"Why Me Lawd" Archive

No. Just no.

As a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons I try not to blog on them often because I like to cover the whole NFL. But every now and then they WILL inspire me to rant and rave. So yes this post is long enough to rival “Roots,” but there’s no point in having a blog if you can’t let loose every now and again.

The Eagles are known as perennial contenders. And most of the time I’ve been a fan of the team they have at least been competitive. This year, they’re not competitive at all and I’m getting strong feelings of deja vu from the 1998 season.

In 1998, current Cleveland Browns Defense Assistant Ray Rhodes was the Head Coach of the Eagles. This 1998 team featured the talent of DE Hugh Douglas, LB Jeremiah Trotter, TE Chad Lewis, CBs Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent, DT Hollis Thomas, RB Duce Staley, and WR Irving Fryar. QB duty went to Bobby Hoyer until he was benched for Rodney Peete (who had previously shared QB duties with Hoyer and Ty Detmer).

It wasn’t a perfect team but it was damn sure full of talent. That year, the Eagles won 3 games.

The fans, media and everyone else complained that Philadelphia’s high priced stars weren’t stepping up in big games. Team morale was gone, play was listless, and the players weren’t listening to Coach Rhodes and it was largely his fault.

Fast forward to 2011 and here we are again!

Everyone is frustrated with expensive free agents like Nnamdi Asomugha, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Jason Babin, and Cullin Jenkins, and expensive stars like Vick and Asante Samuel. 49ers running back Frank Gore, who racked up 127 yards against the Eagles in a win last weekend said that the Eagles gave up during their game so I think we can safely say the play is lackluster. Last week Eagles DE Darryl Tapp CASUALLY mentioned that former offensive line coach cum defense coordinator is still learning to call plays on the fly.

SAY WHAT NOW?

Who in the hell can trust coaches when they don’t know what they’re doing. Worse: who can trust coaches when they HIRE people who don’t know what they’re doing. If you spent your life coaching offensive players shouldn’t you AT LEAST have to be an offensive coordinator before you take over defensive coordinator duties? Andy Reid didn’t think so.

I’d say this season has all the making of 1998.

• 1-4 going into week 6
• Frustration with expensive talent
• Terrible Coaching
• Player distrust of Coaches
• Loads of talent at key positions
• Noticeable gaps in talent at other positions

WHY I BLAME ANDY REID

LBs, DBs, and OL

Yes the Eagles have poor linebackers and poor safeties. But every team has holes. Football is a strategic team game. Coaches are supposed to look at the opponent and look at their team and figure out which plays to use to mask (or at least deemphasize) those holes. Reid’s biggest strength over the years has been making contenders out of patch-worked pieces. If he can’t do that anymore then why is he still around?

The offensive line’s weaknesses offends me the most due to the fact that Vick is their prized possession, Lesean McCoy might be THE BEST pass-catching running back, and Desean Jackson is their best weapon when down… priority numero uno should have been to keep Vick safe so that he has time to find Jackson and to make sure they could block for McCoy. They didn’t. And that fault lies with the Eagles front office. At 5 years old I knew to guard my favorite doll, a cabbage patch kid named Glenna Nola, as though my life depended on it. So there’s no way the Eagles front office didn’t know Vick needed protection.

I didn’t appreciate seeing jokes about the Eagles possibly getting Andrew Luck. Not only is it not funny but it’s stupid. Vick has to get rid of the ball faster and he has to anticipate pressure better especially with his sham of a line. HOWEVER, overall Vick has played well under the circumstances. He’s been tough, and he has never given up during games. Now who’s ultimately responsible for Vick consistently passing on 2nd and 4s and treating McCoy like a stepchild anywhere near the redzone? Well, I’d say again it’s Coaching cause that’s the kinda jackassery that went on when Vick was still a happy Atlanta Falcon and Donovan McNabb was at the helm of the Eagles offense.

Wide 9

There’s nothing wrong with the Wide 9 scheme in my opinion. It does, however, call for players to learn it first and hopefully to have a good middle linebacker. Andy Reid chose to start 4th round rookie Casey Matthews at MLB. He later benched him in favor of 6th rounder Brian Rolle. Someone once asked Pat Kirwan what’s the hardest position to transition from one team to another. Kirwan’s answer? Middle linebacker. Why? To paraphrase, in order to be successful at that position you gotta know the back and the front of the defense including the lingo. In Matthews’ and Rolle’s case they didn’t just change teams they changed LEAGUES and had no OTAs during the summer. Reid should have expected problems and angled for at least one proven linebacker middle or otherwise. Just so you know, Detroit Lions’ LB Stephen Tulloch who previously played in the Wide 9 formation was available while the Eagles were trading their lives away for another corner.

Speaking of corners…

Nnamdi Asomugha

Asomugha built his well-earned reputation as a great cornerback playing press. The Eagles have him playing zone. But that’s not all. They also have him lining up all over the field. Same as Rodgers-Cromartie who is also very good in press and not so good everywhere else. When I peaked in on ONE play in the Bills-Eagles game today I saw Asante Samuel playing press on Stevie Johnson and I almost tossed my cookies. Samuel is a ball hawk, he’s not a press guy and he hates being tied to one spot or person. I had previously suggested Samuel try FS but after witnessing his idea of tackling, I take every bit of it back (not that it’s worse than the current safeties). Anyway, Asomugha and Johnson are almost exactly the same height and weight. Whose idea was it to have Samuel cover Johnson when he gives up 3 inches and 30 lbs to him?

The Eagles don’t need Asomugha to be Charles Woodson lite…they need Asomugha to be Asomugha. But in typical Eagles fashion, they pick a scheme and force personnel into it instead of looking at the personnel and playing to their strengths. RIP to Asomugha’s stellar reputation. He has to regret picking the Eagles over the Jets.

REBUILDING THE EAGLES

The 1998 season ended with the firing of Rhodes which made 1999 a rebuild season with Reid named as the new Head Coach. In 1999, Reid’s first season as the Eagles head coach their record was 5-11. The VERY NEXT year their record was 11-5 with largely the same talent they had in 1999. I genuinely believe that with better coaching the Eagles would be a better team this year and certainly next year with the benefit of off season activities.

In January of this year, I wrote that Andy Reid should be fired (and was subsequently LAMBASTED for it). But I stand by what I said although I could have expressed my thoughts more clearly. But just like today, I was angry when I wrote it.

Suddenly everyone is tired of Reid, including the press-though he’s been putting on the same rude show in the media for years now. The Eagles remain the ONLY team in the NFL in violation of the NFL access to coaches rules as Reid typically does not allow his assistants to conduct interviews.

For the record, it pisses me off whenever you call for a coach’s firing and people say “well who would you replace him with?” I take that opportunity to remind folks that Reid was plucked from relative obscurity to coach the Eagles. In other words, I’m sure they can find someone qualified. I’m not an advocate of staying in a bad relationship just because dating is hard.

I said at the beginning of this season that this SHOULD be a rebuild season for the Eagles and I would have preferred they fired Reid at the close of last season and made it official. I didn’t think they’d be *this* bad, but I didn’t think they’d necessarily go to the playoffs with 63% of their defensive starters new to the team. There are no easy games in the NFL anymore. You can’t roll over the Bills, Lions, Browns, Bengals, Raiders and other teams that have been consistently weak for a few years. Anyone can win on any given Sunday…teams must be smart and cohesive. The Eagles are currently neither.

I swear I didn’t start this site: http://firethewalrus.com/about

Final note… on the “Dream Team” label

Had anyone told me that I could have Vick, Maclin, Avant, McCoy, Jackson, Jenkins, Babin, Asomugha, Rodgers-Cromartie, Samuel, Cole, Peters, Herremans, and Young all on one team YES I would have thought I was dreaming. A grand dream. A happy dream. The kind of dream where you wake up smiling and don’t know why. I love the talent that’s on this team. I STILL BELIEVE the Eagles are infinitely more talented than most of the teams in the NFL. Only in the hands of Andy Reid does this group become a complete nightmare.

Foreshadowing…if the Falcons lose to the Packers another rant soon cometh.

Are football players human beings AT ALL? Doesn't seem like people think so.

It’s barely Week 3 in the NFL and I’ve already seen a bunch of posts on blogs and sites about how people are annoying the hell out of them talking about their Fantasy Football points. I always wonder if people realize how crazy they sound when they talk about how they could have won had they only sat so and so. Or, they picked so and so last year and he didn’t do anything and now he’s balling out.

Kinda makes you wonder if they watch football at all. Football is a VIOLENT sport that is based on MATCHUPs which can change from season to season given the relative PARITY of the NFL. Once you realize this, you understand that winning Fantasy Football is as much about LUCK as it is about skill. In fact, even more so about the luck of the draw. And nobody wants to hear about your good and bad luck every damn week.

Fantasy football has become big business. So much so that the NFL now requires stadiums to post Fantasy updates. That was the first sign that the NFL, too, had lost it’s fantasy football loving ass mind. Can you say “gamblers anonymous?”

The first ad I saw and disliked was last week’s Chris Johnson ad that said “your fantasy picks not performing up to your expectations? Pick again on nfl.com” or something to that effect. A photo of Chris Johnson was on the front of the ad that had him looking so somber you’d think he’d had a bad season. That would be fine…if it wasn’t week fuckin two!

Now this week they come out with this Jamaal Charles ad which is totally and completely inhumane. You can’t tell exactly what injury Charles has in the photo but his face appears swollen due to his cheeks being puffed in pain. And his expression is one of pure agony. If you follow football you know why-the poor man ripped his knee to shreds which ended his season. How this makes anyone MORE concerned about their Fantasy Football leagues and LESS about a player shows the level of detachment we have to this MEN also known as human beings.

I’m not getting all Arian Foster on your ass and telling you not to worry about Fantasy Football at all when players go down. Clearly, lots of you have money at stake. In fact, if there were no money at stake there’d be less incentive for everything surrounding Fantasy Football to be so effing tasteless.

But when the NFL joins the ranks of people who just don’t “get” that portraying one of its own as some lifesize Madden savage is offensive I get worried. It makes me wonder how much they really respect the humanity of these guys who make this game what it is week after week. Do they realize they are using someone’s excruciating pain to promote what is really just a game in the loosest sense of the word?

And for the record, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the NFL used two dark skinned players with locks for these ads. There is a subconscious association of such black men to violence and beastliness. Brian on twitter pointed out to me that hey probably never would use Peyton Manning for such an ad. I think there’s some validity to that.

According to an article in ESPN Magazine Michael Vick Plays Quarterback Like Some Black Guy

It’s one thing to have folks disagree with a piece and it’s another write something that makes no sense at all. Somehow, in his piece that he says he didn’t name “What if Michael Vick Were White” the writer Toure managed to do both. Kudos. It’s quite a feat.

For those who aren’t familiar with Toure he often writes about black people and black culture. But at every turn, it’s clear that he’s a man who has a dysfunctional relationship with race. And it bothers me that mainstream publications have called upon this individual to be a sort of “negro whisperer.” According to Toure, he was asked by ESPN to produce a piece on Vick.

—feel free to skip down to “My Issue With The Part I Understood” if you don’t like messy details—

Messy Details

On twitter, Toure has revealed time and time again his fascination with blacks. He has even posed questions about caring for his (partly black) children’s hair—what comb to use, what shampoo et cetera. It appears that Toure, himself a black male, is lost as to what to do with the black hair of his black son and has no black family members to help him deal with this black dilemma in a black manner. Perhaps this confusion is why he reportedly told everyone he was French while he was in college.

But what took the cake for me was the time that he tweeted about black female slaves SEDUCING their white masters. And when an uproar ensued, he insisted that he’d gone to yoga class and his COUSIN took his phone and tweeted those terrible things. He later admitted that he’d tweeted the ideas himself.

But even without these messy background details that I couldn’t resist sharing, it’s painfully clear that Toure is full of shit.

In his ESPN piece, Toure continues to work out his issues with being black in front of a public audience. Only this time, he projects his conflicted fuckery onto Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick.

My goodness, doesn’t Vick have enough problems?

My Issue With The Part I Understood

The article in totality sounded like an ethnic comedian talking. You know those “black people do this (insert negative thing), but white people do that (insert positive thing)” jokes. In one fell swoop Toure assigned dog fighting to inner city minority communities (dog fighting was traditionally a poor rural white activity), attributed fatherlessness to all black boys born to unwed mothers (a child born to an unwed mother is not necessarily fatherless), accused most local sports coaches of being “unsavory” bad influences on the young athletes they mold (umm what? Is he trying to say a coach may have intro’d Vick to dog fighting??), and implied that getting caught with marijuana is an urban youth kinda thing (I’ve seen COPs, I know that ain’t true!).

And moreover, the article made it seem like black athletes are a particularly troubled group in general and that did NOT sit right with me.

But this is a football blog so let me make this post somehow relevant rather than a random rant on a man who has disgusted me with his commentary time and time again. And who, by the way, should neva eva eva eva eva in life be allowed to write about America’s greatest sport.

The analogy he uses:

WHEN MICHAEL VICK PLAYS, I see streetball. I don’t just mean that sort of football where you have to count to four-Mississippi before you can rush the quarterback, nearly everything breaks down and it’s all great fun. I also mean street basketball. Vick’s style reminds me of Allen Iverson — the speed, the court sense, the sharp cuts, the dekes, the swag. In those breathtaking moments when the Eagles QB abandons the pocket and takes off, it feels as if he’s thumbing his nose at the whole regimented, militaristic ethos of the game.

All of that is why, to me, Vick seems to have a deeply African-American approach to the game. I’m not saying that a black QB who stands in the pocket ain’t playing black. I’m saying Vick’s style is so badass, so artistic, so fluid, so flamboyant, so relentless — so representative of black athletic style — that if there were a stat for swagger points, Vick would be the No. 1 quarterback in the league by far.

On Michael Vick playing street ball… I’d probably have less issues with Toure’s description if he didn’t 1. Make Vick sound like a running back and 2. Allude to Vick’s “raw” talent after he’s clearly gone through great pains to polish it. 3. Make it so obvious that anything “black” equals “street” to him (street meaning amateurish and preferring style over substance).

Without knowing this is an article about Vick, if someone said “XX QB’s style is so badass, so artistic, so fluid, so flamboyant, so relentless” my immediate thought would have been Drew Brees or in the past, Steve Young, not Michael Vick. Without “flamboyant,” those words absolutely apply to Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. And without the word “fluid” you could easily be talking about Ben Roethlisberger.

I would venture to say Toure has never watched a complete football game even once in his vaguely black life.

Toure capitalized on two lazy narratives for his piece: 1. That black people are just soooo much cooler than white folks that we must write about how FUCKING COOL they are and romanticize it all 2. That black QBs play the game entirely different and must be praised and criticized accordingly.

So what exactly is soooooo black about Michael Vick’s play in particular? Toure says he’s not talking about leaving the pocket (the normal black QB meme), so then what pray tell is it? And do these differences in style apply to other positions and races? Does Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis play like a white man or a black man? Does New York Jets QB Mark Sanchez quarterback like a Mexican? I need answers!

If there IS something “**deeply African American” (VOMIT!!!) about the way Vick plays, the adjectives to describe what in the entire hell that means do not appear anywhere in Toure’s piece. And the idea that Vick’s game is ‘street’ seriously downplays the work this man has put into his game. It also underestimates what it takes to make it in the NFL. Raw talent cuts it in high school, but this is the pros. We off that!

Scrambling is not just a black thing. Extending a play isn’t just a black thing. EXCITEMENT is not just a black thing. All of Vick’s highlight-reel quality plays involve techniques he’s worked to perfect. Toure seems to think Vick’s abilities arrived in the mail with a bottle of melanin addressed to “da homie Mike Vick.”

** From unreliable sources I’ve heard that Michael Vick also has a deeply African American approach to eating fried chicken, breakdancing, and sitting around the house doing nothing.

Congrats to ESPN's Adam Schefter. He has by far the most annoying lockout updates. KUDOS!!

I think this is the first post I’ve written where the entire post is really contained in the headline. But fuck it, we’re here anyway.

I’m tired of the minute by minute updates to the lockout. Every news outlet is posting and tweeting about how close a deal is to getting done. Then, they are updating about how it’s close but not as close as we think. Well how do you know how close I thought a deal was? Then, the media goes on to update us letting us know a deal will be done this week. Well, basically a deal IS done but not ratified. There’s been no vote. Then they let us know a vote “might” happen on Thursday and that NFL players are very busy reading the lengthy Collective Bargaining Agreement that has been drafted.

You got all that? No?

Good thing it doesn’t matter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been slightly comforting to know that “major” issues have been worked out. And it’s certainly been amusing to see the media treat Peyton Manning, Vincent Jackson, and Logan Mankins as though they are the source of all the lockouts problems because they might want some side deals in return for their services. Somebody remind me to remind the media that there’s a lawsuit going on and NFL players who have been working just as hard as owners on this deal aren’t performing a charity here. It’s also been great to see those in “the know” guess lockout ending dates and be totally wrong and unapologetic as they guess the next date.

But after almost 4 months of this, I’m putting my foot down.

I know we live in a 24 hour news cycle where everything is news from what Z list celeb caught a DUI to what marginally talented NBA player parked in a damn handicapped spot. But it’d be great if the media saved the updates for when something actually takes place. Eventually updates that say close, close, closer, not as close, almost close, Tuesday, Wednesday, no seriously, Thursday just make you look really, really insane.

Back in  2008, I had a fabulous time on the beaches of San Juan Puerto Rico. It was during their Carnival, and, also the weekend of the fight between Tito Trinidad and Roy Jones Jr. my favorite and second favorite boxers of all time respectively. Rather than view the fight, I spent the night dancing my ass off at a reggaeton club drinking copious amounts of Gasolina.

I couldn’t watch.

I had ignored Trinidad since the Winky Wright fight where he looked like an entirely different boxer-lapses in footwork, intentionally standing, not throwing as many punches, and worst of all, seeming to land them at half strength. This wasn’t the Trinidad I knew. It wasn’t the Trinidad I wanted to know.

I’ve stuck with Jones Jr. over the years through all his trials in different weight classes (and Trinidad too for that matter), but once that fight took place I was through with him and Trinidad and, quite frankly, over boxing as a sport.

Imagine my surprise that Jones Jr. is still fighting, and lost handily to some guy who’s not worth looking up. I found this out the same day I found out that Macho Man Randy Savage had died of a heart attack crashing his car into a tree at the ripe old age of 58!

Ay yi yi.

Nothing says you were born in 1982 like watching your childhood heroes overstay their welcome in a sport-or worse having them die before their time.

Or maybe it’s worse to have grown up idolizing Michael Jordan only to find out he’s not very nice-being mild here-and dresses like Isiah Thomas gouged his eyes out after he kept bringing up old shit during his Hall of Fame speech. I like to pretend I became a Bulls fan for BJ Armstrong and John Paxon. A little revisionist history never hurt anyone, besides it’s not exactly false.

But what should I do with my memories of Allen Iverson. No, not the memories of him telling police officers that he has plenty of cars if they take this one, or my memories of hip hop’s second favorite butch lesbian Da Brat (Queen Latifah is the favorite) telling him to shut the eff up on camera. And no, I’m not talking about memories of him kicking his wife out the house naked or the Twitter DMs I get about his constant presence at Wet Willies in Atlanta or other bars where he reportedly watches basketball games all alone as if he’s no one special to me.

I grew up in Hampton Roads Virginia. No one can tell me about the relevance and greatness of Allen Iverson. Cannot.do.it. His failures hit me like my own-I feel that connected to him. In 2002 I was this close *pinches fingers together* to getting a Cru Thik tattoo and corn rows on one side of my head.

I guess now I get what the previous generation felt when Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson announced they were HIV positive, or how it feels for them to watch Muhammad Ali struggle with Parkinson’s disease or any number of NFL players die of CTE-related illnesses before they’re even old enough to get medicare.

Being an adult is a full circle of fuck shit. Why me lawd!