Departing Pittsburgh, green grass, the Murray Bros & the NFL winners

Last week: 1-3

2011 NFL Playoffs: 3-5

New York vs. Pittsburgh

We’re all about fairness here at the Food. In fact, we just might even change the name of this site with some type of derivation of the word fair despite all the hard work and research by the good folks in the marketing department. They really like alliteration.

So with that in mind, folks like me have to take their medicine about disparaging the New York Jets and their kinky/loudmouth coach, Rex Ryan. Sure, the manner in which he trash talked about his team beating the Patriots last weekend just might have set back the fine art of attention-whoring back decades. It’s one thing for Ryan to go on cussin’ and fattin’ around on HBO, because that’s cable and a documentary. I think we all know how people feel about subtitles.

But to mouth off in front of the reserved, thoughtful and compassionate press in New York City is taking things too far.

Oh, but that Rex Ryan is crazy like a fox. He knew exactly what he was doing. He thought if he said some crazy crap about Bill Bellichick and the Patriots before the game, it just might get onto the evening news or the newspapers. You know, because the evening news and newspapers are so ubiquitous with the hip and young demographic.

Needless to say, after the upset in New England, Ryan and the Jets have decided to curb the verbosity this week. That makes sense considering the Pittsburgh Steelers do not have any players easily ridiculed for things like deviant, unlawful behavior. Model citizens every last one of them.

Besides, what good would it do to mouth off about the Steelers or Pittsburgh. Sure, Charles Dickens is often credited with describing Pittsburgh as, “hell with the lid off,” but that was in the 19^th century and with the effects of climate change wreaking havoc across the globe, Pittsburghers will have to wear a sweater or a muffler to the ballgame on Sunday afternoon.

Maybe Pittsburgh is what this AFC Championship game between the Jets and Steelers is all about.

We all know that everyone from Pittsburgh loves their teams and their town. Big Love, actually. L-O-V-E type love. They go crazy from the Penguins and tolerate the Pirates simply because the ballpark is fantastic. But the Steelers... man, they go wacky for the Steelers. In fact, they go so coo-coo crazy for the Steelers that even here in the eastern and central parts of the Commonwealth, they often take over the scene. Sometimes the Pittsburgh football fans even petition the league and the local TV stations to show Steelers games on the tee-vee despite the fact that it is an out-of-market game. Worse, the Steelers fans have redrawn the well-planned and tried-and-true border lines so that teams that are closer (geographically speaking) like Baltimore, Washington, New York or New England, are ignored while the Pittsburghers get the hometown advantage.

And that’s just the thing isn’t it? Pittsburghers love Pittsburgh so much that they live somewhere else.

Sure, they redraw the border lines because they don't live in Pittsburgh anymore. Really, think about it—they love their team and their town so much that they moved away. What does that say? How about they like Pittsburgh because they don't live there.

Say what you will about Philadelphia or Philadelphians... at least they don’t leave. Some might venture over to South Jersey or maybe even the western 'burbs, but for the most part Philly folks just move down the block. Loyalties don't change because, really, what else is there? Where are the folks from Philly supposed to go? We already know Philadelphians don’t mix well with others.

So because of the migration habits of folks from certain sections of Pennsylvania, we easily determined the winner of the AFC Championship…

Pick: New York Jets (plus-4)

Green Bay vs. Chicago

The grass hasn’t been green in these parts for a long time. No, it’s not because there is no fulltime (or even a part-time) lawn steward, it’s just because it’s winter. Sub-freezing air and chlorophyll just don’t mix.

However, with the advances in technology and the herbaceous arts, folks do not have to wait until the spring time for the brown lawns to turn green. Just look at the football fields in cold places like Pittsburgh, New England and Philadelphia where the grass looked as if it was ready for a May Day frolic.

But in Chicago at Soldier Field, the Bears and Packers will have to play the NFC Championship on brown grass like a ragtag bunch of kids in a pickup game. For whatever reason, the grass at Soldier Field looks as if it was broiled by an overworked chef at Harry Caray’s than tended to like Chicago’s favorite son, Bill Murray, and his star turn in Caddy Shack.

The thing about Caddy Shack was that Brian-Doyle Murray, Bill’s big brother, wrote the screenplay with scenes from his youth as the inspiration. See, as kids, Brian, Bill and the rest of their six siblings kept jobs at the local Indian Hill golf club in Wilmette, Ill. That means Ty Webb, Judge Smails and Lacey Underall are real people—or at least based on real people… sort of.

Maybe the Chicago Bears could hire the Murray gang to help them keep the grass green? Certainly they’d know the best way to keep the grass green in Chicago in January is to use a cooler seed like rye or fescue mixed with a Bermuda for when the weather changes.

Aerating the grass with some raking or removal of the brown, dead grass also does wonders for the lawn. Of course the dry, winter weather also causes the ground to freeze which means it’s important to keep the grass saturated. However, at Soldier Field they kept the grass hidden beneath a tarp so the snow and frost would be easier to remove. Then again, the warming coils they probably keep below the surface could take care of that, too.

There are three major league ballparks in Chicago and I’m sure if there were to be a big game at Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park, the grass would be green, lush and as inviting in the dead of winter as if it was June.

Better yet, the grass is green in Green Bay, Wisc. They have Aaron Rodgers as the quarterback, too. Therefore…

Pick: Green Bay Packers (minus-3½) 

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.