Michael in Nashville

I’m on the horns of a dilemma when it comes to who I want to pull for in tomorrow night’s Patriots vs Giants game. Being a lifetime Redskins’ fan, it’s hard to pull for the Giants for any reason since they’re divisional rivals. But then again, my intense dislike for the Patriots knows no end. I can’t stand those guys.

I’ve been pulling against them all year as they move closer and closer to their perfect season. They should have lost a few weeks ago to the Ravens and ended all this speculation on whether or not they can go undefeated. It’s not that I have a lot of love for the ‘72 Dolphins (they beat my Redskins in the Super Bowl even though I wasn’t around yet….), it’s just that I can’t stand the Patriots and I’m about to vomit from all the media hype surrounding this team.

Why do I despise the Patriots so?

Well, first up you’ve got Tom Brady who while he’s a great football player is too much of a player off the field. We’re talking about a guy who has kids by two different women and pretty much has little or no contact or interaction with the first one. Oh sure, he set up a college fund for the first one, but it’s not like he can’t afford it. Sure he fathered the kid, but he’s not a dad. And the way he’s held up as some golden boy and this is glossed over just makes me dislike him all the more. You don’t hear this kind of crap about a real stand-up guy on and off the field like, say, Peyton Manning.

And any team that plays dirty like the Patriots does and goes out of their way to get Randy Moss…you lose my respect there.

But where the Pats lose my respect the most is in their head coach. For one thing, he’s a cheater. Spy-gate showed that and, in my mind, it taints the entire record of the Bill Belachick era in New England. Second of all, the guy has no class. Last year, the Pats were up on the Titans in the final game of the year and Belachick inserted Vinnie Testaverde to get a meaningless toughdown for some stupid record of Testaverde getting a TD in every season since he replaced Moses as starter. Even if weren’t against my second-favorite team, I’d still find it dispicable. You don’t see a classy coach like, say Joe Gibbs doing stuff like that. And then there’s the way Belachick has run up scores this year–going for it on fourth and inches in your territory or inside your own twenty when you’re up by double digits. Leaving Tom Brady and the starters in long after the game is clearly won. It make me wish that some linebacker would come in and knock Brady out of the game just to see Belachick get his comeuppance.

But it looks like the team will go undefeated in the regular season. Apparently the Giants are going to roll over–Brady even told them they should (how I’d love to see the defensive starters play just long enough to introduce him to the turf a few times…)–and basically give the Pats the game. How much you wanna bet Belachick leaves his starters in the whole game?

Anyway, what I want to see is the Pats go undefeated and then lose in their first playoff game. Should the Titans make it in and win the first game, they’d go to New England. If that happened and the Titans won, you’d not be able to wipe the smirk off my face for weeks. Especially if Albert Haynesworth got to pressure and/or sack Tom Brady a dozen or so times….that’d be awesome!

UPDATE: And here’s just one more reason the Pats are thugs and punks and have no respect for the rest of the league. It’s rare I say anything complimentary about the Dallas Cowboys, but at least the Cowboys have the class to wear a 21 on their helmets to honor Sean Taylor, who was shot and killed a little over a month ago. For those of you who don’t know, Taylor played for the Redskins, who are the big rival to the Cowboys. But yet the Cowboys as a team have enough class and respect to honor Taylor, unlike the Pats who can’t be bothered. Another reason to hate this team and organization.

The curse of the top spots in the BCS poll continued last night with Pitt upsetting West Virginia and Oklahoma defeating Missouri for a second time this year.

Part of me had to laugh when I heard Pitt had won. There were so many “experts” who said that Pitt had no shot and that West Virginia would run them out. I have to admit that I loved hearing that West Virginia blew their shot to play for it all. Kind of fitting and congratulations to Pitt.

Meanwhile, now the debate comes up as to who should play for it. If you go by the poll last week, Ohio State and Georgia would move up. And neither team is deserving.

Ohio State plays in a sorry conference. Vanderbilt could be undefeated in the Big 10.

Georgia doesn’t deserve a shot. They didn’t even win the SEC Championship. They didn’t even go to the game.

I’m not sure who I’d put in the title game right now–but I do know who I wouldn’t.

Genius! Captures perfectly everything I feel about how incredibly overrated Notre Dame is….

Hat-tip: Rick and Bubba

You know, when Steve Spurrier isn’t tossing his little barbs at UT, they can actually be pretty funny.

Oh wait….

Part of this is probably because these comments are directed at Georgia. That makes then funny. Well, funnier.

“It wasn’t like they (Georgia) were some big, powerful team,” Spurrier
said on his television show Sunday. “They’ve actually lost five in a row to Eastern Division opponents. Kentucky and Vandy beat ‘em last year.”

Mark this down…this may be the first time I’ve ever had anything nice to say about Steve Spurrier. I’d better go lie down…I suddenly don’t feel very well…

There’s nothing like the NFL draft to spread ten minutes of excitement over two days of long, drawn out blustering.

I love the NFL and I love football. I will admit I’m intrigued to know who my favorite teams (Redskins, Titans) will pick and how that might address needs they have. (Though if you’re the Redskins, it seems they’ve given up on the draft, trading away all their picks to try and assemble some kind of fantasy football-like team at the whim of Dan Snyder). And there’s some interest to see where certain UT players might go and if I can root for them to do well in the pros. (If they go to Dallas or Baltimore, I cannot root for them….it’s just wrong to pull for either of those teams).

As a Titans fan, I found myself wishing they’d pick Robert Meachem just because a)he played for the greatest college team in the known universe and b)they need someone for Vince Young to throw the ball to. But that didn’t happen….oh well.

The thing is now that we’re halfway through the draft, we can start turning out attention toward getting through the long summer and toward the great days of late August and early September when football returns….

It cannot come soon enough.

Well, my prediction at season’s start of the Redskins vs the Titans in the Super Bowl has (once again) not come to pass.

So, let me just call it early now for next year–Redskins vs Titans in Super Bowl XLII.

Right now, I’ve got the chicken nachos in the crock-pot, simmering away the hours until kick-off (they’re good and soooo easy….). I will not be watching 17 hours of pre-game show. I feel as if I’ve been through eighteen weeks of pre-game show the past two weeks leading up the game. I will tune in promptly at 5 p.m. CST to see the intros and (most importantly) not miss any of the new commercials.

I will admit that this year I’ve got a vested interest in the game. I am actually actively pulling for a team in the game for the first time since after the 1999 season. I am hoping Peyton and the Colts pull off the big win, giving Peyton Manning a Super Bowl ring. And how could I not root for Peyton since he’s such a great guy and he went to the greatest university in the known universe.

Here’s hopin’ Peyton and the Colts win it all!

That said, I’ve got my Titans sweatshirt and Redskins cap on–in solidarity to my two teams and getting ready for next year’s game…