Troy Polamalu

Oh okay...

Football superhero safety Troy Polamalu was shaken up in the Steelers last game but has now passed his concussion test and could play in this week’s game. As I saw that news, I wondered what in the hell is involved with the concussion test. Well actually I wondered the last time Michael Vick passed the test, but this time I was actually not being too lazy to look it up.

Long story short, the test the NFL uses is the imPACT test. Some teams use the computerized version, others use paper and pencil. Don’t know how many teams use which version. I hopped over to the tests’ web site, and grabbed this info for those of you like me who have never had a concussion test and weren’t smart enough to guess what all it would involve.

The test:

• Measures player symptoms
• Measures verbal and visual memory, processing speed and reaction time
• Reaction time measured to 1/100th of second
• Assists clinicians and athletic trainers in making difficult return-to-play decisions
• Provides reliable baseline test information
• Automatically stores data from repeat testing
• Takes About 20 minutes to complete
• Measures multiple aspects of cognitive functioning in athletes, including:

1. Attention span
2. Working memory
3. Sustained and selective attention time
4. Response variability
5. Non-verbal problem solving
6. Reaction time

Some of the modules include:

• Module 1: Word Memory
• Module 2: Design Memory
• Module 3: X’s and O’s
• Module 4: Symbol Matching
• Module 5: Color Match
• Module 6: Three Letter Memory

Essentially the test aims to find out whether the player is having issues commonly associated with concussions like memory loss etc. You’re welcome!

It took the NBA less than 24 hours to pull down all footage of current NBA players from NBA.com once their lockout began. Apparently, the NBA cannot profit from players during their lockout. The NFL obviously has no such rule because every other day there’s a top 10 list of this or that not to mention this top 100 list that has had everyone, except me, talking for the past couple weeks. And more than that, NFL players are still appearing all across NFL network and NFL.com

First of all, I think the list is stupid. YES I SAID STUPID. Just like every other asine head-to-head conversation. It kills me that people never get tired of “comparing” and discussing who’s best. Yeah I get that sports is all about competition but having the same debates over and over isn’t for me. And that’s generally what it all boils down to.

Personally, I’d rather jab myself in the eye than hear people compare Ed Reed to Troy Polamalu or Adrian Peterson to Chris Johnson again. And God forbid there’s another Jerry Rice vs. Randy Moss debate. I even saw a Revis vs. Sanders debate. Count.me.out.  I guess I’m just no fun too sensitive to the variables.

Now you know why I haven’t and will not be blogging about the list. Well, except for this post.

Anywayyyyyy, in the midst of ignoring this top 100 player list, I noticed that several players questioned whether players had actually voted in the list, or at least made a point of saying they didn’t know anyone who did. Those players include Troy Polamalu (Safety, Pittsburgh Steelers), Kerry Rhodes (Safety, Arizona Cardinals), Jerraud Powers (Cornerback, Indianapolis Colts), Jay Feely (Kicker, Arizona Cardinals), Brent Grimes, (Cornerback, Atlanta Falcons), Jimmy Kennedy (Defensive Tackle, Minnesota Vikings), Chester Pitts (Offensive Lineman, Seattle Seahawks), Tom Crabtree (Tight End, Green Bay Packers), and Ryan Clark (Safety, Pittsburgh Steelers)-who went so far as to call the list a “sham.”

Apparently, some players have been asking around and can’t find any friends who were chosen to vote on the list. Now, of course that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, it just called into question, for me, what the NFL means by “current players.” It could have been 10 out of 1700. If so, they are being indirectly misleading, but would that surprise anyone?

Even though no one cares, I was curious and I contacted the NFL to find out how many players voted and how the voting was carried out, and I will let you know if they respond and if so what they say. In the meantime, if you have the answer to this question (maybe they mentioned it on NFL network and I missed it?) and can take time away from debating the list to let me know I’d appreciate it.

Overall, this top 100 list was a genius idea by the NFL. Kudos to them for knowing how to draw people in and keep them talking about football as the owners seem to continue to conspire to destroy the game.

Congrats to the Packers. They lost key players to injury in the Super Bowl and still managed to pull out a victory.

LEAD UP AND PRE-GAME

Let’s start out by saying, I don’t give a damn about the Super Bowl unless my team is playing. I just watch because I love football. The Super Bowl becomes even more of a production every year. Now we’re up to two full weeks of Super Bowl talk all around mainstream media plus a weekend of stories and interviews and flashbacks etc.

I do enjoy “some” of it. But now that the NFL has replaced baseball as America’s sport, the level of attention paid to the Super Bowl from all spheres has become overwhelming. So much so, I really didn’t pay much attention to most of it.

As far as the pre-game was concerned, I get making Super Bowl a distinctly Americans event-we love holidays and nostalgia. But this year’s Super Bowl was full of unwelcome and uncomfortable propaganda. All sorts of lines about “freedom” and “independence” read by players, coaches, and military men and women, among others. It felt like it was airing on the history channel, only the Fox News version where there are colonies and colonizers but no small pox blankets or slaves.

In fact, they actually talked about the colonies. Awkward. The tone of pre-game production wasn’t my cup of tea. I suggest the NFL keep the history references to a minimum unless they’re referring to the evolution of the game.

The National Anthem And Whatnot

In a show of shameless promotion, Fox decided to have Lea Michele from the sitcom(?) “Glee” sing “America the Beautiful.” Unfortunately, it sounded ugly. Too bad the NFL doesn’t have any Canadian expansion teams, cause that would have been a good reason to drag Tamia out to sing “Oh Canada.” ANYTHING would have been better.

Christina Aguilera’s rendition of the Star-spangled Banner was simply awful! She oversang, messed up the words, and looked like a goth blob. Most people who sing the anthem choose to pre-record. That eliminates these sorts of embarrassments. But alas she sung her rendition live. I’m sure she wishes she had a time machine.

Speaking of the anthem, Americans will bet on anything, and by anything I mean the over/under on how long it would take Aguilera to finish the national anthem. The two big gambling sites bodog.com and Bookmaker.com clocked the time differently (1:53.7 and 1:54.2 respectively), sending the online gambling world into a frenzy.

I may or may not be exaggerating.

HALFTIME

I thought the Black Eyed Peas did a good job but they put quantity over quality, opting for a effect-driven show rather than a talent-driven one. 500 dancers and I don’t even know how many songs were in their medley-7 maybe? They also bought out both Slash and Usher. I thought both were great, but Fergie’s singing wasn’t as good as it normally is and the songs jumped genres and had no real flow.

But luckily I like their party music, so I jigged a little and was satisfied for the most part. I think if you like BEP, generally speaking, the performance was good, if you don’t it was a tragic mistake.

Kind of hard to please anyone who’s seen Michael Jackson and Prince perform at halftime.

THE GAME

The first quarter simply wasn’t competitive. The Packers ran over the Steelers scoring two quick touch downs. The rest of the game was much better, but turnovers and dropped balls pervaded it making the energy a bit uneven.  Still a a good game overall (probably not in the top 10 of those I’ve seen in my lifetime though).

I remain kind of in disbelief that defensive titans Harrison, Polamalu, Farrior, and Clark made very little impact on the game.The Packers Defense played well-they looked confused for a bit after CB Charles Woodson left the game with a broken collar bone, but eventually pulled themselves back together and continued to apply pressure.

Ben Roethlisberger made some crucial errors and turnovers including 2 interceptions. The Packers converted Steelers’ turnovers into 21 points, and I think that really tells a lot of the story. Rodgers looked to be heading into his normal bad-second-half routine that he’s had throughout this year’s playoffs but it didn’t last very long. He really put together a good game.

RODGERS VS. FAVRE

I think it would be a nice gesture if Favre called Rodgers personally to congratulate him. Favre has been a hard act to follow in terms of winning the hearts and minds of fans. But as you can see from Rodgers’ play this year and Favre’s stints with the Jets and Vikings, the Packers made the right choice in sticking with Rodgers.

I’m sure Packers fans will have no problem coming to terms with this now that that they have another Lombardi trophy to show for it. Besides, after only 3 years they have a QB that gets to be in the ranks of the “chosen ones” that analysts shower with deference and positivity. A land where no black man shall ever live. Just one more thing to celebrate.

DEPRESSION

I do watch other sports; however football is the only sport that matters. The lockout that is looming is like a dark cloud over my life. Speaking of life, unfortunately, with football season over I have to get one.

I’m glad that the combine is coming up soon because that’s always a good time, well, to me anyway.

Even though the season is over I will still be busy on this blog. It’s in the process of being redesigned and I’m working on some special projects to introduce that will make next football season even more fun for me and hopefully for my readers as well.

According to Sports Illustrated Peter King and a few others, the NFL called all 8 remaining teams and put them on notice about trash talk. This feels a little like when your teacher would say if Mike doesn’t get quiet none of you are getting ice cream. Then you’re left to wonder why the fuck should Mike’s loud mouth stand between me and two delicious scoops of pecan praline?

We all know that the Jets are the primary trashtalkers, so this move by the NFL was obviously a roundabout way of shutting them down.

The Jets are a bunch of *insert racially insensitive term that conveys shucking and jiving.* Starting with the Coach they’re just very annoying on a whole. Most of us noticed how annoying they were LONG before this week. But perhaps this week with comments from Bart Scott, Antonio Cromartie, on top of Rex Ryan’s usual diarrhea of the mouth it was all just too much.

I’m sure the NFL is sensitive to the fact that the playoffs draw in more casual fans of the game which makes them pay more attention to news coverage. I get that they don’t want people to think that this is all the game is.

HOWEVER

Football isn’t a pretty sport. I would expect men who violently run into each other and get sewn up on the sidelines like soldiers on a warfield to talk a little trash when feeling confident. I mean we can’t all have split personalities like the soft-spoken and downright chirpy  hitman Troy Polamalu.

Besides it’s not the Jets fault that the media is feeding into their plan to have them focus on the trash talk rather than endless non flattering comparisons of Sanchez to Brady or harping on the 45-3 shut out.

I know a lot of people don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions but I do. I made a list of things I want to change over the next year and decade. I think I did a really good job, so it follows that I’d make some resolutions for other people. To help out people in and around the NFL, I made a list of resolutions that I personally think others should make.

Roger Goodell - Begin to apply fines equitably across the league.

Donovan McNabb - Learn the difference between being professional and being a pushover.

James Harrison - Relearn the fundamentals of tackling.

Braylon Edwards - Utilize cabs.

Troy Polamalu - Put some bass in your voice.

Ryan Clark - Ignore the heckling on twitter.

Darren Sharper - Come to terms with being 35.

Brett Favre - Fall back in love with your wife Deanna.

Andy Reid - Resign.

Michael Vick - Spend money more wisely.

DeSean Jackson - Balance having fun with being professional.

Roddy White - Get media training.

Coy Wire, Cortland Finnegan - Hold a press conference announcing whether you’re black or white.

Rex Ryan - Put your face in the videos so that your wife isn’t the only one exposed.

Terrell Owens - Begin to take responsibility for your shortcomings.

Shawne Merriman - Sleep in a hyperbaric chamber and stretch before practice.

Maurice Jones-Drew, LaGarrette Blount, Michael Turner - Do side bends or situps, but please don’t lose that butt.

Eli Manning - Stand in the mirror and repeat “I am somebody” before leaving the house each day.

Jerry Jones - Consider the opinions of others.

Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, and Washington Redskins - Improve your  awful offensive lines.

Announcers, analysts, and media outlets — Stop mentioning dogfighting every time you mention Michael Vick.

Gus Johnson - Call more games of all kinds.

Bob Costas - Tone the dramatics down a notch.

Jon Gruden - Lobby for the HC gig in Cincy.

Collinsworth - Think before you speak and get some black friends.

Bob Papa - Point to Theisman and Millen and inform your bosses that you simply cannot work under these conditions.

NFLPA - Continue to make the NFLPA truly friendly toward the players and improve the information contained on the lockout site.

This is my quick list, but use the comments to tell other players, announcers, and NFL management and ownership what you think they should work on in 2011.

When asked about the pain in his injured foot, Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger said: “It hurt a lot, but the broken nose took some of the pain away.”

That quote sums up the death-match that takes place any time the Steelers play the Ravens.

Oh and so does this hit on Heath Miller that almost brought a fucking tear to my eye.

To summarize:

Baltimore lost Heap on the first play from scrimmage. The Steelers lost Sepulveda in the first half. In the second, Miller left with a concussion after he took a shot to the head from linebacker Jameel McClain. Carl Johnson, the NFL’s head of officiating, told NBC that McClain should have been penalized on the play.

For most of the game the Ravens were in the lead and by the time the Steelers went up by 3 and there was under 2:30 minutes on the clock, I knew the Ravens would lose. If two teams are scoring about once every 20 minutes, it’s hard to imagine one of them getting another score within 2 minutes.

From the beginning I said that this game would come down to Flacco, and boy did it. Flacco was strip-sacked by Polamalu with 4 minutes on the clock and with under 2 minutes on the clock threw somewhat of a bounce pass that obviously wasn’t caught by the receiver.

To be fair, Flacco had lots of completions last night-even on long passes which he typically struggles with. He passed some real beauties to Donte Stallworth and Anquan Boldin.

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I was surprised that this article wasn’t passed around more. I live for lists, so I couldn’t wait to crack open Bleacher Report’s 25 dirtiest player list. Apparently Sports Illustrated has such a list as well, but its based solely on voting? Correct me if I’m wrong.

The bulk of the list was no surprise, but there were a few that made me raise my eyebrow and one glaring omission that bothered me.

The first thing you’ll notice about the list is that there are multiple Pittsburgh Steelers on it. No wonder no one wants to play these guys. Polamalu, Harrison, Ryan Clark (??????), and Hines Ward made the list.

Brian Dawkins being on the list (admittedly low on it) was a tad surprising. I think he, like Roy Williams, have calmed down a lot. I think the last time Williams was called for a horse collar tackle or even grabbing someone by the hair was 2008. Maybe 2 years isn’t long enough to get a clean slate.

Also is Shawne Merriman, who also made the list, still considered dirty? He’s barely on the field enough to cause any trouble. There needs to be a statute of limitations on how long you can ride players about certain behaviors.

Darnell Dockett is also on the list along with Joey Porter and I don’t know if I agree. What do yall think? I think Dockett and Porter made the list because they’re annoying. I’d love to interview them both for this blog, but I can’t deny they can work a nerve. But annoying doesn’t mean dirty, if it did, every man in the NFL would be on here. hahahaa ha ha…anyhoo….Let’s not confuse “dirty” with “problem child.”

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