Chewing up the cupcakes

We were sitting in a restaurant on the 16th Street Mall in Denver watching the early football games and just wiling away the time before Game 3 of the NLDS when the text messages started rolling in.

“What is with those brown uniforms the Broncos are wearing?”

It was true. In some sort of tribute to earth tones, the AFL, or Al Davis, the NFL thought it would be a neat idea for the Broncos to where brown, yellow and white. It was similar to the San Diego Padres color scheme from the 1970s, only uglier and with a picture of a horse. The throwback uniforms the Broncos wore on Oct. 11 defied the notion that NFL stands for “No Fun League,” because whoever came up with the idea to wear those duds clearly had an excellent sense of humor.

But that part doesn’t matter now.

“Are you watching the Cowboys get beat by the Chiefs? Wade Phillips will get fired after this one.”

That was the jest of the majority of the text that floated in. Indeed the Cowboys-Chiefs game was showing on one of the screens, and sure enough Phillips’ 2-2 club had their hands full with a 0-4 team. The Cowboys and Phillips definitely looked like they were in trouble when the Chiefs scored a touchdown with 24 seconds left in the game to force overtime.

Miles Austin might have saved the season that day for the Cowboys based on the messages I was getting. The receivers 60-yard TD catch won it in OT and capped off a 10-catch, 250-yard effort. More notable, after the game Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones said Philips wasn’t going anywhere…

Yet.

Perhaps that scare from the Chiefs was the kick in the rear the Cowboys needed? Including that game, the Cowboys won six of their next seven before going on a three-game winning streak to end that season in which they notched two straight shutouts for the first time in team history and knocked off the 13-0 New Orleans Saints.

Of course none of that will matter if the Cowboys lose to the Eagles in the first-round playoff game on Saturday night, but think about it for a sec—Philips and the Cowboys were on the precipice and responded. Additionally, they very well could have the hottest defense in the league headed into the playoffs.

Getting two shutouts in a row is not as easy as the Cowboys made it look.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia the Eagles were busy patting themselves on the back during the six-game winning streak that carried them into last week’s debacle. So pleased with the way things were going the team’s brass gave coach Andy Reid a contract extension.

“This is just another statement by Jeffrey (Lurie) and Joe (Banner) to say we have the top organization in the National Football League,” Reid said.

Indeed it was something like that. After all, you can’t argue with the bottom line—Reid and the Eagles went 11-5 this year and set the franchise record for points in a season. He also has the most wins in franchise history and been to the playoffs eight times in 11 years.

That’s not too bad.

But there’s something about all those points and the 11 wins that feels a bit hollow this season. Maybe it’s because the Eagles were 0-4 against teams in the playoffs and they won just one game against a team with a winning record.

That’s not too good considering Banner has claimed his team has the best roster in all of football. Oh yes, they’re very fond of themselves with all that “Gold Standard” talk. But it makes one scratch their head and wonder why the Eagles can’t beat any good teams.

Like maybe more than once.

Good teams beat good teams. So if we’re going to define Reid’s legacy as anything it’s that he certainly knows how to plow through a schedule full of cupcakes. True, Reid has a 10-7 record in the playoffs, but seven of those wins are in the first round, while five of the losses have come in a championship game where the opponent has been legit.

Want to talk about the bottom line? OK, if the Eagles don’t win it this season, it will be a half a century—50 years—since a team from Philadelphia was the champion of the NFL.

"Maybe just too much effort," Reid said when asked about his teams' failure in the biggest games of the year.

Oh yes, the trying-too-hard argument.

Gold standard? How about the Chicago Cubs of football?

Nevertheless, the sentiment out of Dallas is that despite an 11-win season and an NFC East title, Phillips is gone of the Cowboys lose.

Reid? Yeah, he’ll be back—win or lose.

Spitting mad

There’s an old-timey saying that I’m sure you heard your grandmother or great grandmother say in a fit of frustration.

“I’m so angry I could spit!”

When you give it some thought it makes a lot of sense. Most of the time anger provokes violence, but some believe violence is the last refuge of a weak mind. So if a person cannot control themselves, yet don’t want to resort to violence, the only recourse is the most disgusting thing a person can think of.

Here comes the loogie!

I’ve been in this position before. The setting was a fifth-grade kickball game in the schoolyard at James Buchanan Elementary, where our class was in a tight game against the other fifth-grade class. But as the action got heated and recess began to wind down, the sixth graders poured out of a side door and onto the macadam. Inevitably, since they were the oldest and therefore “kings” of Buchanan Elementary, they really didn’t care that we had an intense kickball game going and strutted right through the infield en masse.

“Get off the field!”

That’s where it started and it went quickly downhill from there. One thing led to another and I was shouting down the third base line at Megan O’Brien, who was wearing a lovely cable-knit sweater (at least that’s the way I put it out there for the sake of the story). So with the intensity of the game superseded by the intensity and frustration of the argument with the sixth graders, cooler heads did not prevail.

Having grown up with a sister not too much younger than me, I learned very early on that a man never, ever hits a girl. Ever. We learn hard lessons when we’re 4-years-old and hitting girls is the one that lasts the longest…

That and lifting the seat.

Remembering an incident when I was 4 where an argument over the crayons led to a punch in the nose for my sister, I knew better. However, I wanted to get Megan and her sixth-grade classmates off the diamond so we could finish the game before the recess bell rang and we had to go inside. Instead of taking a poke at her, I gathered up the saliva in my mouth and let it fly.

Not smart.

The intention, believe it or not, was to fire off a warning shot—you know, brush ‘em back a bit so we could finish the game. The problem was my aim was a little too true and the next thing I knew Megan was running and screaming toward the recess monitor with the evidence on the forearm of her nice, cable-knit sweater.

That was the end of the school day for me.

It’s interesting how people react to spitting and specifically, spitting on people, places or things. In fact, I’ll wager that spitting on a person is worse than a punch in the nose based on reactions. Truth is, it’s a valid argument that because Roberto Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument in the 1997 baseball season, he was not elected to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

It doesn’t matter that Alomar and Hirschbeck have buried the hatchet, but it does matter that two legacies are somewhat defined by a single incident. Alomar very well may have been the best second baseman of his generation, but he spit on an umpire during an argument and that swayed a handful of voters from validating his career.

Oh yes, it was the loogie heard ‘round the world.

Remember when Charles Barkley spit at a heckler in New Jersey, but hit a little girl instead? Of course you do. Every time Sir Chuck gets arrested or does anything controversial and they recount past slip-ups, the spitting incident always gets mentioned and is usually placed high on the list of the worst things he ever did.

Charles Barkley has been arrested for throwing a man through a plate-glass window in Florida, punching a man in Milwaukee, and for a DUI charge in Arizona. HE ALSO SPIT ON A LITTLE GIRL!

For that incident in New Jersey during the 1991 season, Barkley was suspended and fined $10,000. He also bought season tickets for the girl and her family and went on to forge a friendship with them. However, when his career was over it was that one little gob of saliva that was the blemish on his record he most regretted.

“I was fairly controversial, I guess, but I regret only one thing—the spitting incident,” Barkley said. “But you know what? It taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that I was getting way too intense during the game. It let me know I wanted to win way too bad. I had to calm down. I wanted to win at all costs. Instead of playing the game the right way and respecting the game, I only thought about winning.”

Oh yes, the loogie can force one to look inward.

Apparently that’s what happened when Dave Spadaro, the editor of the Eagles’ web site, decided it would be a neat and compelling bit of commentary to walk onto the middle of Cowboys Stadium and drop not one, but two wet ones on the iconic logo star. Based on the video it seemed to a moment where the spitter was striking some sort of defiant stand…

You know, like that guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square.

Maybe if Spadaro had stood in front of a star-logoed tank or handcuffed himself to the goal posts while being beaten by men dressed in Cowboys’ garb, perhaps there would be more sympathy toward his allegiances. Instead, he issued a press release/apology on the team’s official site.

Obviously he misread the way people feel about the act of spitting and what it represents. Sure, a lot of people understood the sentiment of spitting on that blue star—especially after the Eagles were dominated by the Cowboys and had to return for a rematch in the playoffs this Saturday. But spitting? Really? Is he in the fifth grade?

Take a look:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDUYDfFGMI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Clearly Spadaro was attempting to rally the home team against the hated Cowboys. Why else would a person drop gooey spit on an inanimate symbol of… well, the 50-yard line? But even in this case the clownish act was greeted with head-scratching from the Eagles.

“Who spit on what?” running back Leonard Weaver said with a shrug following Thursday afternoon’s practice. “

So now, the dude representing a certain segment of the fans by standing on the star and coughing one up with a video cam in hand, did not exactly sound the bugle to charge for the ballplayers.

“I didn't even know he did it,” Weaver said. “That has nothing to do with us as a team.”

Let’s just hope he didn’t spit onto the field with a head cold.

The T.O. Circus takes its act to Dallas

The news came fast and furious on Saturday morning, and with it the not-so shocking reports that Terrell Owens had signed a three-year deal with the Cowboys. Seriously, how apt is that? Sometimes sports really do mirror a bad soap opera, and as we all have learned here in Philadelphia, the circus that is T.O. travels with its own big top and ringmaster.

Surely, the fans in Dallas must be pretty excited to get one of the game’s top receivers, but as the folks around here now know, the honeymoon will be short. In fact, people in San Francisco went out of their way to warn us about what was going to happen.

“Sure,” they said. “Things are going really well now. But just wait. Something will happen.”

Who would have known how right they were.

So as a public service to the football fans in Dallas, we’re going to offer the same warning the San Franciscans gave to us.

Just wait. Yes, at first T.O. will look good. He’ll say all the right things and dance appropriately atop the star in the middle of the field. He’ll entertain and charm everyone right up until that moment when someone else gets an accolade or attention that shines the spotlight away from him. Really, it’s only a matter of time before the big top is blown over and all good will blows up in everyone’s face like one of those phony cigars in the cartoons.

So enjoy it while it lasts. Who knows, T.O. may even take the Cowboys to the Super Bowl and he could even last a few years down there before anything really bad occurs. But if history is any indicator of the future, it will end badly with Terrell Owens. It’s just that inevitable.

Alive (barely) and kicking The great part about the NCAA Tournament is the notion that teams like Wichita State and George Mason can dream about going to the Final Four. Of course we all know that Villanova in 1985 is the only team seeded as high as eighth to win it all, but hey, what does it hurt to dream a little. Right?

But in the opening rounds of this year’s tournament, George Mason, Wichita State and Bradley have kept dancing long enough to at least get fitted for the glass slipper. Better yet – discounting reality and Las Vegas-type odds – there is a 50 percent chance that either Wichita State or George Mason could make it to the Final Four, and that’s really cool.

Luckily for the rest of us, the fact that the trio of Cinderellas have emerged from the opening weekend shouldn’t have much of an effect on the all-important office pool. Oh sure, there are a lot of wounds and a few, “what was I thinking” sentiments, but with 15 total games remaining in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, everyone should still have a chance.

Some more than others, of course. In that regard, we need everything to go perfectly in order to win it. In fact, if either Gonzaga, Boston College, Duke or UConn slip up, we’re done. And surely there are a more than a few Villanova fans out there that want to see that happen.