to be far from the most embarrassing thing to happen to a Lions quarterback.

How interesting could a book about a man being terrible at football be, you ask? Well, that’s just it. Plimpton may have been a bad quarterback, but he was a magnificent writer. He could make anything sound interesting. Something as boring as lining up under center, he makes memorable:

“I took a few tentative steps toward Bob Whitlow, the center, waiting patiently over the ball. I suddenly blurted out: ‘Well, damn it, coach, I don’t know where to put my… I just don’t know…’

The coaches all crowded around to advise, and together we moved up on Whitlow, who was now peering nervously over his shoulder like a cow about to be milked.”

What makes Paper Lion great isn’t Plimpton’s scrimmage performance by itself. That just serves to give the book a structure and a dramatic climax. But the real meat of the book is in Plimpton’s descriptions of what goes on behind the scenes of an NFL team, like the annual revue they put on after the final roster cutdowns, in which the rookies mock coaches, veterans and league officials. Plimpton describes himself performing in the role of then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle:

“I wore a Napoleon hat, a cloak, a wooden sword, three cap pistols and a rubber dirk; and I carried a pair of handcuffs, a tack hammer, and a frying pan. These artifacts… were supposed to suggest the inquisitorial aspects of Rozelle’s office.

…and when I clanked toward the footlights, and said ‘Howdy, I’m Petesy Rozelle,’ the audience delivered a stiff barrage of invective.”

Or, during a hazing session where rookies are made to sing their college fight songs before the entire team, Plimpton struggles to recall his alma mater:

Crimson in triumph flashing

‘Til that last white line is past.

er… We’ll fight for the name of Harvard

‘Til… that last white line is past….

There are his depictions of all the Lions players, like Earl Morrall, the journeyman quarterback who would later go on to join the legendary 1972 Miami Dolphins, and of George Wilson, the Lions’ firm but good-natured coach. Dick “Night Train” Lane, whose record for interceptions in a season still stands to this day. Dick LeBeau, who would go on to a Hall of Fame career as a defensive coach, was a member of the team, whom Plimpton recalls the players likening to a pop star.

Above all, there are the antics of lineman Alex Karras. Karras was suspended for the 1963 season for gambling, but he still makes his presence felt as Plimpton recounts stories of him. Karras was a hambone, a performer by nature, always improvising skits and stories to amuse his teammates waiting in the hotel before a game, as in his recollections of an imagined “former life” in World War II:

“I knew all those cats, Runstedt, Goering–Bavaria Fats we called him–and Rommel. He had a terrible weak stomach, Rommel did. He used to get sick all the time. I’d come rushing up to him in the morning to fling the salute at him, and say, ‘Hello, hello, heil, heil, good mornin’ gener’l,’ and he’d get sick.”

It’s no surprise Karras went on to a career in acting after his football days ended. He had a natural gift for entertaining—but then, as Plimpton describes, as game time drew near, he would grow serious, and sick to his stomach. Karras’ queasiness and unpredictable temper actually reassured his teammates: “Alex is ready,” they murmur when his mood turns sour, “In five minutes he’ll be out there on the field making the poor fellow from Philadelphia opposite him pay for it.” Plimpton concludes the chapter, “We crowded into the elevator. No one said anything going down. Karras would sit alone on the bus.”

Plimpton had an incredible talent for knowing just how to end a chapter. I’m not sure I’ve ever read anyone else who could do it as well as he could. Here’s his conclusion of the chapter about his ill-fated scrimmage, when he hears a woman in the stands call out to him:

“She was wearing a mohair Italian sweater, the color of spun pink sugar, and tight pants, and she was holding a thick folding wallet in one hand along with a pair of dark glasses, and in the other a Lions banner, which she waved, her face alive with excitement, very pretty in a perishable, childlike way, and she was calling, “Beautiful; it was beautiful.”

The fireworks lit her, and she looked up, her face chalk white in the swift aluminum glare.

I looked at her out of my helmet. Then I lifted a hand, just tentatively.”

Plimpton’s time with the Lions occurred in the shadow of departed star quarterback Bobby Layne, who had led the team to multiple NFL championships in the ’50s. Legend has it, Layne cursed the team when they traded him, saying they would not win another title for 50 years. And as of this writing, they still have not, being one of the worst franchises in the NFL over the last half-century.

I wonder if the book would have been the same if Plimpton had chosen some other team for his experiment. He had tried to go to the New York Giants, the New York Titans (now Jets) and the Baltimore Colts. But somehow, it seems right that it was the Lions who had this awkward, lanky quarterback who wore number 0 and who stumbled on his first play from scrimmage. There is a poetic quality to it—someone who knows he hasn’t got a chance, but is trying anyway, because, well, how else to know what it’s like? 

The Lions play on national TV every Thanksgiving. Generally, they lose. Even if they don’t, the game is usually meaningless, as they have almost always been eliminated from playoff contention by that time. But I love this tradition, because there’s a kind of melancholic beauty to it, just as there was to Plimpton’s venture. Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner on a dreary day—as midwestern November days always are, somehow even when they are sunny—and watching the Honolulu blue and silver appear on the screen as the Lions go into another ill-starred competition makes me think of old Plimpton and his wonderfully nerdy courage. 

It’s said that the owners of baseball’s Chicago Cubs believed that fans didn’t care about winning as much as they did entertainment. They were probably wrong, but I still see where they got that idea. Anyone can cheer for a winner; but it takes something special to cheer on a perennial loser, year after year. Don’t we teach kids it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game?

And in a way, Plimpton did win. He wrote one of the greatest sports books ever—a book that captures both the details of the game and the poetry of it. Football is a late autumn sport, and is tightly connected with the mood of the season. As John Facenda said in the intro to an NFL films production I once saw, there is “something somber in the eyes of the men, something of winter in their faces…” Paper Lion depicts football’s essence, in all its violent, weird, funny, fading autumnal glory.

I’ve loved football since I was a kid—I first read Paper Lion when I was 13 years old—so I’m probably biased. But I do believe it’s possible to enjoy the book even without being a football fan, because Plimpton was such a fantastic writer. In the introduction to the 1993 edition, Plimpton described an encounter with a rustic fellow who came up to him and said that he had only ever read one book—Paper Lion. Flattered but nonplused, Plimpton asked if he’d ever considered reading another one. The man replied with the greatest compliment a writer can receive: “Have you written another one?”

Indeed, he had, and this is why I think even a non-football fan may enjoy Paper Lion. I’ve read lots of other things he wrote, on subjects which normally hold no interest for me, but which I enjoyed anyway because of his masterful storytelling and wit.

In 2003, less than a week before he died, Plimpton went to Detroit for a ceremony at halftime of a Lions’ game to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the book and reunite with some old Lions’ stars. I remember watching the game on TV, and thinking how weird it was to see number 0 on a football jersey.

Of course, the Lions lost the game, 23-13.

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I’ll keep this short; since I haven’t been following football as closely as in the past. In the preseason, I predicted the Rams would lose the Super Bowl, albeit to the Steelers. I’m tempted to just say well, that was my pick going in, and leave it at that.

But no; you deserve better. In the conference title round, I predicted the Rams would somehow win despite the Saints being the better team, and sure enough, that’s what happened–the refs (and bone-headed Saints’ play-calling) handed the game to the Rams.

Meanwhile, the Patriots have been left for dead multiple times this season, only to rise again like the Terminator coming after Linda Hamilton. Can the Rams beat them, and avenge the loss of 17 years ago that started it all?

Let’s go back to first principles: defense wins championships. While neither team has a great defense, the Patriots at least have a decent one, whereas the Rams, despite having all-star talent, have a pretty bad defense.

Ironically, the Rams’ main defensive strength–their linemen–would have been better equipped to beat the Patriots of past years, who were very pass-happy and almost entirely dependent on Brady. But this New England team relies more on the power running game than previous editions.

The Rams will still get pressure, but I suspect it won’t matter as much as it would have in the past. The Patriots will run the ball to slow down the rush. When the Rams are on offense, the Patriots will take away their running game and force Goff to beat them through the air. He may do OK, but I doubt he’ll be able to repeat the performance Foles put up last year against New England.

I would love an ugly, defensive slugfest that ended with a score like 9-6. Mostly just to spite the NFL executives and TV people who were hoping for a Rams/Chiefs rematch so they could have another ridiculous 54-51 game. There is beauty in well-played defense, I tell you!

Oh, well. That probably won’t happen. I applaud the Rams for wearing their beautiful throwback jerseys, which I’ve always thought were some of the best in football, and I wish them well. But, in the end, I’m sticking with my pre-season prediction that the Rams will come up short.

NE: 28

LA: 20

…and think, if not for their mystifying inability to beat bad teams, it might so easily have been the Steelers!

 

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51fFraKeUML._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_This is a light-hearted novel about two imaginary expansion NFL teams, the Los Angeles Leopards and the Portland Pioneers. The two teams enter the league simultaneously—the Leopards led by coach Bobby Russell, who takes a methodical, conservative approach to slowly building a team. 

After a few seasons, Leopards owner Cedric B. Medill (yes, he’s a movie producer) grows impatient, and fires Russell, replacing him with brash, loud-mouthed defensive coordinator Randy Dolbermeier. Russell gets picked up as defensive coordinator by the Pioneers and, after a car accident leaves Pioneers coach Denzel Jackson incapacitated, takes over as interim head coach. And—can you believe it?—finds himself coaching in the Super Bowl against his old team and Dolbermeier.

Interwoven with the on-field exploits of the Pioneers and the Leopards is a subplot with a sportswriter/poet and a few of his colorful friends, who have been gradually uncovering that Dolbermeier is more than just an arrogant jerk—he’s an outright cheater, using underhanded methods to gain an advantage over his opponents. There have been hints of this beginning with his time as defensive coordinator for the Leopards, and once he’s given full control of the team, it gets really out of hand. And of course, they finish building their case against Dolbermeier just as the Leopards/Pioneers Super Bowl is about to be played, setting up a denouement which I won’t give away here.

The book is written with a light touch—Levy tends to favor warm, sometimes downright corny humor over tension or drama. A good example is when the journalist and his friends are investigating the visitors’ locker room at the Leopards’ stadium, suspecting that Dolbermeier has bugged it. I figured it would be a thriller-like sequence, where they have to sneak in to Dolbermeier’s hidden room and avoid getting caught. But no, they just end one chapter by saying “let’s go check it out” and in the next chapter, they say, “Yep, sure enough, it’s bugged.”

Don’t get me wrong; Levy’s humor and good-nature are infectious. Some of the malapropisms uttered by the heavily-accented equipment manager made me chuckle. And then, of course, there are Levy’s countless references to the NFL’s heyday. 

For those who didn’t recognize the name, Levy isn’t just a football fan. He is a Hall of Fame NFL coach who guided the Buffalo Bills to four consecutive AFC titles. (Alas, they went 0-4 in their Super Bowls.) His novel is filled with references to the football stars of the ‘80s and ‘90s. In particular, characters like Kelly James, Thomas Thurber and Deuce Smithers, among others, are clearly modeled on Bills greats who played for Levy. (The names that aren’t clear references to famous players or coaches are usually groaner puns—e.g. the front-office secretaries, sisters Nina and Ada Klock.) 

Even if you don’t like football, it’s an amusing book. Football fans will get the most out of it though, with all the references to famous players, and the discussions of football philosophy—Russell’s conservative, defensive-minded approach versus the glitzy, high-scoring style is part of the conflict at the heart of the story.

It’s also interesting to speculate as to who Levy had in mind as the model for coach Dolbermeier. While most of the good characters are pretty thinly-veiled, Dolbermeier is a little harder to figure out. His “whatever it takes to win” philosophy and his contempt for rules will make most football fans think immediately of Bill Belichick, but his brash, loudmouth manner seems more Rex Ryan-ish.  He might also be based on Chuck Dickerson, a defensive line coach for the Bills whom Levy fired for publicly trash-talking an opponent.

It’s worth noting that many of the cheating methods Dolbermeier employs have been used in the real NFL. The New England Patriots’ videotaping scandal is the most obvious parallel—although they’ve never been found guilty of taping other teams at practice. It is said that Peyton Manning believed the locker room at Gillette Stadium was bugged, although again, no one ever proved this. And coaches’ headsets are notorious for malfunctioning in Foxboro, another tactic that Levy’s villain uses. Dolbermeier also implements a bounty system like the one the New Orleans Saints used during their Super Bowl season. (Levy’s book was published in 2011, before that scandal broke.) 

It’s remarkable to me that a Hall of Fame coach would write a book like this, with cheating in the Super Bowl as the heart of the plot. It almost makes me wonder if Levy was trying to hint that cheating really is occurring in the NFL. Or at least, suggesting that the league is employing too many dishonorable, Dolbermeier-like coaches, and not enough forthright, honest ones like Russell and Jackson.

In any case, Between the Lies is a fun read for anyone who enjoys football, and especially for Bills fans like me, who long for the glorious days when Coach Levy had us winning the AFC, and the Patriots were in the cellar.

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As I warned in the preamble to my season-opening haiku, I haven’t watched much football this year. In fact, I wasn’t even going to do this post. But then I remembered how I met (well, virtually met) my friend Barb Knowles three years ago thanks to my title game predictions post. And through Barb, I met Carrie Rubin and a host of other wonderful people. So you never know what’s going to come from these things. And besides, I’m a big believer in maintaining traditions.

But if I haven’t watched football, you ask, how can I predict the games? Well, I have a colleague who keeps me informed about the season—every week we discuss our hatred of what the NFL has become, and he briefs me in detail on all the horrible, stupid things the players, coaches and organizations have done. It’s actually really helpful—saves me the time of watching. That, combined with checking a few stats, leaves me fully qualified to talk about this. Or at least, no less qualified than when I did watch football religiously.

NFC 

The NFC game is easy. I picked the Rams to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl in my preseason picks. I’m not changing it now; even though New Orleans has homefield advantage and beat the Rams earlier in the season.

…And have the better quarterback. And are generally a more balanced team.

Ugh, it’s a big hill for the lads from Los Angeles to climb isn’t it? Nevertheless, I am steadfast! The Rams wore their beautiful throwback blue and yellow uniforms against Dallas. They should bring out the road version of that for the title game—it’s a gorgeous uniform, and the one they wore in their lone Super Bowl victory as well. It’s time once again to “Ram It, LA!”:

I know. Words fail.

Anyway, I’m actually not feeling great about LA’s chances. But they are healthier on defense than when the Saints trounced them earlier this year. I predict they manage to get it done.

RAMS: 34

SAINTS: 30

AFC

Like death and taxes, the Patriots are. They were supposed to finally fall apart this season, and indeed they haven’t been as good as usual. But here they are, yet again. Honestly, I think the fact that they annihilated the Chargers tells you more about how hard it is to come from California to Massachusetts in January than about the quality of the Patriots. It was a chilly day in Foxboro, so much so that Tom Brady broke out the Napoleonic greatcoat he first wore as a rookie during the 1812 invasion of Russia:

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It’s even better with the hat:

image

But enough fun! The Patriots hate fun. And no one embodies fun like the loose, energetic, youthful up-and-coming Patrick Mahomes and his high-flying, quick-scoring, no-look-passing, what-is-defense-anyway Kansas City Chiefs.

The Chiefs are the sort of team the NFL loves—a pro version of a Big 12 team. A team that scores a ton of points, and gives up almost as many. I’m sure the league office is lighting candles and praying they get a rematch of that absurd Rams/Chiefs Monday night game for the Super Bowl. The old defensive coaches of yore are spinning in their graves.

The problem is, these kinds of all-offense, no-defense teams have historically fallen apart in the playoffs. Look at the Bills in 1990. The Rams in 2001. The Patriots in 2011. The Broncos in 2013. The Chiefs are the sort of team that sets records in the regular season, and collapses in the playoffs. And Belichick built his reputation beating these kinds of teams—he was responsible for the defenses that shut down the ’90 Bills and the ’01 Rams. (And the ’11 Patriots, come to think on it…)

 Then you have Chiefs coach Andy Reid. There are two threads running through his career—one of them is going to be the storyline come Sunday night. 

The first thread is a story of failure. As coach of the Eagles, Reid lost the NFC title game to the Rams in 2001, to the Buccaneers in 2002, to the Panthers in 2003, and then finally got over that hump only to lose to Belichick’s Patriots in 2004. For good measure, he lost a final NFC championship to the Cardinals in 2008. A few more early-round losses and he was run out of Philadelphia, taking his knack for regular season success and post-season disaster to Kansas City, where he has added a real dramatic flair to the heartbreak, blowing huge leads to the Colts in 2013 and the Titans—the Titans, for God’s sake!—in 2017. And in 2015, he even did a sort of reenactment of his Super Bowl defeat, by mismanaging the clock in a loss to the Patriots.

Ah, the Patriots. That’s where the second thread of Reid’s career comes in. With Philadelphia, he generally struggled against them. (Join the club!) But with Kansas City, he has had the distinction of administering two of the most lopsided beatings the Patriots have suffered during Belichick and Brady’s time. First in 2014, a 41-14 drubbing that made some people wonder if The Terror was over, and then in 2017, a shocking 42-27 bloodbath that saw the Patriots give up 537 yards of offense. And imagine how bad it would have been if Belichick weren’t a defensive genius!

And let’s not forget that Doug Pederson, whose Eagles defeated the Patriots in last year’s Super Bowl while racking up 538 yards of offense, is a disciple of Reid who uses many of the same offensive concepts. In summary, it’s fair to say New England struggles against this offense.

It’s an interesting matchup: the Chiefs flying circus offense is exactly the kind that fails in the playoffs. On the other hand, the Patriots bend-and-then-break-and-then-hope-like-hell-Tom-Brady-bails-us-out defense also tends not to perform well in these games. It’s the very stoppable force vs. the eminently movable object.

As for that relying-on-Brady strategy? It’s not working like it used to in the past. And I think Belichick knows it—he’s calling more on the running game, because he knows old number 12 can’t make all the throws he used to. People keep waiting for Brady to decline, but I think he’s already started to—it’s just that the Patriots are great at hiding it. (And Brady, to his credit, is still a crafty veteran who knows lots of mind games to play with a defense to compensate for his declining arm strength.)

Yes, I know the Patriots managed to beat the Chiefs earlier this year—but it was in Foxboro, and the score was 43-40. Doesn’t sound to me like they really shut down the Chiefs offense like they did another team from Missouri, back in the old days. 

The Patriots struggle on the road, and this game is being played in notoriously loud Arrowhead stadium. I predict Reid and Mahomes will field enough offense to win in frigid conditions, and that Napoletom Bradyparte will, if not meet his Waterloo, at least get exiled to a remote island until next season.

CHIEFS: 23

PATRIOTS: 19 

 

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[I wrote this a while ago, but never posted it. Then I saw Mark Paxson’s post today and thought “why the heck not?”]

Pericles was an ancient Greek politician who presided over what is sometimes referred to as the “Golden Age of Athens”. During this period, the Athenians made many artistic and architectural achievements that are still admired in Western Civilization.

However, what sometimes gets neglected is that Pericles also presided over the end of the Golden Age, and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The Greek city-states turned against one another, and Athens collapsed into war and plague, the latter of which killed Pericles himself.

“Life”, as the commercials say, “comes at you fast.”

What’s this got to do with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell?

Well, he presided over the Golden Age of Football in the United States. The NFL drew huge viewership numbers and was easily the most lucrative of the major professional sports during his tenure. In his tenure, American football has gone global, and stadiums have become bigger and more ornate than ever. Even the NFL’s premier event has changed from being a predictable blowout that it used to be into, more often than not, a highly-competitive and exciting game.

But now, the end of that Golden Age is at hand. A lot of it is the self-inflicted hubris of all great powers: from making teams play awful games on Thursday nights (dressed in hideous uniforms to boot) despite the fact that players and fans alike hate it, to relocating beloved teams to richer, but less football-loving markets, the NFL’s own greed now works against it.

And then there are political divisions that turn the organization on itself. The National Anthem controversy has made the league a lightning rod for criticism, and it has reacted by trying to come up with a “compromise” that has angered people on both sides of the issue.

Then there are the concussions, which are causing fewer children to take up the sport in the first place. The NFL’s supply of gladiators to feed to the brutal sport is drying up, and so they are changing rules to try to compensate. In the process, they are destroying football in order to save it.

For all these reasons, I think the NFL is in sharp decline, and that it will soon cease to be the dominant sports league in America. And yet, it was only a few years ago that it appeared to be an invincible juggernaut.

OK, maybe this post is a little unfair to Pericles. Although he and Athens fell on hard times at the end of his career, he at least was by all accounts a charismatic orator, competent general, and left the world some marvelous ruins that still stand today. I doubt anyone will be looking at NFL stadiums a thousand years from now.

But the general point holds: when you’re at the height of your power, always remember that there’s nowhere to go but down. Or, in the words of another legendary statesman, Abraham Lincoln:

“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.'”

 

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I debated whether to even bother writing these this year. I probably won’t be following the NFL very closely any more for a while. But this is a tradition here at Ruined Chapel, and as Tevye would say, tradition is how we keep our balance. So I went ahead and did it.

As usual, the order in which they appear reflects my prediction for each team’s standing in the division at the end of the season.

AFC East

Patriots

Empire’s Twilight:
Still can win the division.
But not playoff game.

Dolphins

Mediocre team
But good enough for second
In AFC East.

 Jets

Always rebuilding
Jets will be bad yet again
And fire their coach.

Bills

We ended the drought!
Then lost all our good players
And drafted a bust.

AFC North

Steelers

In Big Ben’s last year
They recapture the magic
Of Two thousand Five.

Ravens

So much for Flacco
They struggle again, and start
Jackson by week five

Bengals

Besides Death and Tax
Bengal mediocrity
Is only sure thing.

Browns

Belichick’s jealous!
Hue doubles career wins (team)
In just one season!

AFC South

Colts

Luck returns to form
And they win the division
But lose to Steelers.

Jaguars

Still a strong defense
But Blake Bortles regresses
And they miss playoffs.

Titans

Were lucky last year;
Won’t happen again this year.
Better unis, though.

Texans

Watson was a fluke;
This year, teams figure him out
And they go nowhere.

AFC West

Raiders

Gruden brings them back
To their old playoff glory
But not Super Bowl.

Chargers

They should be better
But always underachieve.
This year is the same.

Broncos

The “case” of the fluke
Quarterback in title game
Ends with the Broncos.

Chiefs

They’ll be missing Smith
When unproven gunslinger
Throws twenty-plus picks.

NFC East

Eagles

Is Wentz really good?
Yes, but they’re also lucky;
They will not repeat.

Cowboys

Who are they really?
Last year’s bad team or ’16’s?
I think it’s last year’s.

Redskins

Still paying the price
For bad management’s past sins.
Will underperform.

Giants

First round running backs
Seldom give good ROI–
Too bad for Saquon.

NFC North

Packers

Back where they belong
Reigning over division–
But can’t beat the Rams.

Vikings

The magic ran out
Against  Philadelphia;
Won’t be  recaptured.

Bears

Could surprise people
But Trubisky will flame out
In the second half.

Lions

Stafford’s getting old
Defense has never been good–
Into the cellar!

NFC South

Panthers

Behind strong runners
They win the division but
Lose out to the Rams.

Falcons

Ryan ‘s MVP
But team itself ‘s lackluster–
It’s the old story.

Saints

Brees’s decline starts
And Kamara suffers slump;
They miss the playoffs.

Buccaneers

Winston is a bust
Now they’ll have to start over
Should have known better.

NFC West

Rams

Completely stacked team
Has best record in the league;
But loses S.B.

49ers

Jimmy G is good;
But they won’t overcome Rams.
But wait till next year.

Seahawks

How do you squander
A superstar like Wilson?
Just ask Pete Carroll.

Cardinals

Poor old Fitzgerald
Has played so long on bad teams.
And he will again.

by on

Well, well, well, I went 0-for-2 in my conference championship predictions. I think that’s the first time that’s happened since I started doing these. The New England victory wasn’t really a surprise, although the Jaguars did pretty much everything they needed to in order to win. It reminded me of the last time the Jaguars were in the playoffs—they played a near-perfect game against the Patriots and lost that one, too.

More shocking to me was the Eagles beating Minnesota. The vaunted Vikings defense looked like they were playing with lead weights in their shoes as the Eagles blew them out.

So now the Eagles draw the most dangerous opponent in all of football—the team that can be down 28-3 with 18 minutes to go in the game and still win. The Eagles knew they had won the NFC championship at halftime when it was 24-7. Even if they have a lead like that at the halfway mark of this game, there will be no such assurance.

The last time the Patriots and Eagles played, back in 2015, was one of the strangest games I can remember. Philadelphia was just playing out the string of the failed Chip Kelly experiment, and New England was, as usual, gunning for the number one seed in the AFC.

The Patriots took an early 14-0 lead, and then some bizarre spell came over everyone at Gillette Stadium and one crazy thing after another transpired. First Belichick made a shocking mistake, punting instead of running out the clock, and Philly blocked it for a touchdown right before halftime. Then in the 3rd quarter, Brady made a rare red-zone mistake and threw an interception that the Eagles returned for a touchdown.

The weirdness wasn’t over. Later on, New England ran a trick play where Amendola threw a pass to Brady. The play gained 36 yards, and then on the next snap Brady was intercepted again.

The Eagles had a 35-14 lead early in the 4th, and then New England rallied with two quick scores to close it to 35-28. The Eagles promptly fumbled the ball back to New England with a minute to go, and at this point, we all knew where this was going: another patented Touchdown Tom Terrific All-American Miracle Clutch Ageless Boy Wonder Comeback was in the offing, right?

And then… nothing happened. The Patriots got one first down and then threw four incomplete passes. Ballgame.

It was one of the weirdest games I’ve seen, and may have cost the Patriots a shot at Super Bowl 50, by causing them to lose homefield advantage to Denver, where they would ultimately lose the AFC championship.

A lot has changed since that game, especially for the Eagles, who have a new coaching staff, and a completely overhauled offense. The Patriots, while still the Brady/Belichick show, are famous for evolving considerably from one game to the next, let alone from season to season. So it might be that there isn’t much to be learned from that 2015 game.

There are still a few veterans from that Philly defense, however–maybe most importantly, defensive linemen Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham. Graham had two sacks in that 2015 game, and everybody knows the key to beating New England is for the line to get pressure on their signal-caller.

The NFL’s final four this year came down to the Patriots and three teams seemingly designed to beat the Patriots: the Jaguars, Vikings, and Eagles all feature the strong defensive lines needed to bring pressure without blitzing. This probably isn’t a coincidence; at this point, everyone knows that if you want to win the Super Bowl, odds are you’ll have to go through the Patriots to do it.

If there’s a ray of hope for the Eagles; it’s this: they match up with New England far better than last year’s Falcons did, and that team managed to get a 28-3 lead. And though the Patriots probably won’t play as badly as they did in the first half of last year’s game, one of the oddities of the New England dynasty is that for all their football expertise and unmatched playoff experience, they never seem to bring their “A” game in the Super Bowl. The only ones where they really seemed to be giving it their best shot against an evenly-matched opponent were the one against the Seattle team that embarrassed Denver the year before, and their very first one, against the mighty St. Louis Rams and their high-powered “Greatest Show on Turf”.

All the other Super Bowls of the Brady/Belichick era (or Reign of Terror, if you prefer) have been weirdly sloppy and played down to the level of their opponent—from the defensive struggle-turned-shootout against an underdog Carolina team in 2004, to their offense’s bumbling first half against Andy Reid’s badly beat-up Eagles in 2005, to their two upset defeats at the hands of mediocre Giants squads, to last year’s furious comeback to beat a prolific but one-dimensional Atlanta team. Throughout all their Super Bowls, these Patriots have never mustered any points in the first quarter—unless you want to count Brady scoring two points for the Giants on an intentional grounding penalty in 2012.

Maybe the Patriots will notice this, come out guns blazing, and score 28 points in the first quarter. At this point, though, an underwhelming first half is starting to look like a pretty consistent habit.

As for the Eagles, while the story line this week is “what chance does unlucky backup Nick Foles have against a Belichick defense”, I’d argue that it’s actually an advantage to the Eagles to have him playing quarterback. There’s not an entire season’s worth of film of how he runs the offense for Belichick to study and learn his weaknesses.

Now, having said that there are reasons for hope if you’re rooting for the Eagles—and pretty much all of America outside of a corner in the northeast is—I don’t want to understate the magnitude of their challenge. They are facing the greatest quarterback and coach in the history of the sport. The Patriots are impossible to rattle, even if they face adversity early in the game. Beating them requires playing perfectly, and sometimes even that isn’t enough.

The Eagles will have to be very bold and aggressive if they want to shock the Pats. I’m reminded of what Sean Payton said about facing the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV and wanting to “steal a possession”. Payton’s way of doing that was a surprise onside kick to start the second half. It will take a similar level of guts to pull off the win against New England.

Do the Eagles have it in them?

Well, if I’m wrong, I’ll just go down as one more football fan who wanted to see somebody outfox Goliath. But if I’m right, I’ll look like a genius. Why the heck not?

PHI: 37

NE: 35

by on

NFC

Call me crazy, but I never understood why the Eagles were an underdog against Atlanta. The Falcons were a shadow of what they were last year, and Nick Foles is not a bad quarterback. He was the last guy who led the Eagles to the playoffs prior to this year, I believe. Yet the press treated him like he’d never seen a football before. So I wasn’t shocked that they managed to pull out the narrow win.

The Vikings meanwhile were the beneficiaries of a coverage screw-up the likes of which had not been seen since the 2012 Baltimore/Denver divisional game. But that’s not to say they were lucky rather than good—their defense had New Orleans on the ropes until late in the 3rd quarter, but eventually they started to bend before the powerful Saints attack.

I’ll be honest—my opinion beforehand was that Saints/Vikings was the real NFC championship, and everything that happened in the game reinforced that impression. The Vikings have a brutal defense, one that could only be tested by a Hall-of-Fame quarterback in command of a high-powered and balanced offense. Foles, while better than the press has given him credit for, is not in Brees’s class, and I think he’s going to be in for a rough game Sunday. Minnesota will stifle the Eagles and punch their ticket to… Minnesota, where they can become the first team ever to host the Super Bowl.

MIN: 23

PHI: 10

AFC

Oh, look, it’s the New England Patriots again. They’ve been conference title game fixtures for years now, and I think everyone is getting sick of it. I don’t even dislike the Patriots as a rule, but at some point you get tired of seeing the same uniform over and over again. (Although even the Patriots’ ridiculous “Flying Elvis” looks like a design masterpiece next to the abominations that their opponents will wear.)

The Patriots are of course heavily favored to beat the upstart Jaguars, and why not? They’re the defending champs, they’re playing at home in chilly Foxborough, and Jacksonville’s quarterback is a wildly inconsistent gunslinger who only completed 53% of his passes against Pittsburgh.

But I’m having flashbacks to another AFC Championship game—specifically, the one two years ago in which the Pats were road favorites against a Denver team that had a strong pass rush and a quarterback who was highly suspect.

I know, I know. You’re saying: “Did you really just compare Bortles to Peyton Manning? The Peyton Manning, one of the best to ever play the game?”

Well, not exactly. I’m comparing Bortles to 2015 Peyton Manning, who was merely a ghost of his former all-star self. Manning was long past his prime by then. I have no doubt that he could (and can) read a defense better than Bortles, but Bortles can scramble and throw the ball with more power than 2015 Manning could. So it’s pretty much a wash.

The Jaguars chances look even better when you remember that their team vice president, Tom Coughlin, was the coach of the New York Giants teams that twice upset the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Those teams also fielded a strong defensive line and an inconsistent quarterback whose play was rarely pretty, but who had a knack for getting things done when it mattered most.

The Jaguars, in short, are the very model of a Patriots-beating team.

To be sure, it’s not going to be easy—the 2015 AFC Championship, Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI were all extremely close affairs. You can bet your bottom dollar that Belichick’s defense is going to take away Jacksonville’s favorite offensive weapon, running back Leonard Fournette, and force Bortles to throw the ball. But I think he’s got enough arm strength and sheer guts to get it done against New England’s bend-but-don’t-break secondary. And the Jaguars’ defense will give Brady all kinds of problems—he doesn’t have the ability to heave the ball like Roethlisberger did in a valiant failed comeback last week, and he’s going to get hit a lot. And New England doesn’t have the kind of bruising running back that they need to take the pressure off Brady.

All season long, the Patriots have just looked off to me. Sure, they’ve still been the most consistently good team in a weak AFC—they have the greatest coach and greatest quarterback of all time, after all—but the usual Patriots’ swagger has been absent ever since their shocking opening-day defeat. I think all the big games and the sky-high expectations and deep playoff runs year after year (Remember, they have to play 2-3 more games a season than the typical team) are finally starting to take their toll. Brady has so far defied the decline that comes with age, but the clock is bound to strike midnight eventually. My pick is that it will happen this Sunday, against a team seemingly designed to beat him.

JAX: 16

NE: 13

by on

[Inspired by (but not exactly a parody of) Tom Lehrer’s “Elements” song, which is itself a parody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major General” song.]

Since the Cleveland Browns came back to the NFL in ’99
The quarterbacks who’ve played for them form a very long depressing line–
There was a lot of optimism (I myself can vouch for it)
When the Brownies first came back into town and got Tim Couch for it.
Ty Detmer was a back-up that they had hired just to mentor him,
And Doug Pederson and Spergon Wynn, they both sometimes went in for him.
Kelly Holcomb got the job, then Garcia, Dilfer, and McCown
And before you knew it, Akron’s Charlie Frye was the newest Cleveland Brown.

But Charlie Frye was out and in his stead was Derek Anderson
Who briefly held off second-stringer Brady Quinn (Ohio’s native son.)
Both Bruce Gradkowski and Ken Doresy brief QB careers did enjoy
And then the job came down to either Jake Delhomme or Colt McCoy.
Wallace, Weeden and Thaddeus Lewis, they all came and went as well,
And then the starting job to veteran Jason Campbell fell.
But Campbell might as well have left his luggage packed up in the foyer
For soon, the Cleveland quarterback was a chap called Brian Hoyer.

Brian Hoyer didn’t last, and soon the Browns fans began to call
For the gridiron magician who was known as “Johnny Football”
But what worked at A&M doesn’t really work beside the lake–
And after starting Connor Shaw, the Browns admitted their mistake.
Josh McCown was signed, but he didn’t play for them for very long,
And Davis, RG III and Kessler form the coda of this song.
Kizer’s next to be the starter–a rookie out of Notre Dame,
And now we’ll sit and wait to find out who’s in after next week’s game!