Jimmy McNulty, Connie Hawkins, blowhards and picking NFL winners

So the wild-card round of the NFL Playoffs came off without a hitch with no real surprises or upsets. Of course that could be open to interpretation considering, the Seattle Seahawks beat the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints and the New York Jets beat the AFC champion Indianapolis Mannings.

Notably, the only home team to win of the four games played last weekend was the Seahawks and they faced the fattest odds.

Maybe the Saints, oddsmakers and pundits were giving the Seahawks too much of a hard time? After all, the Seahawks hosted a playoff game after they won the NFC West. Certainly that’s nothing to sneeze at. Besides, with one more victory the Seahawks will be .500 this season. The worst-case scenario is that Seattle could finish the playoffs .500, too. Either way, that’s best than the 0-2 the Eagles have posted in the past two years.

Anyway, last week our picks checked in with a sister-kissing 2-2. We covered on the Packers and Ravens, but missed on the Saints and Mannings. The goal now is to beat the 7-3 record posted last season.

So let’s get into it.

Saturday games

Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh

Pick: Baltimore (plus-3)

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea which team will win this game. My gut tells me Pittsburgh is probably a bit overrated and Baltimore could be a smidge underrated. Of course sometimes my gut has bleep for brains, but, y’know…

Nevertheless, the point spread indicates that if this were a game played at a neutral site it would be a pick ‘em. That means in order to choose a winner in this one we have to go with unconventional analysis.

So what do we have? Not much. It’s unfair to look at a pop culture angle because The Wire is the greatest television program ever produced. Of course The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh is solid work featuring Doctor J, Meadowlark Lemon, Jonathan Winters and was Flip Wilson’s last film appearance. A bunch of NBA stars of the day joined Doc in the movie, including my favorites, “Super” John Williamson, Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell, Kareem and, of course, Connie Hawkins.

Speaking of underrated, Connie Hawkins could be the most underrated player in the history of basketball. Straight out of Brooklyn and the early street ball culture, Hawkins was blacklisted by Iowa and the NBA in a New York City point-shaving scandal even though he had nothing to do with it. As a result, Hawkins spent most of the 1960s messing around with the Globetrotters and in the ABA before his lawsuit against the NBA was settled.

Though he was named to the all-time ABA first team and finished fourth in the voting for the all-time ABA MVP (Doc was first), most basketball fans never got to see Hawkins in his prime. That’s a shame because by all accounts, Hawkins’ style was the precursor to Doctor J, who, of course, gave way to Michael Jordan.

Connie Hawkins aside, we’re going to give Baltimore this one because of Jimmy McNulty and Lester Freamon.

Green Bay vs. Atlanta

Pick: Green Bay (plus-2)

What did we learn about the Packers after last Sunday’s victory over the Eagles at the Linc? Well, for one we learned that teams are so afraid of quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Packers’ passing attack that some are willing to allow them to run at will.

We also learned that if the Packers are allowed to run at will, they, ahem, will. To beat the Eagles the Packers got 123 rushing yards from rookie James Starks on 23 carries. The interesting part about that is Starks rushed for 101 yards on 29 carries during the regular season. Mix that with Rodgers’ three TD passes in the red zone and defenses get confused quickly.

So chalk this one up as a game where the home team doesn’t match up all that well against the Packers. Could it be that the Packers were playing possum this season?

Sunday games

Seattle vs. Chicago

Pick: Seattle (plus-10)

Did you see that run by Marshawn Lynch last weekend? You know, the one where he broke approximately 37 tackles, disappeared from view, tossed aside a defender as if he were the biggest kid on the Pop Warner team and was just taught the stiff arm before zig-zagging 67 yards for the game-clinching TD.

It was insane…

And to think, Lynch started the season for Buffalo, a team that finished the season three-wins behind Seattle at 4-12.

However, the Bears allow just 90 yards a game on the ground while Seattle was next-to-last in the NFC with 89 yards per game rushing. In other words, don’t expect much scoring in this one. In fact, the team that scores a touchdown just might be the winner…

Because there won’t be two of them.

New York vs. New England

Pick: New England (minus-9)

Remember when the Eagles were getting ready to play the Patriots in the Super Bowl six years ago? Remember how Freddie Mitchell started mouthing off about the Patriots?

Remember how the Patriots reacted? Yeah, it didn’t end well for the biggest first-round draft pick in Philadelphia sports history.

Watching the Jets yap away about Tom Brady and the Patriots this week, led by coach Rex Ryan and cornerback Antonio Cromartie, it was easy to think about Mitchell. Moreover, just as it was back then, Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick just yawned and said, “Who?”

Now I like trash talk as much as the next guy and wouldn’t have a problem if football players gave pre- and post-game interviews as if they were Randy “Macho Man” Savage talking it over with “Mean” Gene Okerlund. Actually, it’s good for business when players and coaches tall some smack.

However, there is a proper way to do it and clearly Mitchell, Ryan and Cromartie don’t understand it.

Reggie Jackson knew how to do it and if I were to rank the all-time trash talkers, Reggie, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan would be the holy triumvirate. Interestingly, Reggie went on ESPN radio in New York City this week and offered some bleep-talking etiquette lessons to the Jets.

“Go look at the hardware, dude. Walk through the lobby up there and look at the stuff that's there,” Jackson said. "You don't have that, you don't have anything close to that. You might want to shut up, you might learn something. Read, you might figure something out. Watch film, you might get educated. If not, you have a chance to get embarrassed on Sunday. I hope you don't, because I like the Jets.”

Reggie knows that the best banter is the truth. He won the World Series five times with two teams and was called Mr. October for a reason. Cromartie dropping expletives on Brady because he celebrates after touchdowns and wins is kind of dumb.

“Don't [be] mad because I get excited because I did well. Or try to pretend like I'm acting some way because I dropped 40 on you in the first three quarters,” Jackson said on the Michael Kay radio show. “This guy threw 50 touchdown passes in one year. He won three Super Bowls. Was he embarrassing to people when he was excited because he won? You don't know what he's talking about because you've never won. So don't tell me how he thinks. You don't know. Acknowledge that. That's not my opinion, that's fact.”

Zing.

“This guy is an automatic Hall of Famer, making fun of him is like making fun of Mariano Rivera,” Jackson said. “What are you doing? What are you doing?”

The Patriots are beatable. Even when they went 16-0 in the regular season they showed they could be beaten. But there is an old saying I heard from Sparky Anderson a long time ago about, “letting sleeping dogs lie.” No sense waking them up just to get bit.

That’s just dumb.

The best part about Mitchell thing was when the Super Bowl media day arrived and the mouthy receiver was disappointed to learn the NFL didn’t set up a dais for him amongst the team’s stars. Apparently that was the day Mitchell was supposed to learn that action speaks louder than words.

Ted Dean: The Eagles' forgotten hero

Considering that the Eagles and Green Bay Packers are two of the oldest continuous franchises in NFL history, it would seem that the teams would have a long and intense playoff history against each other. Yet despite a combined 168 seasons in the NFL, the Packers and Eagles have squared off in the postseason just twice.

Of course both of those games rate amongst the greatest games in Eagles’ history and were the site of some of the most iconic plays.

No one will ever forget the 4^th-and-26 pass from Donovan McNabb to wide receiver Freddie Mitchell with 72 seconds remaining in regulation to set up the game-tying field goal from David Akers and the eventual game-winner in overtime. Ask anyone who was around for the 1960 championship game, played on a Boxing Day, Monday afternoon and they will tell you that the most memorable play was the very last one of the game. That’s where the legendary two-way player, Chuck Bednarik, sat on fullback Jim Taylor until the clock expired at the Eagles’ 8-yard line.

As we’re often reminded, the 17-13 victory was the last time the Eagles were champions of the NFL. Only two other NFL teams (Lions, Cardinals) have suffered through a longer championship drought.

So if 50 years of history coupled with just a pair of playoff games is any indication, Sunday’s NFC Wild-Card showdown at The Linc could be another classic. Of course none of that matters now, but it sure is fun to measure how the past links with the present. There’s a line between Bart Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. There also is one with Norm Van Brocklin, McNabb and Michael Vick and the two-game winning streak on the line.

Still, the thing about classic games like the 1960 NFL Championship and the 2003 NFC Division playoff is that people rarely remember the details of the game leading up to the final plays. They remember the broad strokes, like the ’60 title game was Vince Lombardi’s only loss in the playoffs or that the Packers have gone 1-5 in the playoffs since the ’03 loss.

But often the game’s most notable hero is the one least expected. Did anyone think McNabb would look for Mitchell on 4^th-and-26 on the do-or-die play? Sure, the immodest Mitchell, in his bizarro reality, probably talked himself into thinking that only he could have delivered on that game-turning play. The reality is Mitchell will go down as one of the biggest first-round busts ever.

But Ted Dean was a victim of bad luck and was the proverbial meteor shooting through the sky.

Certainly every Eagles fan knows all about Ted Dean, right? Just a 22-year-old rookie out of Radnor High and Wichita State during the 1960 title game, Dean scored the championship-winning touchdown on a 5-yeard run with 5:21 remaining in the game. Dean’s TD run was a run set up by his own 58-yard kickoff return to the Packers’ 40-yard line at snowy Franklin Field.

So, obviously those two plays turned Dean into an instant legend in Philadelphia… right?

Guess again.

Though he led the NFL in kickoff return yardage during his rookie year, injuries and a motorcycle accident limited Dean’s career to just 44 games over parts of four seasons. Interestingly, Dean’s TD run in the championship game was one of three he had in his career, while the 13 carries and 54 yards on the ground were the third-best outputs in the NFL.

Even more interestingly, the winning touchdown play wasn't called for Dean by Van Brocklin in the huddle, but for running back Billy Barnes instead. However, according to Reuben Frank in, Game Changers: The Greatest Plays in Philadelphia Eagles Football History, Van Brocklin changed the play while walking to the line, choosing to give the ball to the rookie.

Here's how Dean described the play to Frank in 2008:

“We were walking up to the line and he yelled out, ‘Switch,’ and changed the play,’” Dean said. “I can’t speculate why he did it, and I never had the opportunity to ask him. He had faith in me. He knew my potential and put his trust in me. I was elated, of course. I wanted to be the one running over the goal line.

“I had fumbled earlier in the game, and I rarely ever fumbled. Van Brocklin knew I was still hot from fumbling, so maybe that’s why he gave me the ball.”

By the age of 26, Dean was out of football and teaching at Gladwyne Elementary School. That wasn't uncommon, though, noting that the NFL (or even Major League Baseball) hardly paid enough in those days to be a full-time job. Interviews of Dean are tough to find and he chose not to attend the 50-year reunion of the 1960 team last September before the season opener between the Eagles and Packers. Instead, the hero of the Eagles’ last championship chose to stay at his home in Arizona, far from the limelight.

Nevertheless, Frank says he had a nice chat with Dean while working on his book and he remembered the winning play well:

“I put my head down like a battering ram, ran behind a block behind Gerry Huth, and I was in,” Dean said. “I wasn’t touched until just before I got into the end zone.”

It might have been the motorcycle accident and the resulting hip injury in 1965 that soured Dean’s interest for football. Though he attempted to make a comeback as a kicker in 1967 with the Steelers, Dean put the game behind him and never looked back.

Dean preferred to talk about piano playing, not football as he told writer J.F. Pirro.

“I got anxious with football,” he said in that old interview. “I don’t want to get serious with any other sports—but maybe some hobbies.”

No, Dean would not become a folk hero in Philadelphia like so many under-the-radar ballplayers dream about. He was the shooting star, here for a glorious moment and then choosing to make his mark in another walk of life.

Regardless, Dean’s touchdown run was not only one of the most significant plays in franchise history, but also one of the rarest. Take away Dean’s run and the Eagles have had just six, fourth-quarter rushing touchdowns to win or tie a game in the 28 years that followed.

Coincidentally, Dean and Mitchell were both out of the NFL by age 26. Counting the playoffs, Dean and Mitchell also scored six touchdowns in their career.

Makes one wonder what will happen to this Sunday’s hero.

The song and the dance

Just like in the movies, sports require the participants to be good actors. We like the drama, thrills and the comedy—both unintentional and intended. Otherwise, what’s the point? We watch and engage it to be entertained.

Brian Dawkins gets that. Why else would he exert so much energy to come up with such an elaborate routine before every game? Sure, it looks like he’s doing it for his teammates to help get them fired up before the game, but really why does a pro athlete need someone else to motivate them? With all the money and competition riding on every play, the last thing a football player (or any other athlete for that matter) needs is some guy dancing the hootchie-coo in order to make other play harder.

I mean really.

Nope, Dawkins does all that stuff for you. He wants you to react and to be entertained. His pro wrestling-like entrance is just his way, not unlike Peyton Manning acting all goofy in a TV commercial, Derek Jeter serial dating, or Tiger Woods doing whatever it is he does.

It’s all part of the show.

But don’t write it off as insignificant. Oh no sir! Ballplayers hate the notion that they might be asked to “dance,” but when the music starts up and the lights start flashing, it takes Barry Sanders-like focus to maintain that austere façade.

Everyone has an act in sports. In fact, even Barry Sanders had an act. As they say, sometimes no style is considered to be a style. Hell, even they digitalized pixels on video games come with personalities programmed into the code. Better yet, the computer geeks set it up so even the folks playing the game at home can design any type of player they wish.

That’s kind of the way it works in pro sports, too. Do you think Terrell Owens was an obnoxious, delusional malcontent from day one? Or was Dennis Rodman such a quirky dude when he joined the Pistons with Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, and Rick Mahorn in the mid-1980s?

Answer: No. Those guys would have gotten their rears kicked if they tried it.

Just like any of their other skills, the persona is something that needs to be honed. However, it has to come in conjunction with some bona fide playing skills. For instance, no one has a problem when Brian Dawkins does a somersault into a handstand during the pregame introductions in his first game back in Philadelphia as a member of the Denver Broncos. After all, Dawkins didn’t just show up doing that whole X-Men bit. It took a lot of work both on and off the field.

Meanwhile, Freddie Mitchell was a player whose skills skewed the wrong way. The former wide receiver and first-round bust had the song and dance down, but had no idea of which key it was supposed to be sung.

In other words, Mitchell wasn’t good enough to strut the way he did.

Of course there is a slippery slope one treads, too, and Dawkins very well might be in that territory at this point of his career. Before Sunday’s home finale the talk was more about the way Dawkins might enter the ball field as opposed to how well he would perform on it. Sure, everyone wanted to see Dawkins dance, but no one really paid much attention to the way he covered receivers or made tackles.

All anyone wanted to see was the show and to hear about how Dawkins was up in the tunnel in his old ballpark screaming "Hallelujah!" and various other sweet nothings meant to get everyone all ornery and loud.

And you can’t have one without the other.