Kickoff 2003
Can we all be 0-0-1 again?

 Despite beginning the new season with a tie on Thursday night football (more on that later), a healthy number of FBH-ers got off to fast starts. Michelle “Knees up Mother” Brown shook off the postpartum blues (baby #2 was an off-season addition) with an 11-4-1 debut, good enough to tie her with Paul “Hong Kong Fooey” Kessler and Jeff “Gang Green” Burns (hey Jeff – don’t expect cushy treatment in this league) for first place.

 Hope “Sinks” Vanek is the current beetlebum after a 4-win maiden voyage. Hope may be very sweet and accommodating, but don’t expect her hospitality to last.

Ralphie tells me we’ve got about the same number of people reporting in as last year, so we will almost certainly end up with 5 divisions of 10 people. We will break out the divisions next week. Quarters will still be segmented as follows: Q1 = weeks 1-4, Q2 = weeks 5-9, Q3 = weeks 10-13, Q4 = weeks 14-17.

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Uh, Have We Started Yet?
Hit me baby, one more time

 Last week, the NFL deprived thousands of fans of one of their unalienable rights: their team was not playing on NFL Kickoff Sunday. I know, Paul Tagliabue threw a big party and Brittany was there and all that, but it just wasn’t the same without the Jets playing with everyone else on a full slab of games. By the time Sunday rolled around, Thursday was long forgotten. It’s like that game was still preseason.

 Sadly, it wasn’t. The Jets played a solid enough game, but just missed one or two more big plays. Jet QB Vinny Testaverde didn’t turn over the ball, but his timing with his WR corps was slightly askew and a few potential big plays evaporated. The running game was largely ineffective as Washington geared up to stop the ground attack. The NY defense played fairly well, but there were a few snaps that Mo Lewis & company would dearly like to have back. Hopefully, the sight of a posturing Lavernaeus Coles and John Hall’s field goal attempts veering just inside the goal posts will motivate the Gang Green to get nasty in the coming weeks. At least AFC East rivals NE and Miami also lost their week one games.

 On the other hand, The Cowboys game also still looked like preseason, but they were definitely playing on Sunday. Similarities to a junior varsity scrimmage came from impulsive plays and mental mistakes. New head man Bill Parcells’s stamp was evident – the team looked like the coaches had properly prepared them and a solid game plan was in place. The execution was what was lacking. What we saw was a few young players being a bit keyed up on week 1 and that led to mistakes. Dallas lost a prime scoring chance on an illegal shift by second year WR Antonio Bryant; Third-year QB Quincy Carter had two turnovers – one on an ill-advised pass and one by not protecting the football in traffic; and second-year place kicker Billy Cundiff missed a short FG and an extra point.

 Well, I'm not for abolishing pre-season (which may sound surprising coming from a Jetfan right now). There really is no better way to evaluate new guys and try stuff out than under game conditions. Better then than during week 1 of the season (ugly football can be painful to watch). Plus which, football = violent contact; that much is unavoidable.

 Incidentally, I don't blame the NFL for Chad Pennington's injury because it happened during the penultimate (or second-to-last, Ron) game, which is historically a dress rehearsal for the starters. I would be much more upset if I lived in Atlanta. The problem stems from, no surprise here, the almighty dollar. The NFL wants to keep expanding its revenue base and (meglomaniacal) influence over the globe. To that end, it wants to keep the price of those pre-season tickets and visibility of those pre-season games up, and have put pressure on the teams to keep their stars in for longer and longer stretches. This is an especially dicey proposition when all the kinks haven't yet been worked out of the blocking schemes.

 Once upon a time, coaches used to meet before preseason scrimmages to orchestrate what they were going to do (so many blitzes, etc.). This makes a lot of sense considering the games don't count and are being conducted for learning purposes. Unfortunately, this runs counter to the NFL's goal of making pre-season games as competitive as possible. And if the players want to keep pushing their salaries higher, they have to suit up and suck it up.

 Competitive exhibition games? Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Can't a more reasonable accommodation be made? Fans understand it's pre-season - do they really need to see competitive games with an outcome? I say, "No." There were 20,000 people in San Antonio who paid to watch a Cowboy intrasquad SCRIMMAGE in July. Some people want to watch pre-season to see how their team looks, to get revved up for the coming season, or just for the beauty of the game. Plenty of paying fans show up to watch qualifying events for NASCAR or track and field, for that matter. Plenty of people watch professional wrestling, and the outcome is pre-determined!

 I think if you give NFL fans a choice between watching pre-season games that are more controlled that allow their starters to be preserved for the regular season (even if they have to pay for it) or having a more "competitive" pre-season that puts more risk on your playoff hopes, I think you'll see a landslide victory for the former. All we'd need then is for the owners and networks to see the light and follow suit.

 You'd better believe they would in a heartbeat if they could wrangle some sort of Reality TV show angle out of it.

 (Ed.: This past week, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said he will introduce the idea of expanding the regular season to 18 games and shrinking the pre-season to 2 games to the league Owners when they meet next month.)

NFL Happenings
Ralph's weekly photo essay